Pickle, baboon, cupcake, snorkel, pumpkin, Kalamazoo—let’s face it, some words are just plain funny. But what makes some words funnier than others? Martha and Grant consider this question with an assist from Neil Simon’s play (and movie) The Sunshine Boys. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “The Funniest Words”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.
And I’m Grant Barrett.
In the first act of Neil Simon’s play The Sunshine Boys, there’s this great scene where Willie, an old-time vaudevillian, talks with his nephew about words that are automatically funny.
Do you know this scene, Martha?
Oh, yeah. Uncle Willie has told him this a million times, right?
All right, well, here, read this with me, all right?
You’re going to read this with me?
I’ve got it right in front of me.
I’ll be Willie, you be Ben.
Ben is Willie’s nephew, right?
Right.
57 years I’m in this business. You learn a few things. You know what makes an audience laugh.
Do you know which words are funny and which words are not funny?
You told me a hundred times, Uncle Willie. Words with a K in it are funny.
Words with a K in it are funny.
You didn’t know that, did you?
If it doesn’t have a K in it, it’s not funny.
I’ll tell you words that always get a laugh. Chicken.
Chicken is funny. Pickle.
Pickle is funny. Cupcake.
Cupcake is funny. Tomato is not funny.
Roast beef is not funny. But cookie is funny.
But cookie is funny.
Uncle Willie, you’ve explained that to me ever since I was a little boy.
Cucumber is funny. Car keys.
Car keys is funny. Cleveland.
Cleveland is funny. Maryland is not funny.
So you’re in this whole scene, and it’s beautiful in the 1975 movie with, I think it’s Walter Matthau and Woody Allen.
Brilliant. Just well done.
They’ve kind of mixed the play up a little bit there, but it’s more or less the same.
And they’ve kind of laid out this notion here, Martha, that words have in them inherently something funny.
And I agree. Pickle is automatically funny.
Pickle’s pretty funny, I have to admit.
Pants. What about pants?
Pants. There’s no K in it, but pants is funny.
No, no, no. I don’t think pants is funny.
Pantees is funny, but pants isn’t funny.
What’s funny about pants?
Pants are funny.
Panties are hilarious, but pants.
Panties are funny, yeah.
Yeah, but what is so funny about pants?
What about city names?
Kalamazoo. Automatically funny.
Okay, okay. You got me there.
Okay, good one.
What else have we got?
Waukesha.
Waukesha is funny.
Schenectady, not really.
Yeah, it’s over.
But Nashville, Nashville’s not funny.
Okay, what about people’s names?
Bob.
Bob is not funny.
Bob is funny.
Maybe I’m thinking of Bob Newer.
Bob is funny.
What are you saying?
Bob is funny to me.
Why?
But like Phil, not funny.
But why is Bob funny?
That’s the thing.
What I’m just saying, that words and names and places, they automatically have attached to them, like this little flag for each of us, and it varies a little bit, that says funny.
Bob is not funny.
Otto is funny.
Otto is kind of funny.
Elmo is funny.
Elmo is funny.
But Bob, I don’t know.
Bob, you don’t.
Okay.
Well, I think…
But you’re raising a bigger question here.
Why is it that some of these words are funny?
I think it goes back to our childhood.
I know from my own son, and reading the books about children that help me understand what is going on in his little brain, that words, for example, with Bs and Ps are often incredibly fun to say. My son had a great time with the word baboon.
He loved saying baboon. And he would sometimes sit there and I swear it was like poetry and say all of the P words he knew. He’d say, pa-pa-pa-pee, poo-poo, pee-pee. And it’s nice me being thrown in there with the pee-pee and poo-poo, but what are you going to do? Because it’s fun to say.
It does interesting things on the mouth, right? Yeah, it does.
But is there something deeper here? No, I just wanted to talk about words. And frankly, if you get a chance to read a Neil Simon play aloud, you should do it, right?
Okay. Yeah. You just wanted a chance to say pants, which I don’t think is funny.
Pickle?
Pickle is funny.
Oh, right. We agree on pickle. Listen, if you’ve got a word that you think is funny, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send your automatically funny words to words@waywordradio.org, or talk about it on our discussion forum at waywordradio.org/discussion.
