Boff, cooch and jiggly: The funniest words in the English language
Take note next time you want to crack a few jokes at a dinner party
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The funniest words in the dictionary have been revealed, with 'upchuck', 'boff' and 'jiggly' topping the list.
Constantly changing, updating and evolving, the English language is a fascinating entity that’s seen words such as 'avo' and 'bougie' weave their way into everyday vocabulary lately.
The ability of certain words to positively affect your mood is a curious topic, so thought-provoking that researchers from the University of Alberta decided to explore it in great detail.
According to their study, which was recently published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, there are some words that are far more likely to have you in fits of laughter than others.
“Humour is, of course, still personal,” says Chris Westbury, a psychology professor at the university.
“Here, we get at the elements of humour that aren’t personal; things that are universally funny.”
Westbury and his co-author, Geoff Hollis, had participants rate the comedic value of 4,997 words from the English language.
This allowed them to determine which words were deemed as being funnier than others, whether that be due to a word being particularly unusual or simply sounding funny when said out loud.
After bottling it down to 10 words, Westbury and Hollis concluded that the funniest words in the English language are: 'upchuck', 'bubby', 'boff', 'wriggly', 'yaps', 'giggle', 'cooch', 'guffaw', 'puffball' and 'jiggly'.
"We demonstrate that words are judged funnier if they are less common and have an improbably orthographic or phonological structure," they state in the study.
"We also describe and quantify the semantic attributes of words that are judged funny and show that they are partly compatible with the superiority theory of humour, which focuses on humour as scorn."
So, next time you're with some friends and telling an entertaining anecdote, why not try throwing a few 'guffaws' or 'puffballs' into the conversation?
Who knows - perhaps you'll reinvent yourself as a comedy genius.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments