WEBVTT - FunStuff Playlist 02: Why Are Some Words Funny?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey

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<v Speaker 1>brain Stuff Lauren Bogelbaum. Here in the movie The Sunshine Boys,

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<v Speaker 1>an aging vaudeville comedian explains a classic truism of comedy

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<v Speaker 1>to his nephew, The k sound is always funny. The

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<v Speaker 1>comedian played by Walter Matthau said, fifty seven years in

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<v Speaker 1>this business, you'll learn a few things. You know what

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<v Speaker 1>words are funny and which words are not funny. Alka

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<v Speaker 1>Seltzer is funny. You say alka Seltzer, you get a laugh.

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<v Speaker 1>Casey Stengel, that's a funny name. Robert Taylor is not funny,

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<v Speaker 1>Cupcake is funny, Tomato is not funny, Cleveland is funny,

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<v Speaker 1>Maryland is not funny. Then there's chicken. Chicken is funny,

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<v Speaker 1>Pickle is funny. And it's true. If you need a

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<v Speaker 1>place name for a punchline, you're guaranteed to kill with

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<v Speaker 1>Kalamazoo's connecticy or Rancho cucamonga. But why? Psychology professor Chris

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<v Speaker 1>Westbury at the University of Alberta has a fascinating theory,

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<v Speaker 1>and it's based on perhaps the two unfunniest words in

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<v Speaker 1>the English language. Statistical probability Westbury published a paper in

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<v Speaker 1>October of eighteen in the Journal of Experimental Psychology with

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<v Speaker 1>a first rate title, Reriggly, squiffy, lemmicks and boobs. What

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<v Speaker 1>makes Some Words Funny? In his research, he started with

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<v Speaker 1>a list of the five thousand English words rated funniest

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<v Speaker 1>by real humans and constructed a working mathematical model for

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<v Speaker 1>predicting the laugh factor of nearly every word in the dictionary.

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<v Speaker 1>When Westbury applied his model to a data set of

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<v Speaker 1>forty five thousand, five hundred and sixteen English words, it

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<v Speaker 1>decided that these ten words were the funniest of all.

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<v Speaker 1>Up chuck, bubbly, boff, wriggly, yeaps, giggle, cooch, gafa, puff ball,

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<v Speaker 1>and giggily. Runners up included squiffy, flappy, and bucko, and

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<v Speaker 1>the perennial favorites of every eight year old on the

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<v Speaker 1>planet poop, puke, and boobs. On the other end of

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<v Speaker 1>the spectrum, the word found to be the absolute least

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<v Speaker 1>funny was harassment. In his paper, Westbury explains that philosophers

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<v Speaker 1>have been trying to unraffle the mystery of humor for millennia.

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<v Speaker 1>Plato and Aristotle weren't big fans of humor, seeing it

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<v Speaker 1>mostly is a way of denigrating and feeling superior to others.

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<v Speaker 1>Casaro introduced incongruity theory, writing that the most common kind

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<v Speaker 1>of joke is when we expect one thing and another

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<v Speaker 1>is said, in which case our own disappointed expectation makes

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<v Speaker 1>us laugh. While the incongruity theory of comedy makes perfect

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<v Speaker 1>sense of even orangutans find switchery tricks hi hilarious, Westbury

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<v Speaker 1>says that it's not a true scientific theory and that

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<v Speaker 1>clearly not every incongruous event is as funny as another.

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<v Speaker 1>A random coughing fit in a crowded movie theater isn't

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<v Speaker 1>nearly as comical as a random farting fit. I mean,

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<v Speaker 1>just try to say random farting fit without smiling. So

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<v Speaker 1>the goal of Westbury's modeling experiments was to go beyond

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<v Speaker 1>philosophical theorizing and come up with a truly quantifiable scale

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<v Speaker 1>of funny. To do it, Westbury analyzed words in two

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<v Speaker 1>different ways, by their meaning and by their form. For

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<v Speaker 1>the first analysis, the researchers looked at semantic predictors that

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<v Speaker 1>group words with similar meanings using a free tool developed

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<v Speaker 1>by Google that identifies words that are commonly used for

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<v Speaker 1>one another a k A co occurrence. Westberry mapped out

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<v Speaker 1>the semantic relationships between two hundred and thirty four of

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<v Speaker 1>the human picked funniest words. From this correlation plot, the

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<v Speaker 1>researchers identified six different clusters or categories of funny words insult, sex, party, animal, bodily, function,

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<v Speaker 1>and expletive. Now this is where things get dangerously mathematical.

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<v Speaker 1>Since many of the words on the Human Rated funny

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<v Speaker 1>list fell into more than one category, the researchers needed

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<v Speaker 1>a more precise measurement of how a words meaning translated

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<v Speaker 1>into comedy. Using the Google tool, they came up with

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<v Speaker 1>lists of words most closely related to each of the

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<v Speaker 1>six categories, and then they came up with the average

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<v Speaker 1>values for each of those word categories using something called

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<v Speaker 1>linear regression analysis. Those average values for each category you know, insult, explicit, etcetera.

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<v Speaker 1>Became known as category defining vectors. When looking specifically at meaning,

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<v Speaker 1>it turns out that the funniest words don't necessarily fall

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<v Speaker 1>cleanly into the most categories, but are the words whose

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<v Speaker 1>mathematical values are the closest on average, to those six

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<v Speaker 1>category defining vectors. Here's how Westbury summed it up in

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<v Speaker 1>a press brief, The average similarity of a words meaning

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<v Speaker 1>to these six categories is itself the best measure we

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<v Speaker 1>found of a word's funniness, especially at the word also

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<v Speaker 1>has strongly positive emotional connotations. But meaning is only one

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<v Speaker 1>type of measurement. Westbury and his team looked at the

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<v Speaker 1>form of funny words, things like word length or the

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<v Speaker 1>individual sounds or phonemes that make up each word. In

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<v Speaker 1>the second analysis, the data fit nicely with the incongruity

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<v Speaker 1>theory of humor. It turns out that the fewer times

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<v Speaker 1>a word or its phonemes appear in the language, the

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<v Speaker 1>funnier we think they are. That helps explain why there

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<v Speaker 1>are so many k and oo sounds in funny word lists.

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<v Speaker 1>They're statistically improbable, or it's ending in l e like

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<v Speaker 1>wattle and wriggle, or another source of funds suggesting, as

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<v Speaker 1>the study put it, repetition, usually with a diminutive aspect.

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<v Speaker 1>So why are we laughing? Now? This is where things

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<v Speaker 1>get really weird. The human brain, it seems, is running

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<v Speaker 1>all of these complex mathematical models all the time without

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<v Speaker 1>any of us knowing it. As we watch TV and

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<v Speaker 1>read and talk to people. Our brains are constantly parsing

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<v Speaker 1>language for subtle semantic cross connections and statistical probabilities, and

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<v Speaker 1>the result, at least on this basic one word level,

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<v Speaker 1>is what we call humor. Westbury said, if asked which

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<v Speaker 1>letter is more common P or B, I think the

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<v Speaker 1>average person would have no clue consciously, but unconsciously they

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<v Speaker 1>are sensitive to that. And we know that because their

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<v Speaker 1>funniness judgments are reflecting exactly that kind of fine tuned calculation.

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<v Speaker 1>In other words, said Westbury, people are using emotions to

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<v Speaker 1>do math. Westbury argues that all of this makes perfect

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<v Speaker 1>sense evolutionarily, our brains have been hardwired over millions of

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<v Speaker 1>years to identify anything that's out of the ordinary as

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<v Speaker 1>a potential threat, and human emotions, including humor, likely developed

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<v Speaker 1>his ways of responding to improbable events and environments. O.

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<v Speaker 1>Westbury summed it up, people laugh based on how improbable

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<v Speaker 1>the world is. Of course, it's a long conceptual leap

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<v Speaker 1>from predicting the funniness level of individual words to modeling

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<v Speaker 1>the communic mechanics of a knock knock joke or a

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<v Speaker 1>salty limerick. But Westbury's work points the way maybe someday

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<v Speaker 1>we'll finally understand why that chicken crossed the road. One

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<v Speaker 1>thing is clear, though a frog wouldn't have been half

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<v Speaker 1>as funny. Today's episode was written by Dave Ruse and

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<v Speaker 1>produced by Tyler Playing. For more on this and lots

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<v Speaker 1>of other flappy boff topics, visit our home planet how

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<v Speaker 1>stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I

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