These are the 12 funniest words in the English language according to a study of 5,000

Stephen Fry once said "Language is my whore, my mistress, my wife, my pen-friend, my check-out girl. Language is a complimentary moist lemon-scented cleansing square or handy freshen-up wipette."

The English language has the ability to move us emotionally in every possible way. But today, let's focus on the funny side of things.

Obscure words like collywobbles and bumfuzzle are undeniably hilarious, but its rare that you'll ever hear those on a day-to-day basis.

So, what are the funniest words in the English language?

Researchers Tomas Engelthaler and Thomas Hills from the University of Warwick, have attempted to find out which words truly make us chortle in a new study.

The duo asked 821 participants, who were recruited through Amazon's Mechanical Turk website, what they believed were the funniest words by using a specific method.

Firstly they were asked to rate 11 "calibrator words" which had attracted a wide range of scores during pilot research. These included 'Turd' and 'Drought.'

Then they moved onto the real meat of the study where they rated the funniness of 200 words randomly selected from a pool of 5000.

Basing their scores of their immediate reactions, Engelthaler and Hills determined that these were the 12 funniest words in order:

Booty, Tit, Booby, Hooter, Nitwit, Twit, Waddle, Tinkle, Bebop, Egghead, Ass, Twerp.

So, by those results' booty' is perhaps a surprising winner but still warrants a chuckle every time you hear it.

Their research was also able to conclude which were the 12 least humorous words in the English language.

Rape, Torture, Torment, Gunshot, Death, Nightmare, War, Trauma, Rapist, Distrust, Deathbed, Pain.

I think you'll agree that there isn't anything to laugh at amongst that bleak and morbid collection.

They didn't stop there though, and also broke down the results by gender.

These are the words that men found funnier than women.

Bondage, Birthmark, Orgy, Brand, Chauffeur, Doze, Buzzard, Czar, Weld, Prod, Corn, Raccoon.

A real odd bunch there. Who finds the world 'brand' funny?

Anyway, for contrast here is what words women deemed to be funnier than men.

Giggle, Beast, Circus, Grand, Juju, Humbug, Slicker, Sweat, Ennui, Holder, Momma, Sod.

Another odd mix. 'Sweat?'

Furthermore here are the words that both men and women agreed were funny, scoring similar ratings in the test:

Chug, Fluff, Scrotum, Jabber, Joke, Buttocks, Boon, Yank, Tinker, Prance.

They also found out what words their younger participants (18-32) found to be funny:

Goatee, Reform, Joint, Germ, Hunchback, Frock, Rating, Squaw, Filth, Collie, Squabble, Gangster.

Participants aged between 33 and 78 named these words as the ones most likely to give them the giggles:

Caddie, Birthright, Squint, Jingle, Burlesque, Bulkhead, Limey, Pixie, Pong, Willow, Housewife, Bathing.

Come on people, 'bathing' is important not funny.

While this is all very amusing what does it actually tell us about the way we perceive certain words.

Engelthaler and Hills found that the words that people were unfamiliar with were often found to be the funniest, which may explain why words like Bebop, Buzzard and Ennui ranked so highly.

These findings will hopefully be able to help psychologists analyse humour and discover what we find funny on a fundamental level.

The researchers write in their findings:

The database we present here offers a basis for studying humour in perhaps a highly rudimentary ‘fruit fly’ version, at the level of a single word.

If single words have reliable humour ratings, they provide humour in miniature, allowing us to investigate humour in relation to the many existing lexical norms.

HT Springer Link New York Mag Research Digest

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