Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Come on, man.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Infrastructure week. at last.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

You are here: Home / Funny Words

Funny Words

by | 107 Comments

This post is in: 

In a story about sleep apnea, the NY Times discusses a procedure to surgically remove the uvula. If you are looking for informed commentary about this, stop here.

The only reason I mention this is because I have always thought it was a funny word, and even more amusing is that is sounds so much like vulva, which is something radically different, at which point I wonder what the folks at Volvo were thinking. How’s that for stream of consciousness?

I think ukulele and kazoo are funny words, too, and both are instruments.

And no, I have not been drinking.

Reader Interactions

107Comments

  3. 3.

    Brian S (formerly Incertus)

    Amy, my partner of ten years, bought a baritone ukulele just a week ago and is learning it. It’s a fun little instrument, but I may never get “If I Fell” out of my head again, since that’s the song she decided to learn first.

    I have one class to finish grading. Then the drinking starts.

  4. 4.

    Davis X. Machina

    Latin uva – grape. Uvula – little grape.

    I don’t think there’s a body part more aptly named.

  6. 6.

    Bruuuuce

    SNL thought “uvula” was a funny word, too, many years ago.

    For me, I love the words “orrery” and “syzygy”, both of which refer to astronomical things, and “coccyx”, because it makes it possible to cheer for an ass-kicking in places where the word “ass” is out of bounds. (“Kick some coccyx” being the phrase in question.)

  10. 10.

    kdaug

    So, just out of curiosity (and in keeping with the theme of the thread) – why is there a West Virginia but no East Virginia? (And no, I’m not going into what “Virginia” reminds me of).

    But seriously – North/South Dakota, but no East Virginia?

    ETA: I have a personal theory about why someone might not want to say they came from the state of East Virginia, but want to know if there are real historical reasons.

  11. 11.

    PurpleGirl

    Thanks for the humorous post, John. I need some laughs right now and this post produced some real lol.

  12. 12.

    Davis X. Machina

    Latin volvō means “I roll”, and I at least have that quality high on the list of things I look for in a car. Much higher, say, than cupholders.

    It is arguably the silliest-sounding name for a car, though, if you pronounce the v’s as w’s, as per the reformed pronunciation.

  13. 13.

    Yutsano

    @cathyx: Doesn’t matter as long as she thinks they’re tasty. And panini is just Italian for sandwiches anyway.

    And if this thread devolves into an intellectual discussion of vuvuzelas, I’m outtie.

  19. 19.

    alwhite

    Back in the late 60’s I was sent to the office by a High School social studies teacher for using the word – he didn’t know what it meant (and I refused to tell him – I was a smart ass). I happened to mention I wouldn’t mind slapping my tongue against that uvula so he assumed the worst.

  20. 20.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Davis X. Machina:

    t is arguably the silliest-sounding name for a car, though, if you pronounce the v’s as w’s, as per the reformed pronunciation.

    I have a Tata Nano holding for you on line one. Additionally, any number of Wartburgs are waiting in the hall as well.

  21. 21.

    Cat Lady

    @Sirkowski:

    Try saying it like they do here in Boston: cattahpillah. See? Put the missing ‘Rs on the end of words that don’t have them, like China and India. It’s like balancing an equation.

  26. 26.

    SFAW

    I blame Obama caving to the Rethugs for my sleep apnea.

    Re: Bruuuuce @6:
    Yes, since I heard about Babs’s uvula, I have tried to ensure that I take proper care of it.

    I hate the word CATERPILLAR. I’m not sure why.

    Because it’s tinny? Whereas “solipsist” is woody.

  29. 29.

    Maody

    Our dad was a family doc so we heard all manner of medical and anatomical words at very young ages. I must have been one of the only kids in my kindergarten class that knew what that funny structure was called. “Uvula, uvula, uvula!” she screamed in delight.

    chortle chortle

    and a made up word “tarange-a-bouti” [ma used to call me her little tarange-a-bouti]

  30. 30.

    eemom

    @kdaug:

    They were a single and united Virginia up to the Civil War. West Virginia broke off when Virginia seceded. Obviously, the rest of the Commonwealth wouldn’t have none o’that “East” shit when it regarded itself as the Only True Virginia.

    All of which makes it hilarious when you drive around WV and see confederate flags. Idjit rednecks don’t even know what side they were on.

  34. 34.

    Paddy

    When I was a kid, I saw a movie that used the word “necrophilia” and I kept on saying it over and over until I got home and looked it up in a dictionary. (yes, I am that old that there were actual books to look up words in!) Misanthrope is another one I always loved.

    Added- My older brother had the uvula thing done for his apnea and he was lay down miserable for two weeks. It seemed to help.

    Added weird note- I had my tonsils removed when I lived in the Dominican Republic in the early 70’s and they took the uvula out along with the tonsils.

    Who knew uvulas could be so fascinating?

  35. 35.

    MattR

    I can’t look at comedian Donald Glover the same ever since I learned his orginal twitter account used the short version of his first name. (I can come up with plenty of other examples that prove I am still a 10 year old at heart including the fact that I could never even consider going to a school named Ball State)

  37. 37.

    kdaug

    @eemom: Yeah, but it just seems weird. If you’re seceding, why not name yourself “Splitoffistan” or something. It’s like a divorced wife wanting to keep the name of her husband, but just add a Mc or O’ in front of it.

  38. 38.

    Ross Hershberger

    I worked in a clothing store with a manager who hated the word panties. Wouldn’t say it. His employees would torture him. “you want me to straighten the what? The bras? Just spit it out!”

  41. 41.

    Third Eye Open

    I have a friend who had this procedure done, and she said it made learning to speak German REALLY difficult.

    And whats up with the letter C? I mean, its functions could easily be served by a K or an S, and it looks like a half-assed O. Whats up with that?

  44. 44.

    Comrade Mary

    sounds so much like vulva, which is something radically different, at which point I wonder what the folks at Volvo were thinking.

    My family once drove past the old Volvo building in Toronto years ago, and my poor mother made the mistake of pointing out the “vulva building”. We never let her forget that.

  45. 45.

    joe from Lowell

    I still giggle over the two Congressmean named Dick.

    Dick Sweat

    and

    Dick Trickle.

    I mean, come on, man! Why don’t you go with Rick? What’s wrong with Rich Trickle? What’s wrong with Richard Sweat?

    Come on, man!

  46. 46.

    Third Eye Open

    @eemom: It always struck me as diminutive. Like, “Men wear pants under their garments, but ladies, they have pseudo-pants, panties, if you will”

    I think we need a new word that is both catchy and relevant. How about ‘Naughties’ or we can go back to a staple and refer to them as underoos.

  47. 47.

    Anne Laurie

    @Cat Lady: __

    Try saying it like they do here in Boston: cattahpillah. See? Put the missing ‘Rs on the end of words that don’t have them, like China and India. It’s like balancing an equation.

    When we moved here 20+ years ago, we were told “Here in Mazzah-CHU-zets, korea is what you do for a livin’, and career is a country in Asia. ”

    Although my personal favorite remains “Lawrrrr and awe-dah”.

  48. 48.

    Maody

    @joe from Lowell: why is this so true? it seems endless in its weirdness, the name Dick. the cowering when saying it out loud to someone’s face never goes away. Except for one man – my Uncle Dick. maybe because he was so sweet and funny.

  49. 49.

    SFAW

    And whats up with the letter C? I mean, its functions could easily be served by a K or an S, …

    “B” works well, too.

  50. 50.

    JGabriel

    @Third Eye Open:

    And whats up with the letter C? I mean, its functions could easily be served by a K or an S, and it looks like a half-assed O. Whats up with that?

    Personally, I always thought the c was a very pretty letter, and that the k looked like an h with racist tendencies.

    I assume all of our c’s were hard c’s until the Normans came along and Frechified English in the 11th and 12th centuries, but I don’t know that for certain.

    .

  51. 51.

    j low

    Which way to the “I hate Obama” thread. Which reminds me that I unfortunately found a blog called redscoop yesterday. One of their posts was about how ABC edited Mark Halperin out of Sarah Palin’s reading list. Was ABC trying to make her look dumber or smarter?

  52. 52.

    MattR

    @joe from Lowell: Wait. There was a congressman named Dick Trickle too?!? I only knew about the NASCAR driver because the guys on Sportscenter made sure to mention him every race.

    @Ross Hershberger: On that note, I only used the phrase “I married my sister” a couple times before switching to the more unwieldly but less eye raising “I officiated my sister’s wedding”

  53. 53.

    Ross Hershberger

    I always liked a description that I read of a lingerie salesman :”He travels in ladies undergarments.” I tried that out on the Warner’s rep at the store but he wasn’t having any.

  54. 54.

    TOP123

    @joe from Lowell: Argh… I can’t believe you beat me to this. I went to college in NH when Dick Swett was around, and remember thinking the same thing when I saw his campaign stickers.

    OTOH, how about Dick Hyman, who was just mentioned on the jazz radio station?

  55. 55.

    Ross Hershberger

    Once knew a bar owner who went by Dick Cox. When he introduced himself he’d Look You Right In The Eye.
    Rick? Rich? Richard? Ricky? Nope. Dick.

  56. 56.

    SFAW

    I assume all of our c’s were hard c’s until the Normans came along and Frechified English in the 11th and 12th centuries

    C’s-eating surrender monkeys?

  57. 57.

    TOP123

    @eemom: Me, too. Never could stand that word. My British girlfriend loathed the word, although it always confused me when she referred to her pants–those being the things that she wore under what I would call her pants.

  58. 58.

    Third Eye Open

    @SFAW: “B” is for breasts, which makes B both a great sounding letter, and wonderful to look at.

    @JGabriel: It’s always the French’s fault. I should have known! But seriously, with Obama ritually kicking us in our proverbial junk while we eat shit sandwiches under the bus, the least he could do is use more hard consonants so that the Repubs understand he isn’t playing around…or something.

  59. 59.

    Peter J

    I’m guessing in 1911, when the name Volvo was registered, companies really didn’t spend a lot of time checking if the name would sound crazy in other languages….

  60. 60.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @Jewish Steel:

    I nominate xiphoid process for body part name that takes itself entirely too seriously.

    If xiphoid process were an NYT pundit it would be David Brooks. No wait, if *anal sphincter* were an NYT pundit it would be David Brooks. No wait, if anal sphincter were an NYT pundit it would be Ross Douthat. No, I mean it would be Tom Friedman.

  61. 61.

    Gordon, The Big Express Engine

    @MattR: Back when Olbermann was on Sportscenter with Dan Patrick, they were running down the day’s highlights including the Tour de France and Keith made a Dick Trickle reference which caused Patrick to lose his shit laughing on air. They had to pan away from him. Keith asked for someone to come give Dan the Heimlich… When of best news anchor laugh bloopers I have ever seen. Never could find it on youtube….

  63. 63.

    Cat Lady

    @Anne Laurie:

    I was born here and I still get a huge chuckle at times. I called the Secretary of State’s office and asked for a form. He said do you want the shaht faahm? Even I couldn’t interpret that, so I said excuse me? He said do you want the long faahm oah the shaht faahm? lolwut!

  66. 66.

    Mike in NC

    @joe from Lowell:

    I still giggle over the two Congressmean named Dick.

    There was much snickering in the wardroom one day when we got a message saying that a civilian tech rep named Dick Dangell was coming aboard the ship to study some mechanical problem. Of course, when the guy arrived on the quarterdeck he introduced himself as “Richard” and pronounced the last name as “Dan-Jell”. Bummer.

  68. 68.

    Dennis SGMM

    Back when I was a machinist in an El Monte job shop our Kennametal tools rep was named Rod Glidewell. Back in the Fifties there was a jeweler up in Seattle named Harry Crouch.

  70. 70.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Peter J: The demotic Latin pronunciation then was probably still as a voiced fricative, though in Scandanavia, who knows — they have v-w issues to begin with.

  72. 72.

    Downpuppy

    @Bruuuuce: Coccyx lost its humerusness for me many years ago when I was doing inventory for an anatomy lab. About 3/4 of the hipbone sets were missing their tailbones.

    Do you really want doctors thinking that bones are optional?

  75. 75.

    Wile E. Quixote

    Actually there was a comic book character in the early 1960s named Uvula-man. He was the alter ego of Peter Puller, a mild mannered student at City Tech and received his super powers when he was bitten by a radioactive Uvula. The series was cancelled after the first issue but a copy of “The Amazing UvulaMan” fell into Stan Lee’s hands and with some minor modifications, including the addition of a hyphen to the character’s name (which was huge) became the much more successful Amazing Spider-Man.

  77. 77.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @Jewish Steel:

    Yeah, I wonder if Bono ever asks for some compensation for his OpEds. Of course if he did that would mean that they weren’t pro bono any more. OK, sorry, I had to do that. But if I were Bono I’d tell the NYT “look, I’ll write some more OpEds for you. But only if I get to taser Bobo and Chunky Bobo every time you publish one.”

  79. 79.

    FlipYrWhig

    The phrase that always dissolves into nonsense in my mind is “It’ll be due.” Iddlebedoo, bedoopadoo, badoopadoo…

    I have a similar reaction to Chargers WR Legadu Nanee. It sounds like part of the chorus to “Iko, Iko.”

  80. 80.

    Bruuuuce

    @Downpuppy: I never knew the tailbone was in the arm! :-)

    Sorry to hear your bones were incomplete. Perhaps someone had a subspinal fetish? (Or made fetishes with the bones. You never know.)

  81. 81.

    Downpuppy

    @Bruuuuce: We both know the simple truth : Med students are slobs.

    The whole point of long internships is to train them out of taking their Taco Bell into surgery.

  85. 85.

    fraught

    I’m a gay man of a certain age who has never actually said the word vulva. And now I realize I don’t think I’d know one if it was staring me in the face. But I don’t think they have eyes, do they?

  92. 92.

    SRW1

    @Davis X. Machina:

    Ever heard the background of where the name Audi came from?

    Audi is Latin for ‘Listen!’ with the exact same meaning as the German ‘Horch!’ . August Horch used his family name when founding the car company Horch. After he was forced to leave that company and was barred from giving the second car company he founded his family name, he decided to call it Audi.

  93. 93.

    SFAW

    @Tim F.: Brilliant.

    Thank you! Always nice to be appreciated.

    Does anyone remember the SNL PSA from the National Uvula Association?

    Yes, at least two persons here did.

    Of course if he did that would mean that they weren’t pro bono any more. OK, sorry, I had to do that.

    No, you didn’t, and the world would probably be a better place if you hadn’t.

    But if I were Bono I’d tell the NYT “look, I’ll write some more OpEds for you. But only if I get to taser Bobo and Chunky Bobo every time you publish one.”

    I know FSM will smite me for it, but seeing this made me think of the Philosophy Department of the University of Woolloomooloo.

  94. 94.

    DougW

    My favorite word is German, and it’s “vergangeneitsvelbeltigung. Vergangeneitsvelbeltigung means “coming to terms with the past”. In the context of post WWII mixed with the occupation of eastern Germany by Russia, Eastern Germans had a lot of internal crap to deal with. The arts in the eastern democratic republic reflected some of the angst resulting from the separation of eastern Germany from it’s “other half” in the west.

    This resulted in some incredible work from artists, poets and writers on both sides of the artificial Russian divide. Gunther Grasse comes to mind as novelist who embodies the idea of coming to terms with the past.

  96. 96.

    stickler

    @FlipYrWhig: Oh, we in the Pacific Northwest can outdo anybody for silly names.

    For one, the charming town of Humptulips, on the Olympic peninsula.

    Not far away, the bustling metropolis of Pe Ell. Pronounced just like it’s spelled: “Pee Ell”.

    And to avoid the SP4M filter, I won’t link to the pages for Boring, Oregon; Inchelium, Washington; or the town so nice, they named it twice: Walla Walla, Washington.

  97. 97.

    stickler

    @efgoldman: Kleenex is indeed a made-up name, and a wonderful one. Did you know, though, that it comes from the Kimberley-Clark Corp., which developed a wood-cellulose fiber just before World War I? They at first called it “Cellucotton.” They’d hoped to sell it to the Army for bandages, but the conservative Army brass preferred to stick with cotton. (They used Cellucotton in gas masks, but there was no profitable volume in that.)

    War ends, Kimberley-Clark has this nifty (and expensively developed) technology to turn Wisconsin timber into profits. What do they come up with? Two products nobody never knew they needed before. Both with made-up names that started with K and ended with X.

    Kleenex was one: “Don’t put a cold in your pocket,” the best advertising slogan ever, coming as it did right after the Spanish Influenza.

    Anyone know what the other product was?

  99. 99.

    apostropher

    My brother-in-law had his uvula removed for sleep apnea. Fixed the sleep apnea problem, but he said he had to take several days re-learning how to drink liquids. Apparently, the uvula plays some obscure regulatory role in that process and you have to drink at a slightly different rate without one to keep from waterboarding yourself.

  105. 105.

    stickler

    No, I didn’t mention “Snohomish.” Or Irby. Or Krupp. (Trick answer: they’re the same town!)

    And yes, the other product was Kotex. Ding, ding, ding!

    Imagine the sales meeting for that product, in 1920. “So, gentlemen, what’s the new fall roll-out? Smith, you want to go first?”

    “Good God, man. No newspaper in the land will take an ad for that. How do you think you’ll sell it?”

    God bless America.

  106. 106.

    Norsecats

    No one’s yet mentioned the word kumquat, which is inherently funny. In Coon Rapids, Minnesota (speaking of funny names) there’s a Kumquat Street. It comes on a sequence of alphabetic streets named after trees (going something like Olive, Norway, Maple, Larch, Kumquat, Juniper – they must have been stuck for names of trees startig with K).

    A customer of ours at a company I used to work for was named Dick Penas (rhymes with “menace”, but still…)

  107. 107.

    bemused

    I once met a guy named Richard Raash, so of course his nickname was Dick. I would have felt sorry for him but he really was a dick.

Comments are closed.