The 100 Funniest Words in English

This book explores what is funny in the words of English themselves by taking a close look at the 100 funniest of them selected by Dr. Robert Beard. Dr. Beard formerly wrote under the name of Dr. Language at yourDictionary.com and currently, Dr. Goodword at alphaDictionary.com. Three million people have taken his "Rebel-Yankee Test" at this website. Dr. Beard holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Michigan and taught Russian and Linguistics at Bucknell University for 35 years. His various “word-of-the-day” features go out to more than 100,000 people around the world every day.

After a short essay on what makes words funny, “The 100 Funniest Words in English” examines the pronunciation, meaning, usage, and history of each word, giving several “creative” examples of its use. Among Dr. Beard’s selection we find the likes of “absquatulate,” “bowyangs”, “collywobbles,” “gongoozle,” “hemidemisemiquaver,” and “snollygoster.”

This book not only discusses funny words, it does so in a funny style. The examples given for each word rely on a cast of characters developed by Dr. Beard in the alphaDictionary “So, What's the Good Word?” word-of-the-day series. They include lady's man Phil Anders, Robin Banks, mysterious multimillionaire, the weak-willed siblings, Ben and Eileen Dover, the reclusive scholar, R. Cane, 30-something Marian Kine and her suitor, William Arami, not to mention their overly expensive lawyer, Susan Liddy-Gates.