Fun With Words

If you think about it, “understand” is a funny word.  Unlike “underarm&rdquo or “undercook” it does not make a lot of sense.  You have to wonder what standing has to do with comprehension.  And why under?  More curious is trying to figure out the opposite of understand.  Is it underlie, overstand, or overlie?  Or maybe it’s ununderstand, or just plain derstand.

There are lots of funny words in English, like “partake” which looks like it has something to do with golf, or “bigamist” which suggests a person with a sizeable problem, or “cockpit” which just begs to be fooled with.  The word “improper” is funny if you split the word after the first p (imagine someone who lassoes little demons.)

But making fun of a word often requires that we ignore the word’s etymology—otherwise the amusement might be lost to reason.  For example, the word “surgery” begs the question “what surges?”  In fact, the word evolved from an old French word surigien with roots in old English as chirurgeon which came from the Greek cheirourgos (cheir, hand + ergon, work.)  That history may be interesting, but not very funny.

To be amused by the absurd looking word “unless” you must forget, or be unaware, that it comes from the phrase “upon less” and that it has nothing to do with the prefix “un.”  In general, to be tickled by odd looking words you must ignore the tug of times and tongues on their meanings.  That is why there is no consideration of word etymologies in this Barrel Full of Words.

All the words being poked fun at here are real dictionary words.  There are no made-up or misspelled words like punderful or punnishing.  You won’t find here, for example, a warped definition (which I call a goofinition) for “impasse” as a demon’s butt because it would have to be spelled impass, or a mock antonym for “stagnation” as “donation” because it would have to be doenation.  When made-up words do appear in this compilation to show the humor of an actual word (such as beforemath, the Phantom Antonym of “aftermath”), they appear in italics.

This collection also does not deal with verbal play on words like “the peepholes choice,” nor does it toy with nearly similar sounding words like “salary” and “celery,” or substituted homonyms like “cache” for “cash.”  All these kinds of playful oral twists may be entertaining but their number is astronomical.  However, the words that do appear in here should be enough to tickle your humorous humerus.

Listed below are all the categories of word humor contained at this site, each with a brief explanation. The list is provided as a side menu on each page of A Barrel Full of Words.  Placing the mouse cursor over any of the side menu items will display an example of the word humor found on that page.

 1 — Wonder Words:  Words that make you wonder about their meaning.

 2 — Ask Your Doctor:  Medical jargon that doesn’t make sense.

 3 — Wonder Phrases:  Phrases that make you wonder about their meaning.

 4 — Demeaned Words:  Words that look like they might have some other meaning.

 5 — Fractured Definitions:  Sentences showing ambiguous word meanings.

 6 — Goofinitions:  Comical definitions derived from parts of a word.

 7 — Daffynitions:  Free-for-all word comedy.

 8 — Prefixed Goofinitions:  Goofintions derived from word prefixes.

 9 — What Do You Call...:  Poking fun at occupations.

10 — Say Again:  Words that may suggest different meanings if pronounced incorrectly.

11 — Languishing Language:  Poking fun at literary jargon.

12 — Pun-ishing Adjectives:  Adjectives used in a punny way.

13 — De-tour:  Fun with words that begin with “de.”

14 — Dis-connections:  Fun with words that begin with “dis.”

15 — Re-collection:  Fun with words that begin with “re.”

16 — Er-rant Words:  Fun with words that begin with “er.”

17 — Un-real Meanings:  Fun with words that begin with “un.”

18 — Ghost Words:  Words that suggest other words that should exist but don’t.

19 — Collective Nouns:  Taking the pun approach to what you call groups of things.

20 — Bundle Words:  Words that can be broken apart into other words, with some humor.

21 — Imps and Ages:  Bundle Words that end with the syllables “imp” and “age.”

22 — Hyp-hens:  Sentences take on new meanings when words are hyphenated incorrectly.

23 — Bundle Words Aloud:  Bundle Words that get their humor from being pronounced differently.

24 — Curious Words:  Like Wonder Words, these words make you think.

25 — Mock Antonyms:  Pairs of words that look like antonyms but are not.

26 — Negafixes:  Fun words you get when you lop off the negating prefixes

27 — Negafixed Mock Antonyms:  Words suffering from both of the two above categories.

28 — Phantom Antonyms:  Words that suggest antonyms that aren’t in the dictionary.

29 — Overload:  An overview of most of the words that contain the word “over.”

30 — Contraps:  Word opposite in meaning working together in a sentence.

31 — Polypuns:  Multiple puns in one sentence.

32 — Prime Rhymes:  Phrases with rhyming words with rhymed meanings.

33 — Oxymoron List:  The best list of oxymora (oxymorons) anywhere on the Internet.

34 — Antioxymoron List:  The best list of antioxymora (antioxymorons) anywhere on the Internet.

35 — Oxyidiots:  Words that contain oxymora within them.

36 — Antagonyms:  Words that have two opposing definitions.

37 — Sport Orts:  A humorous look at sports jargon.

38 — Job Jokes:  Getting a laugh out of job titles.

39 — Dittograms:  Sentences containing consecutive homonyms or homonymic phrases

40 — Tom Swiftlies:  “Punning quotations,” Jim cited.

41 — Butterflies:  Word and word phrases looked at differently.