Do certain words make you laugh??

Page 2 of 3 [ 35 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3  Next

Booyakasha
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 6 Oct 2009
Gender: Female
Posts: 13,898

19 Nov 2014, 3:31 pm

auntblabby wrote:
Booyakasha wrote:
Matthaeus wrote:
Booyakasha wrote:
Dunno - that gogogoch in the end just made me laugh out loud for some reason. Long words somehow sound funny to me.

Try floccinaucinihilipilification, lol
Web Page Name
Sometimes I burst out laughing for no reason, though, too.

Oh lol, yes that's a funny one. it would be funny to see someone actually using it.


http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords...
Back in the eighteenth century, Eton College had a grammar book which listed a set of words from Latin which all meant ?of little or no value?. In order, those were flocci, nauci, nihili, and pili (which sound like four of the seven dwarves, Roman version, but I digress). As a learned joke, somebody put all four of these together and then stuck ?fication on the end to make a noun for the act of deciding that something is totally and absolutely valueless (a verb, floccinaucinihilipilificate, to judge a thing to be valueless, could also be constructed, but hardly anybody ever does). The first recorded use is by William Shenstone in a letter in 1741: ?I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money?.

A quick Latin lesson: flocci is derived from floccus, literally a tuft of wool and the source of English words like flocculate, but figuratively in Latin something trivial; pili is likewise the plural of pilus, a hair, which we have inherited in words like depilatory, but which in Latin could mean a whit, jot, trifle or generally a thing that is insignificant; nihili is from nihil, nothing, as in words like nihilism and annihilate; nauci just means worthless.
The word?s main function is to be trotted out as an example of a long word (it was the longest in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary but pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanocon... edged it out in the second). It had a rare public airing in 1999 when Senator Jesse Helms used it in commenting on the demise of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: ?I note your distress at my floccinaucinihilipilification of the CTBT?.


Now that's very interesting, thanks for the info!



babybird
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 11 Nov 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 62,470
Location: UK

19 Nov 2014, 3:57 pm

The word "bilious" makes me laugh.

I use the word "bilious", often when I'm feeling a bit bilious.

It instantly makes me feel less bilious, because it makes me laugh.

It's not only me who finds it funny either. I have seen others raise a smile when I have said it too.

The context I would use it in would be: I ate a full packet of custard creams with my cup of tea, and I went a bit bilious afterwards.


_________________
We have existence


Matthaeus
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 Jun 2012
Age: 42
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,640

19 Nov 2014, 3:59 pm

auntblabby, thy link doth not work. nauci is derived from naucum, meaning "something slight or trivial, a trifle"



King_oni
Sea Gull
Sea Gull

User avatar

Joined: 14 Nov 2014
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 229
Location: The Netherlands

19 Nov 2014, 4:03 pm

I find the world Bellend to pretty funny. Doesn't help there's a topic with this word in the title on this forum either, lol.

The first time I heard it, it got me thinking, since I have a fascination for etymology... that's where the giggling really started, cause it quite looks like it, lol.



lostonearth35
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 5 Jan 2010
Age: 50
Gender: Female
Posts: 11,783
Location: Lost on Earth, waddya think?

27 Nov 2014, 9:40 am

Pea, because it sounds like pee. Pea soup, pea nuts, pea pod, pea brain...