Humour gets scientific as researchers measure the giggle quotient of words

Some would say that the very idea that humour can be predicted, and not just induced by wit or action, is not funny at all. But it cannot be denied that certain words invariably elicit giggles even if they are in a language that listeners do not understand — or, indeed, are not words at all but only a seemingly plausible set of letters.

This truism has led a bunch of completely serious researchers to deduce that such mirth is dependant on a scientific factor called entropy, amathematical gauge of disorder. Now, that certainly puts a different cast on the inherent qualities of the average chortle-inducing word.

A quantifiable theory of humour sounds improbable. But the researchers’ discovery that the giggle quotient of a word — actual or made-up — depends on how much it deviates from an instinctive ‘normal’ combination of letters, sounds eminently plausible.

Excessive usage of the last three letters of the English alphabet or unexpected double vowels in words definitely fall into that category.

That is presumably why even a nonsense combination like ‘snunkoople’ — which triggered this current line of research — invokes mirth without evoking any discernable humorous imagery or message. Credit for this incredible discovery must, of course, go to that unparalleled wordsmith Dr Seuss.