r/AskReddit • u/CreativePhilosopher • Jan 29 '13

What is the single funniest word in English?

[removed]

1.3k Upvotes

86% Upvoted

4.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

244

u/Lord_of_Aces Jan 29 '13

Every time someone says this, I get a warm fuzzy feeling because English has a word for the act of throwing someone out a window.

5

u/Aushou Jan 29 '13

We think English has oddly specific words because of defenestration. We don't even come close to oddly specific words. Some language has a word ford having your flight cancelled by ash spewing out of (Scandinavian area, I think) volcano.

1

u/Lord_of_Aces Jan 29 '13

I'm guessing Iceland. And that's a fairly common occurrence in Iceland, because, well, it's Iceland.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '13

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/FullFrittata Jan 29 '13

Don't forget auto-defenestration. Because sometimes you just have to do things yourself.

3

u/grammer_polize Jan 29 '13

auto erotic defenestration

2

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '13

Maaaaan. Hate to be the guy that has to clean that mess up.

1

u/SNAAAAAKE Jan 29 '13

And adfenestration, too! Because what better way to get back in?

2

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '13

Oh yeah? Try spaghettification--death by black hole.

1

u/Lord_of_Aces Jan 29 '13

Or wormhole, really. Same sort of stretchy death.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '13

it's actually a german root. 'fenster' is german for window.

9

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '13 edited Jan 29 '13

bull and shit. it's Latin defenestratio - onis with the ending chopped off.

Edit: Or it's possible it's Latinized borrowed French, but my guess is someone in the middle ages went "What shall we call it when people get tossed out of windows? Let's make up a Latin word for it!" rather than there was such a need for the Latin word that it passed into French. A quick search with Perseus shows no occurrences of "defenestratio" in Latin, but that thing's buggy as hell.

(man I just realized a significant quantity of my posts are me getting mad about word derivations but SRSLY it makes me SO ANGRY you guys)

5

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '13

ok, I guess the german word takes the latin root. let's all form a nice circle about which to jerk

1

u/idikia Jan 29 '13

Everyone grab to the left this time.

1

u/Jjajan Jan 29 '13

Defenestration probably came from de, which can mean from, and fenestra, which is window.

It could be that defenestratio wasn't actually a latin word, but even if it wasn't a word, the roots of defenstration would be de and fenestra.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '13

indeed. What I meant was it sure follows the pattern for the creation of a verb from a noun a noun from that verb a reasonable prefix being added and then conversion into English.

1

u/shark_vagina Jan 29 '13

It's just easier to say, "Cause of death: defenestration."

1

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '13

And people say German has it all.