Or is the word plinth funny?

[Vexorg]

I can’t explain why, but I’ve always found the word plinth deeply funny. When we were organising the kitchen, I kept sniggering whoever we talked about fitting the units.
I also laugh at crayon.
Does anyone else have words that make them smirk?

Miranda heart did an entire sketch on this so yes, it's funny

My words:

Escutcheon: an unnecessarily long word to describe a small and insignificant object (the metal plate around a keyhole).

@Eckhart I don't like "booth" either, especially "phone booth".

Beverage: it was a family joke I never lived down that I mispronounced it when I read it in the supermarket.

Pohutukawa (a New Zealand tree). In my primary school, this word came up in one of our reading books, which baffled the children, and the headmistress. The only teacher in the school from New Zealand had to be consulted on the correct pronunciation! Google could not help in 1987.

There were some words that Hyacinth Bucket made funny from the way she said them. "Brochure" was one, and "riparian" was another.

Pamphlet!

@wanderings I have never heard the word 'escutcheon' before and have fallen in love with it on first sight

Monday 6:30, OP. No-one can replace Humph (especially when it comes to delivering double entendres) but Jack Dee does pretty well.

@Eckhart I only found it out by accident. In a shop, I asked for the metal plate around a keyhole, and the chap said "oh, an escutcheon".

I tried to find a video of this, but none came forth on YouTube, so here are Tony Hancock's thoughts on the word "bicuspid":

(Feeling his teeth) Which one's the bicuspid? I've wanted to know that for years. It's a funny word, bicuspid. "Bicuspid! BicusPID! By Cuspid, he's a handsome fellow." Bicuspid must be from the Latin: bi meaning two, one on each side; cus… meaning to swear, and pid… meaning plinth. Greek, probably, Greek for teeth. So bicuspid: two swearing teeth.

Albatross
Kerfuffle
Poutine
Hackneyed
Pugnacious

Gosh, I didn't know escutcheon had another meaning (I always thought it just meant coat of arms)! Good work there @wanderings.

@Vexorg are you a Pratchett fan? Have you read The Truth? Great use of the word plinth therein.

Plop
But said as if it has at least 3 l's
Pllllop

"Footwork" makes me chuckle, especially when used in netball. One reason is because it can mean both good and bad: good as in "fancy footwork", but if the umpire calls "Footwork!" just after blowing the whistle, it means wrong use of feet. Somehow it's funny if the umpire sounds the "t" when they say it.

Phalanges makes me laugh out loud. I used to work in a gp surgery and it became an occupational hazard. Phalanges!

"Plinth" is very funny but it's not quite in the league of "plectrum" or "rhubarb".

Pilchards
Ointment

Another Rowan Atkinson one is when he's a schoolmaster calling the register, making surnames sound funny from the way he says them, with names such as "Haemoglobin", "Nibble", "Orifice", "Plectrum", "Undermanager".

An obscure one was molybdenum. I had a metallurgy lecturer who couldn’t say the word. I can hear him now saying m’lybnum.

Mince as a verb and palaver are funny now you mention it.

Oooh! Havelock, I’m going to have to read it again now.

Goblet always makes me chuckle. Sounds like a baby turkey!

Trainers, trainers, trainers (meaning shoes). I find "trainers" a funny word: in the 80s and 90s it seemed to be rarely used on the printed page, mostly spoken only. Was it only in the 1980s that people started calling them "trainers"? I remember noticing in a classroom dictionary, the only meaning given was "people who train".

The rest of the world doesn't seem to favour the word, preferring "sneakers" (USA) and "runners" (Australia and New Zealand). I also noticed that in a running magazine I read in the 1990s, "trainers" was surprisingly rare: they were always "running shoes". Perhaps the writers of the articles were old enough to remember life before trainers, when it was only "plimsolls"? Even my school uniform list said "training shoes" in the 1990s.

More recently, it's remarkable how often "trainers" are mentioned in Harry Potter. "I expect your trainers are too small, Won-Won," said a voice behind him; and in the same book (Half Blood Prince), Harry was clutching his telescope and trainers several times in one chapter.

@TulipCat That's cute! You have changed the word 'goblet' for me forever

Discombobulated

Willy nilly

I’ve just read this and am sniggering quietly into my cup of tea 😂