It’s a Funny Thing, Copywriting

Buster Keaton

“A comedian does funny things,” Buster Keaton said. “A good comedian does things funny.”

This might appear a bit opaque on the first reading. But it’s an interesting distinction.

Between simply making people laugh. Or making people laugh and think more deeply about what might lie beneath the surface of the comedy.

Given the repetition of the word ‘funny’, the quote also suggests a link to the question, ‘funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?’. To put it another way, is the word ‘funny’ being used to mean ‘amusing’ and ‘humorous’? Or is it intended to indicate ‘strange’ and ‘weird’? Rather different things, I think you’d agree.

The question itself an odd construction. But this reflects the complex etymology of the word ‘funny’. The Oxford English Dictionary records its first use in 1756 in the sense of producing mirth or fun. But some 50 years or so years later it could also be used to mean ‘curious’ or ‘odd’.   

Pascal Tréguer, on his website word histories, records the first use of the phrase in 1916 in The Alpha Phi Quarterly (Wisconsin, USA). After which, it entered popular culture. 

It even spawned a book, Funny Ha Ha and Funny Peculiar (1965), by Denys Parsons. The book is a collection of howlers and oddities taken from newspapers from around the world. Unintended ambiguities sit side-by-side with stories which are simply strange.

The erosion of certainty

As times have changed, it’s become harder to draw a clear distinction between the two definitions of the word funny.

The post-modernism that emerged in culture in the 1970s offered an increasingly self-referential view of the world. Old certainties fragmented and boundaries started to blur. Audiences now are, in effect, invited to decide for themselves whether something is funny ha-ha or funny peculiar. Or both.

I think what Keaton had grasped was that doing things differently, or in a new way, opened up new comic possibilities.

That there’s everything to be gained by stepping across boundaries to tell a story and make people laugh.

Keaton was a master of his craft who created a unique comedic world. He combined the slapstick genre with incredible storytelling skills and technical virtuosity.

In a cinematic environment that relied on exaggeration, he remained impassive. His poker-faced inscrutability and stoic charm endeared him to many.

Seeing with new eyes

Maybe there’s a lesson for copywriters here. Looking at things through a new prism is creativity at work.

For sure, words are our medium. But it’s our innate curiosity about life that gets us started. Our ability to occupy our imagination and strike out in new directions. To carve out our own space. Reject conformity. Go against the grain. And embrace difference.

What matters is the underlying creativity that our words represent, the ideas they convey and their power to connect with people.

In the process, we might offer a healthy dose of irreverence to set us apart from others.  

In an increasingly noisy world, taking risks with your copy pays dividends. As the man said, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Or, as Hunter S. Thompson put it, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”