Funny is ...

People often come up to me in the street and ask for advice on preparing a humorous blog post. Most often this happens when I am wearing my sandwich board signage that says, "Please, ask me about writing a humorous blog post." Be that as it may, I think the most important advice that I can give is to consider exactly which words you employ. Some words are just naturally funny and others will always fall flat regardless of the context. Given that this is so important to an aspiring blogster, I thought that I would provide some explicit examples to get you started considering your word choices.

nouns:
Good: cretin, bedwetter, malcontent, ne'er-do-well
Bad: jerk, poop-head, IRS agent, politician, lawyer

verbs:
Good: waz, drool, absquatulate, bloviate
Bad: run, jump, announce, adjudicate

adjectives:
Good: spunky, fresh-faced, soulless, insouciant, verdant
Bad: pimply, squeamish, mild-mannered, benign, woody

interjections:
Good: zoinks, egad, begorrah, narf, great Xerxes' ham
Bad: any cuss word, phooey, hakuna matata, dadgum, baloney

As a clear illustration of these basic blogging facts, consider the following Mad-style lib. Try filling in the blanks with words recognized as "bad" and then go through it again using the words recognized as "good".

I went to my doctor the other day. Man, that guy is a real    (adjective)       (noun)   . I went in for him to    (verb)    on me, but all he did was give me a bill for $823.74. I could only yell,    (interjection)   .

The difference is quite noticeable, don't you think?