Booty, twit & tinkle top list of English's funniest words

Body parts feature strongly in a new list of the funniest words in the English language.

Booty, tit and booby top the list, compiled by the psychology department at the University of Warwick in the UK.

The researchers showed more than 800 people 5,000 random words and asked them to rate them from one to five according to how humorous they were.

The final top 12 published by Tomas Engelthaler and Thomas Hills, in order, were: Booty, tit, booby, hooter, nitwit, twit, waddle, tinkle, bebop, egghead, ass and twerp.

Men found sexual words such as orgy and bondage the funniest, as well as birthmark, brand, chauffeur, doze, buzzard, czar, weld, prod, corn and raccoon.

Women said the funniest words included giggle, beast, circus, grand, juju, humbug, slicker, sweat, ennui, holder, momma and sod.

Younger people (aged 32 and below) thought words like goatee, joint and gangster were funniest and older people laughed more at squint, jingle, burlesque and pong.

Said Engelthaler: "The research initially came about as a result of our curiosity. We were wondering if certain words are perceived as funnier, even when read on their own.

"It turns out that is the case. Humour is an everyday aspect of our lives and we hope this publicly available data set allows future researchers to better understand its foundations."

The research is published in the peer-reviewed journal Behaviour Research Methods.