The K Rule and Making Your Writing a Little Funnier
Last night, I went into a quick internet hole where I watched funny things—reels and videos people made, screen grabs of texts or of funny stories.
It was five minutes of happiness.
Poor Shaun (the man who somehow married me) had to hear me snort laugh randomly as something someone made struck me.
There is something really lovely about humor. Our want of laughter makes us share memes about cats pretending to drive. Many of us watch or read funny things—even funny interpretations of the news, right?
Humor and comedy is also a really great tool in your writer’s toolbox.
It’s also a good thing to have in your regular old “let’s live life” toolbox.
A QUICK STORY
Some of us writers write funny unintentionally. We don't quite have a choice because we approach life with humor. I can't tell you how many times people have been frustrated with me because of my approach to life (the humorous kind) when it's not their approach (the not-so-humorous kind).
I’ve told this story before, but hang on, it’s only five paragraphs.
When I was pregnant with Em, she tried to come out really early. It was pretty dire. The midwife told me this during our appointment and I made a joke while the baby daddy turned pale and almost passed out on the floor.
The midwife looked at me and said, "This is serious."
And I said, "I know this is serious. I'm not stupid. But I deal with serious things with humor. Would you rather I sobbed on the floor? Or pass out like him over there?"
I almost started to talk about how humor is an adaptive coping mechanisms to deal with stressful times, but I held back—for once.
She was a smart human and she got it. Sort of. And yes, I took a tiny bit of time to lecture everyone on how people process things differently, and that’s okay. I was stressed and full of hormones.
THE K RULE
Anyway, one of the weirdest and easiest ways to make your stories a bit funnier is to use the K Rule.
The K Rule?
Yep, the K Rule.
Writers Digest explains it well.
“It may sound strange, but it’s true: Words with the k sound (Cadillac, quintuplet, sex) are perceived as the funniest, and words with a hard g (guacamole, gargantuan, Yugo) create almost as many grins,” they write. This may be because much of what makes Americans laugh today has roots in Yiddish humor, the language of which includes many guttural sounds—and the k and hard g are as close as English comes. The K Rule is so widely used by comedy writers that Matt Groening’s team once referenced it in an episode of ‘The Simpsons; when Sideshow Mel explained that Krusty (note spelling) the Clown had laryngitis from ‘trying to cram too many k sounds into a punch line.’
“The K Rule is a good convention for naming things and making word choices that will subconsciously or subtly amuse your readers. This tool is especially handy in crafting attention-grabbing titles or subheads. Consider this memorable section heading in the book You Staying Young: The Owner’s Manual for Extending Your Warranty by Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz: ‘Your Memory: Don’t Fuggedaboudit.’”
Or, as Grammar Girl said,
“The humor potential of the letter ‘k’ has been part of comic lore for years. In the Neil Simon play The Sunshine Boys, the character Willy explains it to his nephew: ‘Fifty-seven years in this business, you learn a few things. You know what words are funny and which words are not funny. Alka Seltzer is funny. You say “Alka Seltzer,” you get a laugh . . . Words with ‘k’ in them are funny. Casey Stengel, that’s a funny name. Robert Taylor is not funny.’ ”
People like Peter McGraw caution that this rule might not be true.
And when you look at lists of “funniest words” in the English language, there are k-words in there (fartlek), but not all are using that hard “k” or hard “g” sounds, like, say, “bumbershoot.” Some are funny because they sound a bit like naughtiness. FARTlek. BUMbershoot. Right?
I think that the issue of whether or not it’s funny might be partially because the humor comes from the context, the unexpected use of a word with that sound.
OTHER WAYS TO MAKE YOUR STORY FUNNIER
If you’re a writer, there are several elements that can be used to make a story funnier.
Timing. Make it snappy.
Character quirks.
Character names.
Juxtapositions
One liners
Overstatement - Dave Barry style or understatement
Vivid language and tweaked language.
List of funny sounding things
Anecdotes. Situations in your own life that have made you laugh.
All these things, when you embrace them, look for them, can make your life more fun and funnier, too.
A QUICK(ISH) NOTE FROM ME
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Kosmo Kramer....