Word for not trying to be funny

• #1

Can you tell me if this sounds like a good translation of the above phrase? It’s from a conversation where person A is trying to be serious, and Person B misunderstands something they say and indicates to them that they are so funny. Person A responds by saying that they are not trying to be funny.

No estoy haciendo el gracioso.

Gracias

• #2

Or could you say:
No estoy haciendo divertido.

• #3

No me estoy haciendo el gracioso.

Gracias

Or could you say:
No estoy haciendo divertido.

Un saludo

• #4

Oh, muchas gracias!

• #5

De nada. La construcción es hacerse el gracioso: yo me hago, tú te haces, etc.

Un saludo

• #6

Hola. He oído esta expresión varias veces y, aunque intuyo el significado, no estoy del todo segura. ¿Significa » no es por nada, pero…»?

Por ejemplo: I’m not being funny, but you have been very rude with that boy. No es por nada, pero has sido muy maleducado con ese chico.

¿Es correcto el significado?.

Gracias de antemano. Saludos.

• #7

Por ejemplo: I’m not being funny, but you have been very rude with that boy. No es por nada, pero has sido muy maleducado con ese chico.

«I’m not being funny but…» is used often by British people as a ‘softener’ before saying something critical or politically incorrect.

It was named on the BBC as one of the most annoying cliches in the English language and I agree.

e.g. I’m not being funny but women are the worst drivers

See also: «With respect….» followed by a disrespectful comment; or «I don’t mean to be rude but…» followed by a rude comment.

• #8

Sí, su traducción sería algo similar a: «no es por nada, pero…»

На основании Вашего запроса эти примеры могут содержать грубую лексику.

На основании Вашего запроса эти примеры могут содержать разговорную лексику.

не пытаюсь быть смешным

не пыталась быть забавной

не шучу

And I’m not trying to be funny.

I’ll tell you a secret — a lot of times I’m not trying to be funny at all.

When I write, I’m not trying to be funny.

I’m not trying to be funny today.

I’m not trying to be funny.

Baby, I’m not trying to be funny.

I’m not trying to be funny.

I’m not trying to be funny.

I am not trying to be funny, because it truly is important to define these terms.

Я не шучу, поскольку действительно важно определить эти понятия.

I am not trying to be funny.

He’s the funniest when he’s not trying to be funny.

So I’m not trying to be funny, but I’ve got this payment tonight… and if there’s any chance of having the money…

В общем, я не пытаюсь быть странным, но мне нужно совершать платеж и если есть шанс получить деньги…

I’m not trying to be funny, — you peasant!

I’m not trying to be funny but, how about a frying pan?

I’m not trying to be funny, okay?

«I’m really not trying to be funny.»

I’m not trying to be funny, Summerhill.

«I’m not trying to be funny here, but Stacy Peterson would ask me for a divorce… on a regular basis, and it was based on her menstrual cycle.»

«Я не пытаюсь быть смешными здесь, но Стейси Петерсон будет просить меня о разводе… на регулярной основе, и она была основана на ее менструальном цикле».

I’m not trying to be funny you guys, I’m just

I’m not trying to be funny.

Ничего не найдено для этого значения.

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You’ve probably come across such a person who tries to be funny but he can’t be because he’s not but he thinks he is. Their jokes are old or simply what they say is not funny, you get the idea. Not that they’re weird or bad; actually they turn out to be real sweethearts sometimes but they’re just not funny. What do you call such a person?

Your grandpa is nice but let’s face it: he’s [the word]

Oh man I don’t know why he tries so hard to be funny! Why nobody tells him that he’s just [the word]. That’s pathetic!

An adjective, a noun, or a noun phrase will do.

Edit: In my native language we have an adjective to describe such a person which literally means insipid that is used for food, too. Like insipid food which tastes bland, the person who’s *insipid has not much sense of humor as if being funny was like spice making the person *tasteful. I thought there might be an equivalent in English but I gave up searching after a while and I posted the question.

Thanks

Of course, I can’t exactly remember the conversation that inspired this post. But as we were leaving a café, Better Half said  I’m not being funny, but Costa’s coffee has really gone downhill.† And I thought: that’s the British idiom I’m going to cover next, because there is just so much Britishness in it.

In fact, in a 2009 paper in Discourse & Society, Judith Baxter and Kieran Wallace describe a particular use of it as:

the typically British idiom ‘I’m not being funny’ [used] to downplay the effect of a sensitive or non-politically correct comment

The phrase I’m not being funny but occurs five times in the 100-million-word British National Corpus (BNC) and zero times in the 425-million-word Corpus of Contemporary American English (both at corpus.byu.edu). The material in the BNC is 20+ years old, and since the phrase seems to be on the rise, I would expect it to occur more often these days. In 2008, it made a BBC list of 20 most hated clichés. There, a ‘Rosie Spectacle’ comments that it’s «usually followed by a highly irritating and officious remark.» Let’s see if that’s true.

All the BNC examples come from the 17.8-million-word spoken part of the corpus:

1. I ‘m not being funny but she can’t stick up for herself, that girl can’t
2. Giles won’t tell me but he definitely knows the two people that’ve laid her. Oh aren’t they lucky gits. And I think that I ‘m not being funny but I think that Jim did one.
3. I ‘m not being funny but I think that’s actually maybe quite important, 
4. The contract sorry is very specific. I ‘m not being funny but we’re nitpicking now at the difference between […] site instructions and V Os
5. And I ‘m not being funny but when Malcolm did it, we would do that [a physical recount] almost two or three days after the stock taking if there were odd counts

Is I’m not being funny but preceding «sensitive», «irritating» or «officious» comments in each case? Well, it depends on what you are sensitive about. In some of these cases, there is clearly the potential for causing offen{c/s}e—for instance, in (1) the person might be saying something critical about a friend. In others, it’s not clear that anyone would disagree with the statement, as in BH’s comment about coffee, or in (3), a context in which all the interlocutors seem to be agreeing that it’s important to be sensitive to the needs of the visually impaired at some event. In my experience, the minimal requirement for an I’m not being funny but prologue is that the speaker is expressing an opinion. The optimal contexts for using it are those in which the statement (a) could be interpreted as a complaint or a criticism or (b) might not be shared by everyone. In the coffee example, it was hardly the type of thing that would have offended me, so I was amused that he’d bothered to preface it in this way. But he still said it, he says, «So you won’t think I’m petty. Out of some insecurity.» It expresses a strange kind of plea to be taken seriously along with what seems like an implicit apology for having had an opinion.

This relates to various things that Kate Fox discusses in Watching the English. There are the «modesty rules»—i.e. cultural rules that enforce the appearance (but not necessarily the reality) of modesty and the importance of not seeming earnest, but instead always being ready to keep things light with humo(u)r. So, you have an opinion, but the need to appear modest means that you have to avoid sounding self-important. The avoidance of earnestness means that people are always ready to assume that you’re joking if you seem het up* about something. So, what do you do if you want to state an opinion? You try to disguise it as a small fact («she can’t stick up for herself»), preface it with I’m not being funny but to signal that something controversial is coming, then let the listener fill in a lot of the opinion (e.g. ‘she is weak and probably deserves what she gets if she won’t stick up for herself’), so that you don’t have to earnestly or controversially say it. 

I should say, one doesn’t absolutely need the but in the phrase, but it’s very often there. And we can say I’m not being funny to sincerely mean just that—for instance, as a protest when someone starts laughing after you’ve told them something sad. That’s not the pre-emptive use—the ‘let me put this negative opinion here’ use—that one hears so much in the UK. That said, I think that in AmE, at least, one would be more likely in those more literal cases to say I’m being serious rather than the negated I’m not being funny. 

Blogger is acting very strange these days…I hope you’ll be able to post comments below!

Postscript, the next morning:
I blogged in a rush last night, which isn’t the best thing for working on something pragmatic.  Let me just add—the funny in I’m not being funny but can indeed (as some people have written to say) be read as the ‘queer, peculiar’ sense of the word. But that meaning is not unrelated to the ‘humorous’ meaning. It’s best translated, I think, as ‘I’m not trying to be difficult, but…’. But I do believe that the choice of funny in this phrase plays on this ambiguity—it’s saying both ‘I’m not making a joke’ and ‘I’m not being eccentric’. (Glad to see some comments are getting through—I know some others haven’t. What’s up with Blogger, eh**?)

† I belatedly found where I’d written down what BH said, so I’ve replaced my earlier ‘the coffee is really disgusting’ with the much more British understatement ‘has gone downhill’. ‘Has become disgusting to me’ is what he meant though. This means I’ve also changed some further references to his statement. And, for the record, I like Costa’s coffee and BH has been complaining about everyone’s coffee lately…
* orig. BrE dialectal & AmE, now more common in BrE
** The eh is prevalent in Canadian English but also in my not-so-far-from-Canada AmE dialect.

What makes you funny, and how do you get there?

I mean, it is probably one of the biggest parts of me and my friend’s conversations, and I feel like I’m terrible at contributing.

-Elena

Elena isn’t the only one with this question. A lot of people want to be more funny.

What you’ll learn in this guide

• First, we’ll talk about types of humor and specific things you can say.
• Then, we’ll cover how to relax and be more fun in general.
• Lastly, I talk about types of humor to avoid.

Chapter 1: Types of humor and specific things to say that are funny

1. When someone says something people laugh at, think about WHY it was funny

Analyze other’s jokes. And even more important: When you say something people laugh at, analyze what you said and the way you said it.

• Was it the timing? (When you said it).
• Was it the tone you said it with? (Was the tone happy, sarcastic, angry, etc.)
• Was it the expression on your face? (Was it strained, relaxed, emotional, blank, etc.)
• Was it the body language? (Open, closed, what was your pose, etc.)

Compare what you said to other times you got laughs. When you find patterns, you can use that pattern to come up with more successful jokes in the future.

Below, we are going to look at different types of humor.

2. Canned jokes are seldom funny

Canned jokes (the ones you read in “funny jokes-lists”) are, ironically, seldom funny.

What’s truly funny is the unexpected comment about the very situation you’re in.

OR – a story related to the situation about something unexpected you experienced.

Canned jokes can have a place if you share funny stories with each other. But there’s another problem with those jokes:

They don’t make YOU come off as funny. To be seen as funny, you want to comment on what’s funny in the very situation you’re in.

3. Misreading a situation on purpose is often funny

I was at a birthday party a few days ago, and we were divided into three groups.

We played games where we competed against each other, and out of the three groups, my group had hands-down the worst results.

I remarked, “Well, at least we got third place,” and the table laughed.

People laughed because I misread the situation on purpose by acting as though the third place was a good thing when really, third place was the last place.

How to use:

What comment can you make about a situation that, to everyone, would be an obvious misunderstanding?

4. Comment on a situation in an obviously sarcastic way

During the hale storm: “Ahh, nothing’s refreshing like a breeze.”

Sarcasm can quickly get old and make you come off as a cynical person. Don’t make it your only form of humor.

How to use:

What’s an overly positive response to a negative situation? Or, what’s an overly negative response to a positive situation?

5. Tell awkward stories people can see themselves in

People tend to appreciate stories that they can relate to.

Say that you mention that you fixed your hair in a store window, and then you suddenly make eye contact with someone on the other side of the window.

Because many have experienced this situation, it becomes more relatable and funnier.

How to use:

Know that awkward stories are a safe bet if the audience can relate to them.

6. Bring up unexpected contrasts

A friend, standing in his kitchen, said:

When I think about how the universe will cool down in billions of years and the only thing remaining will be weak radiation, it feels demotivating to fold the cartons before you recycle them.

This is funny because there’s a contrast between the end of the universe and folding cartons.

How to use:

What’s the very opposite of the subject you’re talking about or the situation you’re in? Humor is often based on unexpected contrasts.

7. Say something obviously wrong

You’re in a hurry with your friends to head out, and you just need to run to the bathroom while they put on their shoes. You say, “I’ll be right back, I’m just going to take a quick bath.”

It’s funny because it’s obvious that it’s the wrong thing to do. Why is it funny? There’s a microsecond of disconnect and then a release when they realize that you’re joking.[1,2]

How to use:

Saying something that is so obviously wrong that it can’t be mistaken for being serious is usually funny.

8. Turn something someone said into a catchphrase

A friend and I saw an interview where the interviewee said at one point, “It’s fun to a certain degree,” in a particular accent.

This soon became a catchphrase, using the same accent worded in different forms.

How was the movie? “It was good to a certain degree.” How was it at your parent’s place? “It was nice to a certain degree.” How was the food? “It was tasty to a certain degree.”

This is an example of an inside joke catchphrase.

How to use:

If someone says something the group reacts to (or if you watched a movie together and a character said something memorable) that phrase can be applied to completely different situations. Don’t over-use. (As it only gets fun to a certain degree).

9. Point out comedic truths about a situation

My father, an artist, once said that he was happy that I didn’t follow his tracks and become an artist as the career is so unsafe.

My friend realized that my life as an entrepreneur has been just as unsafe:

 “What a relief to him that you became an entrepreneur instead.”

This made us laugh because he picked up on the truth of the situation[3]: Being an entrepreneur is just as insecure as being an artist.

How to use

If you see a clear truth about a situation that isn’t clear to others, a simple, factual comment on it can in itself be funny. Don’t bring up truths that make people sad, upset, or embarrassed.

10. When you tell stories, make sure there’s a twist at the end

My friend once told me how he woke up for school one day being so tired that he could barely get out of bed.

But he still made coffee, made breakfast, and got dressed. He puked a little. Then he realized that it was 1:30 in the morning.

The story was funny because there was a plot twist at the very end.

If he’d started the story by saying that he woke up at 1:30 but thought it was 8 AM, there would be no unexpected twist, and the story wouldn’t be funny.

Read more: How to be good at telling stories.

How to use

If something unexpected happens in your life, that can make for a good story. Make sure to reveal the unexpected part by the very end of the story.

11. How you say it is as important as what you say

Some focus too much on what to say and not how they say it.

The way you deliver the joke is as important as what you actually say.

Ever heard someone say about a comedian, “It doesn’t matter what he/she says, it’s always funny.” It’s because of the voice he or she uses when they say it.

Sometimes, a blank, emotionless voice can even make the punchline stronger because it’s more unexpected.

How to use:

When you see friends or comedians pull jokes that get a good reaction, pay attention to HOW they say the joke. What can you learn from the delivery?

12. Instead of pulling jokes to get laughs, say the things you laugh at yourself

In comedy classes and speaking classes, they have a rule: “You don’t have to be funny”.[4,5]

It means that you don’t want to come off as a jokester or someone who TRIES to be funny. It can come off as needy or try-hard.

A test is to ask if YOU would laugh if someone else had pulled the joke you want to pull. That’s a better motivator than trying to get laughs.

Humor is about presenting life’s absurdities in a way that makes everyone see that it’s hilarious for themselves.

13. See what humor style you have

There are a lot of different types of humor patterns. Everyone’s sense of humor is unique, but chances are you fall more within some categories of humor than you do into others.

Finding out your style of humor can help you determine what humor patterns to focus on as you work on becoming funnier around your friends.

Take this What’s Your Humor Style? Quiz to learn more about the type of humor that naturally comes to you.

Chapter 2: How to be more relaxed and funny

49.7% of single men and 58.1% of single women say humor in a partner is a dealbreaker.^[12]

14. You don’t have to be witty or good at banter to be likable

Jokes can help you bond, but they aren’t a deal-breaker when it comes to being likable.[6,7]

You don’t have to be funny in conversations to be fun to hang out with. Maybe you’ve even noticed how people who try too hard to be funny become less fun to hang out with.

It’s not a coincidence that the main characters in many movies AREN’T jokesters – they are likable in other, often more effective ways.

Being “the funny one” isn’t the only thing that can make you attractive or enjoyable to spend time with.

If being funny just isn’t your thing and you don’t want to make yourself do something you don’t enjoy, then don’t force it.

However, being able to relax and be easygoing is more important than being able to pull jokes. Here’s some advice on how to be more fun to be around.

15. If you feel stiff, practice mindsets to take the situation less seriously

Sometimes, we think, “I need to be great socially here, or people will think that I’m weird,” or “I need to make one new friend here for this to not be a failure.”

That puts pressure on us, which can make us stiff.

Instead, it can help to see socializing as a playground where you practice for the future.

The purpose of social settings doesn’t have to be to perform flawlessly. The purpose can be to test what works so that you can be better in the future.

Thinking this way can help us take the situation less seriously.

16. Ask yourself what a confident person would have done

Often, the reason we feel stiff and nervous is that we’re overly worried that we’ll make social mistakes.[8]

However, to improve socially we need to try new things and make mistakes to learn what works and what doesn’t.

In reality, confident people make as many mistakes, it’s just that they don’t care about it. It can help to ask yourself what a confident person would think if they made the mistake you just did.

Often, we conclude that they wouldn’t care. This can help us dare to try new things in social settings.

17. Try improv theater might help

Improv theater is all about improvisation and finding humor in the moment.[9] Therefore, it can help to learn to practice how to be witty.

You can search for “improv theater [your city]” on Google to find local classes.

18. To become a quicker thinker, walk around the room and practice saying the name of objects

This is an exercise to speed up your speaking abilities. Walk around the room and name everything you see. “Table,” “lamp,” “iPhone.” See how fast you can do it. If you do this every day for 1-2 weeks, you will improve the speed that you’re able to recollect words.[10]

You can also mislabel each item (calling the table a lamp, etc). This creates other neural pathways that help you improvise faster.

19. Watch stand-up and comedy shows to reflect on WHY the funny parts are funny

Whenever the audience laughs, pause the video and ask yourself why that joke was funny. Can you find patterns?

20. If you’re telling a funny, outrageous story, it’s often funnier if you tell it in a low-key way

If you tell a story in an excited voice with a grin on your face, that can come off as if you’re trying to get laughs. This often makes it less funny.

Instead, let the joke be funny in itself. Humor is often about the unexpected. If people aren’t certain what will happen next (If there will be a joke or what will happen), the reaction to the twist is often more explosive.

21. Don’t try to be funny all the time

One or two jokes during a night are enough to be seen as a funny, humorous person. But if people start expecting that everything you say is funny, you might instead come off as try-hard or needy.

22. Different people like different humor, so you can’t use the same humor in all situations

A joke can be hilarious for some and fall flat for others. See what type of humor works in what friend groups by observing friends successful jokes.

23. If you get stuck in your head trying to chase fun things to say, it can help to instead observe the situation and let thoughts come to you

Humor is often situational. It means that a quick comment about the absurdity of a situation is more fun than cracking an unrelated joke.

However, being in your head trying to chase funny things to say makes it even harder to pick up on the situation.

Focus on being present in the situation. You can do that by bringing your attention back to what’s happening around you when you notice that you get stuck in your thoughts.

Type of humor to avoid

Being funny can make you more relatable. But using offensive humor can make you less relatable.

Students found instructors using funny humor to be more relatable, but instructors using offensive humor to be less relatable.^[11]

There are some types of humor that you want to use with caution; some people use their sense of humor in a way that is harmful to both themselves and the people around them.

1. Put-Down Humor

One of these detrimental types of humor is that of making fun of someone else– also known as put-down humor. Laughter is commonly referred to as the cheapest medicine, but laughter at the expense of another person is not free– its asking price is the dignity and value of the person who is serving as the butt of the joke.

Making fun of someone can be hilarious once, not so funny twice, and is closing in on bullying thrice.

As a rule of thumb, I make it a goal for people to leave conversations with me feeling like a better person.

I try to give others value. It makes us both feel good. It’s an easy win-win.

Making fun of someone else takes away their value, making them feel worse about themselves as a result of your relationship. Lose-lose. Do not make it a habit of being funny at someone else’s expense.

Explains Dobson in her article, put-down humor is an “aggressive type of humor…used to criticize and manipulate others through teasing, sarcasm, and ridicule. . . Put-down humor is a socially acceptable way to deploy aggression and make others look bad, so you look good.”

In other words, put-down humor is a form of bullying that does just as much harm as more blatant forms of verbal aggression.

2. Self-Deprecation

Referred to by Dobson as “hate-me humor,” this is the type of humor in which people put themselves at the center of the joke. While it can often be funny and isn’t always a bad thing, it’s important to use this type of humor with a measure of caution.

“Routinely offering yourself up to be humiliated erodes your self-respect, fostering depression and anxiety. It can also backfire by making other people feel uncomfortable,” she says in her article.

As a rule of thumb, don’t make self-deprecating jokes about something you are actually insecure about.