The concept of inherent humor appears to be heavily dependent on culture. Yiddish and German words, for example, are a staple of humor in American English, in particular those that begin with the /ʃ/ ("sh") sound, spelled sch- (or sometimes sh- in Yiddish). Take for example the derisive prefix shm- or schm-, as in "Oedipus schmoedipus!" - the trick known as schm-reduplication. Similarly, texts in Dutch often seem comical to English-speaking readers, perhaps because much written Dutch is partially intelligible but curiously spelled from an English-language point of view. The Dutch, on the other hand, consider Swedish to be a very funny language. For speakers of English, most Slavic languages are funny, probably due to the excess of fricative and affricate sounds. Surprisingly enough, speakers of Slavic languages themselves find all other Slavic languages utterly hilarious, for instance Czech language is side-splitting for Poles and Belarusians, largely because many perfectly ordinary Czech words sound similar to diminutives in those languages. Czechs and Slovaks also find Polish expressions hilarious, not because they sound like diminutives, but because they sound silly. Jokes featuring real or faux-Polish words exist in the Slovak and Czech languages.

It has been determined using the comparative method that the Finnish language developed the sound Ö [ø] relatively recently to introduce a fronted counterpart to [o], in line with [a] - [æ] and [u] - [y]. Moreover, the new sound has found use mostly in words considered by many to be derisive or amusing. For example, the reason the vowel /ö/ was originally used for the word pöllö "owl" was to make it sound stupid, since the Finnish mythology and folklore always presents the owl as a stupid animal. Most words meaning "stupid" contain /ø/, e.g. hölmö, pöhkö, höhlä, höperö, pöpi. ^{[1] [2]} Words with front vowels, especially with [ø], are inherently funny, or derisive, e.g. älä hölise ja kälätä "don't talk nonsense and babble". In Finnic linguistics, the term "expressive" is often used. One can consider words such as jööti "gross chunk" or "törkeä" obscene, aggravated (legal). Words that contain either <ö> or <öö> and are neutral-sounding are uncommon. Notice that this doesn't apply to the diphthongs <öy> and , which have developed from earlier sounds, and are not inherently funny.

For example, the radio panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue includes an occasional round called "Straight Face", in which the panelists take turns saying a single word. A player is eliminated from the game if anyone in the audience laughs at their word ("even the merest titter"). The winner is the last player standing. The fact that this game works, and that it is possible to predict more or less accurately which words are safe to use and which are unsafe, can be construed as evidence that the phenomenon is real.