How Did “Humour” Get to Be Funny?

From body fluids to belly laughs...

I’ve spent this past week immersed in the question of how we can measure a sense of humour, something I’m now testing as a way to help people break the ice by discovering what kind of comedy tastes they share.

In the course of all this, I fell down a rabbit hole that reminded me just how strange a word humour is.

We talk about someone having “a good sense of humour.” But we also say they were “in good humour”—which isn’t quite the same. We “humour” a friend when we go along with something we’re not wild about. And if you’ve ever studied anatomy, you’ll know that the watery part of the eye is still called “the humour.”

That’s not a coincidence.

The word humour comes from the Latin umor, meaning “fluid.” It first referred to the four main bodily fluids (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile) that ancient and medieval physicians believed governed our temperament. If you were melancholic, it was because of too much black bile. If you were sanguine, you had an abundance of blood. Your humour was your disposition.

Over time, that idea of inner mood and temperament gave way to something lighter and more social. By the 1600s, humour had begun to describe the quirks and eccentricities that made people amusing. Gradually it narrowed again, to refer to the quality of being funny itself.

What began as a theory of internal fluids, therefore, became a word for what makes us laugh.

And perhaps this evolution is fitting. Our sense of humour still reflects something deep inside us: something about how we see the world, what tickles us, and what kind of laughter feels like home.

So yes, this week I’ve been thinking a lot about humour. And it’s funny where that can lead you.