Who says that British are not funny?

Despite Britain’s reputation as a rather serious place they have many different types of words to refer to smiles and laughs. How many ways can the British laugh and smile?

I’ve always been really curious about the great number of English words for sonrisa. In Spanish if you try to find synomyms for this word, you are not going to find many, actually you only have risita or carcajada or risa. If we want to say what type of sonrisa we are referring to we’d have to add an adjective to explain the type of sonrisa. However, something quite different happens in English ; with just one word you can indicate the type of smile you are referring to. Here you are some examples:

A chortle is a gleeful chuckle and a chuckle is that kind of laugh that you try to suppress because you are in a situation where you can’t laugh as you’d like.

Then we have the giggle which is that kind of laugh which is repeated in a quiet but uncontrolled way when you are nervous. What’s more, if you have this kind of nervous smile because you feel you should not be laughing then you  titter. Likewise, do this in an unkind way and you will have a snigger on your face.

You can also cackle, or in other words, you laugh in a loud, high voice. Furthermore, you could let out a loud guffaw in this case because somebody has said or done something stupid. As well as, something can be a source of considerable mirth.

And what about if you smile to express satisfaction or pleasure about having done something or if you know something which is not known by someone else? Then you have that smirk on your face.

All in all, it is quite interesting how powerful smiles can be and perhaps due to those never-ending days of bad weather, the British decided to grin –to have a wide smile on their faces-  and bear it because a good smile can transform even the dullest day into a bright one.

As you can see a smile can be very different. I bid you goodbye with a beam of pleasure.