What do you mean, funny? Funny peculiar orfunny ha-ha?
1938, Stevie Smith,Over The Frontier
Is it in essence so extremely funny-ha-ha that it will bear this so frequent repetition?
1945, Robert J. Menner,Multiple Meaning and Change of Meaning in English, inLanguage, Vol. 21, No. 2
Funny is now occasionally ambiguous, as a slang expression fashionable a decade ago shows: “Do you meanfunny ‘ha-ha’ orfunny ‘peculiar’?”
1952, Madison Bently, review ofStatement on Race, inThe American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 65, No. 1
They might be men: they certainly were funny (funny-peculiar notfunny-ha ha).
2003, Lesley Chamberlain,The Secret Artist: A Close Reading of Sigmund Freud
Freud loves mistakes because they open up so much scope for humor, and he watches how what first strikes us as “funny ha ha” shades into “funny peculiar.”
2004, W. R. Adams,Rairarubia
In the morning, she couldn’t remember much, only that the dream left her feeling kind of funny inside. Notfunny ha-ha, but funny weird-like.
2005,C++ Cookbook
First of all, they have funny syntax (notfunny ha-ha, funny strange).
But it wasn’t afunny ha-ha smile. It was the kind of smile you have when you find a friend.
1999, Anna Fienberg,Borrowed Light
Mostly he makes jokes about Mum’s cooking. Not thefunny ha-ha jokes, more the sneery, condescending snipes that leave an uncomfortable silence, while you decide whose side you should be on.
2003, Steven Cooper,With You in Spirit
She laughs, not afunny ha-ha laugh but rather a tiny self-inflicted chuckle of disgust.
2005, Jan Carole,Anatomy of Pain
I laugh when talking about this; it is not thefunny ha-ha kind of laugh, but the uncomfortable kind.
