Is there something I’m missing about the meaning of “hell”? “Funnier than hell” seems, in typical context, to mean very funny, but I can’t find anything funny about hell. Can somebody please explain this?
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Best Answer
There are two very distinct usages of the word “hell”. In the first usage, the word only means what you know it means.
From Google:
noun: hell; noun: Hell
a place regarded in various religions as a spiritual realm of evil and suffering, often traditionally depicted as a place of perpetual fire beneath the earth where the wicked are punished after death. -synonyms: the netherworld, the Inferno, the infernal regions, the abyss -antonyms: heaven
a state or place of great suffering; an unbearable experience. "I've been through hell" -synonyms: a misery, torture, agony, a torment, a nightmare, an ordeal -antonyms: paradise
Used in this way, the word isn’t swearing. Just use it as a normal noun. There are people that would disagree with that, those people might suggest that hell is always a “bad word”. I can only say that I consider that attitude to be extreme. You’re not likely to encounter that attitude in the US except in enclaves of piety. Further, there is no need to self-censor the use of that word because children or your mother-in-law are present. It’s just a word.
The second usage if the word is as an exclamation. Used in this way, it is swearing. It’s a baby swearword. Using the word “hell” is often the first swearing children will do. The word “dammit” is right there with it. Kids are kind of testing the waters of the big bad world of grown-up swearing when they first start using those two words. “Hell” is swearing, but it’s relatively benign, it’s frequently used when people feel like swearing, but don’t want to be extreme about it.
The word “hell” is kind of the little tag-along brother of the big-bad swearword of them all, you know the one, it‘s four letters long and starts with “F”. If that is at all unclear, go to YouTube and search for George Carlin. He actually explains English swearing very well, just understand that his videos are Not Suitable for Work!
So “hell” (like his big, tough, older brother) as a swearword can be twisted to say pretty much anything, even things that make no sense. “Funnier than hell” is just one example of that. It’s just a way of interjecting a fairly innocent swearword.