Just after Christmas, we heard Ken Dodd on Radio 4 in conversation about his life and art. Among the topics he mulled over was the importance he attaches to the words he uses when telling jokes: how crucial it is to choose the right words to get the best effect.
Although he was talking about his comedy, what he said delightfully summed up everything that good copy and content should achieve - as well of the beauty of what the well-chosen word can convey:
“Words are wonderful things. A word is a container of meaning. When I was a little boy, I used to sail little paper boats across a puddle. And that’s what a word is: it’s a contained of adventure, of emotion.
“I use a lot of words in my performance. I think they’re the right words, because you take a word in your mind and you listen to it, and you say it over and over again, and you compare it with other words and gradually you’ll choose. If you want to get ajoke, an anecdote or a story over, you put a value on each word and find a better one.
"You get words with different values and with the knack of telling jokes, you must have the right word: the best word for that particular gag. And you mustn’t have too many words, and you mustn’t have too little.”
Message to Ken: if you ever get bored of the stage, there’s a job waiting for you here.
