The word ’funny’ is a bit like the word ’love’ - we don’t have enough words to describe the many varieties.

Saunders is pointing to the poverty of everyday vocabulary when it comes to complex human experiences. “Funny,” like “love,” is a catch-all label that flattens a wide spectrum: the gentle and the cruel, the absurd and the satirical, the nervous laugh and the liberating one. By pairing humor with love—another word that covers everything from fleeting attraction to lifelong devotion—he suggests that our language can obscure important distinctions in feeling, intention, and effect. The remark also implies a critical stance toward simplistic judgments (“it’s funny”): to understand comedy (or affection) seriously, we need finer categories and more attentive description.