Words you only see in kids' comics!

simu

You know the ones -

Chortle, snicker and guffaw for laughter, chum for friend.

Can anyone think of more?

Talliesin

"Chortle" is an interesting one, it was originally a nonsense word coined for the poem Jabberwocky <http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/jabber/jabberwocky.html>, and while it may well be that "He chortled in his joy." is best interpretted according to the meaning we would now ascribe to it, the sentence was designed so that you could not place an definite meaning to it - it's as valid to read "He chortled in his joy" as meaning he jumped up and down from joy.

I'd always though "chum" was quite common in parts of Britain (as indeed it seems that throughout the English-speaking world there is a common slang term for "friend" in that small pocket, be it "pal", "mate", "mucker", "homie" or whatever).

"chortle", "snicker" and "guffaw" are probably used a lot in comics because they have an onomatopoeic quality that benefits comics aimed at young children (and indeed can be very effective at comics aimed at an older audience, if not to the same degree).

simu

I'd always though "chum" was quite common in parts of Britain

This is true - but a comic-reading Irish child would not have heard it anywhere else.

They also had a whole bunch of nicknames for Germans in war comics - seems strange that this was the case even in the 80s.