The actor:	Julia Roberts
The character:	Erin Brockovich
The film:	Erin Brockovich
The line:	“They’re called ‘boobs,’ Ed.”

If you go down to about #19 or so on this list (“What’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss?”), every line from there on up is one I considered putting in the top spot at one point or another. From this point forward, not only did I consider putting that line in the top spot, but I spent thirty seconds thinking about whether it should be in the top spot. “They’re called ‘boobs,’ Ed” is such a good line that Erin Brockovich, a competent but basically unexceptional film, picked up five Oscar nominations in above the line categories.

Take away how famous the line is, and from a purely technical perspective it’s worth studying. Before the Internet seized onto the practice of using direct address as a joke in itself, Susannah Grant had the ear for it. Nowadays, that line comes in a couple of species, as in you hear one version of it when people say it and another when dogs say it (you know the sort, “give me the chimken nuggers, Sharon”). Where the Internet version of this joke stays united is in using two-syllable women’s names. “Karen” and “Sharon,” maybe because they both end with this unattractive “ehhhh” sound when you drag them out, are persistent offenders. Being ahead of the curve, Grant takes the line in a totally different direction from the style we see in our Facebook memes.

“Ed” is a funny name. “Ed Masry” is a gift to Grant, and it’s a gift to this line of dialogue which needs that thudding one-syllable name to get the laugh. There are a lot of names for men that could have gotten her there, even names that are a lot less funny than Ed—Steve, Jim, Paul, John—but “Ed,” down to the fact that it’s just two letters, makes Erin’s response to him even better.

If this is a movie you’ve only seen once, my guess is that you remember this line differently than the way Julia Roberts actually says it. This is not my video, don’t blame me for the SEO bait title.

It’s completely deadpan. There is no extra emphasis on any of the words in the sentence. There’s no smile, no wink, no hint that we’re supposed to find it funny because the movie thinks it’s funny. The way Roberts reads this line puts the joke on Ed, just as this sequence at Erin’s home is about putting the joke on Ed. Erin gets her job back amidst some very one-sided negotiations. He agrees to a ten percent raise and benefits, but says that he has to draw the line there. In a line meant to get us to snicker a little, Roberts looks at the baby and says that it’s the man’s final offer.

One of the most difficult forms of speech to get right is the joke that’s not a joke. Sarcasm comes easily to most people, but this is a form that’s more nuanced than sarcasm. The person saying it has to be joking, being funny, goofing on the idea, but at the same time that person has to be entirely serious about what s/he’s saying. It requires the person to put equal weight on opposing ideas and to mean both of them with the same intensity at the same instant. This is why the totally straight delivery of this line is such a triumph for Roberts. She’s messing with Albert Finney, who has no idea how someone goes into a place where they haven’t been invited or don’t have the authority of the government to enter. She’s also quite serious. This line balances the unassuming with the knowing, and it’s hard to come up with another example of that principle which comes off so well.