Whats the difference between how and why?

Why = Reason.
How = In what way or manner.

“How am I funny?” = “In what way or manner am I funny?”
“Why am I funny?” = “What is the reason that I’m funny?”

“The way/manner that I am funny could be due to my appearance and voice uniqueness”
“The reason behind my humor could be due to good content and timing”

“How am I funny?” should be answered with examples of amusing behaviour. “Why am I funny?” should be answered with amusing characteristics.

For example,
“How am I funny?” – you’re silly.
“Why am I funny?” – because of your silliness.

how 1 |hou|
adverb [usu. interrog. adv. ]
1 in what way or manner; by what means

why |(h)wī|
interrogative adverb
for what reason or purpose

The answers above are correct, but it should be noted that why is frequently used in place of how. For instance “Why is the earth round?” and “Why is the sky blue?” are both questions of means rather than questions of purpose (e.g., “Why do we tell stories?”). When you learn to distinguish between the different uses of why, the definitions become much clarified—this turns out to be a surprisingly useful skill.

@lapilofu can you give examples of answers to your example questions?

@ninahenry Certainly.

Q: Why is the Earth round?
A: Gravity pulls equally in all directions, so when particles conglomerated to form the planets they conglomerated in a way that was roughly even in all directions—thus, spherical.

(So the answer to this question is a means question—it explains how the Earth came to be round—saying nothing about the purpose of the earth’s roundness. It’s possible the questioner in this situation was asking about purpose, but seems unlikely to me.)

Q: Why do we tell stories?
A: We tell stories to entertain and edify, to preserve cultural traditions and to learn from our history.

(So the answer to this question is purpose-based—it explains the reasons that we tell stories but says nothing about the means by which we tell them.)

Does that make sense? I don’t think there’s anything too profound about it—I just wanted to point out that the same word is commonly used in two different senses, which I think accounts for some of the confusion about the definition.

@lapilofu Thank you! So, to be pedantic, we should be asking “How is the Earth round?” and “Why do we tell stories?” to be correct?

@ninahenry If we wanted to be absolutely clear, I think we’d have to make a distinction like that. But I think language is doomed to be unclear—there’s too much nuance in human existence and thought to divide them up in perfect ways.

@lapilofu true.