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Welcome John Pollack, and Host Punaise.
[As a courtesy to our guests, please keep comments to the book. Please take other conversations to a previous thread. -bev]
Punaise, Host:
“I can’t define punography, but I know it when I see it.”
Just as Potter Stewart might say, folks, this is “it.” A contemporary reader might be surprised to learn of the role that punning has played throughout the development of human communication, but this book’s ambitious subtitle stakes a claim that journalist and champion punster John Pollack amply delivers upon in The Pun Also Rises: How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History, and Made Wordplay More than Some Antics. Part punatomy lesson, part historical treatise, and all fun, this work encompasses a wide punorama of the field.
As an undisciplined but devoted (some would say afflicted) aficionado of the genre, I was fascinated by the depth and breadth of John’s scholarly, yet eminently readable, publication. At once entertaining and educational, this engaging book answers fundamental questions: Just what is a pun, and why do people make them? How did punning impact the development of human language, and how did that drive creativity and progress? And why, after centuries of decline, does the pun still matter?
The simplest definition of a pun is:
“to use a word (or words) in such a way as to suggest different interpretations, by exploiting the fact that some words have similar or identical sounds, but different meanings. “
The pun can take many different forms: knock-knock jokes, Spoonerisms, shaggy dog stories, daffynitions, porte-manteaux, transpositions, Wellerisms, visual puns and so forth. The typology includes homophonic (sounds the same: “the excitement at the circus was in tents”), and homographic (same spelling, different meanings: “rumors about sex orgies aboard the ship are all bunk”). Further distinctions include the paradigmatic – contextual knowledge required – and the syntagmatic or self-contained pun.
Many people think of puns as low humor, but such unappreciative attitudes are relatively recent developments. Consider:
Punning both revolutionized language and played a pivotal role in making the modern world possible. In Egypt and ancient. Sumeria it enabled the development of the alphabet and linguistics by linking sound, symbol, and meaning(s). There is even punning in the Rosetta Stone.
Punning once occupied a place of honor and respect in literate society, such as in the literary coffee houses of 17th century London.
Puns enable people to subversively criticize authoritarian regimes while maintaining plausible deniability.
Punning fosters and reflects creativity, and its unlikely associations between disparate things are the essence of human progress – seeing and revealing new connections. You can thank puns for the invention of your iPhone.
Wordplay is a practice that is common, in one form or another, to virtually every language on earth. There is something fundamentally human about our inclination to pun.
Punning is a renegade activity that challenges the status quo by playing on ambiguity and breaking the rules.
Speaking of smart phones, did you hear that Apple has come out with a model that is customized for sailors? It works best for responding in the affirmative: “sent from aye-aye Phone.”
For better and for worse, puns are ubiquitous, appearing in advertising and the media, cute shop names, movie and song titles. Two recent examples of local headlines range from the nuanced (“Raft of Agencies to Pull Junk from… River”) to the heavy-handed (“Dental School Fills Downtown Cavity: Brushes Off Pacific Heights, Chomps Down on 155 Fifth Street”). They’ve flossed their minds!
The urge to pun can be irresistible and often in questionable taste. You start to see them everywhere. At a recent professional seminar on disability access in the built environment, I was secretly wishing the speaker would mention that a person using a wheelchair couldn’t sue an establishment due to lack of standing.
And seriously, who would have predicted a career as a baseball pitcher, rather than a perfectly monikered umpire, for Grant Balfour?
The FDL pun culture, an aside:
A punny thing happened on the way to this forum: I took a stroll down memory lane. Over the years FDL has promoted creative wordplay via such avenues as the Dick Cheney shotgun poetry fests and Michelle Malkin rap competitions, here and here. Firedoglake has offered a safe haven for irreverent punning, although not without occasional groan pains. Blogspot-era old-timers may recall the rollicking Fitz-era pun fests that would occasionally break out in the comment threads. Mea culpa and no lo compundere. (Stalwart FDL contributor Eli was also among the usual suspects, although he may try to deny it: being all serious ‘n stuff now, he rarely takes the bait).
The moments of shared hilarity were epic. It would start innocently enough – usually a reflection on the subject of the blog post at hand or on current events. A couple of parries would establish a theme, “covering” such random, varied and spontaneous topics as foot-ware, boats, dental care, hand tools, body parts, baseball, famous philosophers, vegetables, sewing and garments, mollusks, fish and many more. Classical mythology, historical events, literary references, pop culture, parables, and idioms were all fair game. Of course, it often veered into silliness, but these weren’t necessarily empty calories consumed along the way. Good times.
Back to the present and The Pun Also Rises. Subtle puns appear lightly sprinkled throughout its chapters; if you get thorough a few pages without noticing one you have to pause and wonder if you haven’t missed a well-placed gem. (As a francophone, I was delighted to encounter mention of the contrepèterie, a complex version of the Spoonerism. I’ll note my all-time favorite classic in the comments section).
This overview barely scratches the surface of the richness and variety that John brings to his (p)undertaking. It is truly the redolent work of a pun-gent author. Please join us downstairs where he will further puntificate on the subject.
The pun is mightier than thus: word. Well be here, all afternoon, folks. Try the veal.
…
John Pollack is a former presidential speechwriter for Bill Clinton. He won the 1995 O. Henry World Championship Pun-Off. Earlier in his career, he wrote for The Hartford Courant and spent three years in Spain as a freelance foreign correspondent writing for many national publications. His previous books include Cork Boat and The World on a String: How to Become a Freelance Foreign Correspondent. He lives in New York City and currently works as a speechwriter and consultant.
John, Welcome to the Lake.
Punaise, Thank you for Hosting today’s Book Salon.
Thank you. I’m happy to participate.
“I coulda been a pun-tender.”
Thanks, Bev. OK, let’s fire this this puppy up and take it out for a spin. Welcome, John, to the pun-friendly waters of Firedoglake.
As you recount in the first chapter, you really had to thread the needle to win the Pun-Off. Feel free to needle this thread if things gets out of hand…
Fundamental question: why do people like puns?
Welcome, John! It’s a subject that is very near and dear to my art.
My group of high school friends (yes, we were a nerdy bunch) used the phrase “Bore War” to describe our bad pun competitions. Forty years later, I’m still pun-ishing my poor wife, friends, and co-workers. Can’t wait to read your book, John.
Your book begins with a harrowing event in which you nearly perished in an aviation scare during your flight to Austin to participate in 1995 O. Henry World Championship Pun-Off that you semi-“crashed” and ultimately won. Did any puns flash before your mind as you contemplated your demise?
Oh, what a book, and what a place to talk about it!
Thanks, John, for writing it and giving us an opportunity to revel in the power of words.
Different people like puns for different reasons. Some, because they pack more meaning into fewer words. That is at once elegant and efficient. Others like them because they find them funny. Still others because they are subversive and therefore useful (as in China today, where bloggers pun to evade censorship).
John, is there such a thing as a pun pre-processor? Sometimes I get this little tickle that alerts me that a golden pun opportunity is present, and 7 or 8 times out of 10 it’s correct.
John, I only got about 1/5 of the millions of puns that punaise and many others created here at FDL. But I was a witness to the creativity, fun, wisdom that punaise especially brought to this community. As he knows, because I repeat it so frequently, he is a great gift to this community.
I have your book on my buy list.
Some of mine are in fact born out of efforts to pack information more efficiently, i.e., “government takeoverreach”.
Thanks for your concern. The plane depressurized, the masks dropped and the pilot descended rapidly to depressurize. But we only dropped to 10,000 feet and it felt relatively controlled. So, no, puns didn’t flash through my mind in those moments of drama.
You make a compelling case for punning as a key to human progress, playing a critical role in the development of modern civilization. Care to elaborate for our readers?
Eli, there are still a lot of mysteries as to how the brain processes the inputs and turns around a pun. It doesn’t surprise me that you get a sense of an impending pun, as your subconscious mind is working faster than you can consciously think. So it makes sense that you have some sense, but not an articulate one, of wit on its way.
I believe that is an example of a portemanteau, as John describes in his book.
Oh, I’ve been looking forward to this book salon, if only to see the punsters duke it out in comments.
Yes, I’m rather fond of those.
“to use a word (or words) in such a way as to suggest different interpretations, by exploiting the fact that some words have similar or identical sounds, but different meanings. “
These similar sounds but different meanings aid memory by making the brain work more to tell the difference between the similar words but different meanings.
One of the key inventions in human history that allowed knowledge to accumulate and progress to accelerate was the phonetic alphabet. But how did people move from literal pictures on cave walls to a strictly phonetic alphabet? The transition was gradual, and took tens of thousands of years. But the big progress came when punning scribes in Mesopotamia and Egypt realized that they could break apart a pictogram into its component sounds, much as we might break the name Isabelle into is a bell. Once you strip away meaning from a word and salvage its sounds, you can recombine them to make new words and meanings. This novel realization led to the invention of the alphabet and the rise of civilization.
John, I was taken by the discussion of gender in the book, particularly the section on medical researchers who noted differences between men and women when it comes to processing humor. From the book (p. 47):
As soon as I read this, I laughed out loud. It sounds to me as if this is the evolutionary result of years of women listening to men trying to pick them up in bars with bad pickup lines. Upon hearing the opening “Hey, darling . . .” women are quick to decide if a line is any good, and less apt to expect it to be worth hearing at all. But when it actually *is* a good line, the . . . ahem . . . rewards can indeed be higher.
BooRadley:
Thanks — we all miss puns sometimes. But the more we listen to them, the more accustomed our minds become to hearing words for their phonetic components, rather than the superficial meaning. In time, our punning abilities grow. Thanks for adding The Pun Also Rises to your list.
I warned Jane that we’d be running a tight ship to stay on topic. Since the topic is puns, all bets are off!
But seriously, John’s book is highly worthy of our scholarly focus.
News headlines are filled with puns (especially here at FDL), often for both brevity and also as attention getters.
Or what some GOP members of congress call Mediscare…
Sounds scary, indeed. But at least you didn’t have any poetry suddenly jump into your head.
That would be going from bad to verse.
I think Suz coined the term Brain Bleach alert for puns or any comment that has a visual image some people would rather not see.
So, given that punning is often an expression of creativity, flexibility, and a bit of subversion, does that help explain why conservatives are so damn unfunny?
Or do we progressives only *think* that conservatives are unfunny?
Ah, your mind is so versatile
Did punning get a bad rap in the last century or so? Puns often elicit a “ritual groan of disapproval”, but you state that this “universal response…is a cultural myth”. Please elaborate. Are we indeed witnessing the rehabilitation of punning?
de klerk would have written that one down.
building upon Peterr’s comment, from your experience is punning an equal opportumity field, or is there a noticeable gender tilt?
Yes, we shall sea. Perhaps we can boat on whether we want to wave the on-topic strictures. (Hopefully without any rigging)
with Mandela bull ink.
On what kind of parchment? Part hide, perhaps?
Nice observation. I’ll have to pass that along to others. What is also interesting is that women apparently have a larger Broca’s area in the mind, which is involved in the processing of language, so may have more highly attuned minds when it comes to speech.
I was struck in the book by the attempts of The Powers That Be in various eras to stamp out puns as somehow vulgar or a sign of poor breeding or otherwise make then socially unacceptable. Subversiveness is not to be tolerated.
(See also John’s comment above @9 and discussion in the book about Chinese punsters doing so to avoid the censors.)
To the extent that conservatives try to be the arbiters of acceptable social behavior, then yes, they are not going to be very punny.
I’m pretty sure we’ll not find ourselves in the doldrums, although if shouting watch out for hoarse attitudes.
To borrow from Spider Robinson, the power (or strength, or beauty) of a pun is in the oy of the beholder.
There are great punsters of both genders, and both men and women have won the O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships. Youtube Gracie Deegan, this year’s “Punniest of Show” winner for some good puns.
I think a major difference between Lefty Humor and Righty Humor is the Left points out the differences between what actually is and what is said by people in power.
The Right uses put down humor to put others down and keep power. There are exceptions of course but do these trends continue into the pun world?
Or are puns to sophisticated for most GOPers I think Hate Radio can use rhymes but that might be as far as they go.
Interestingly, one factor that led to the pun’s decline in status in England was the mixing of social classes in coffeehouses. When the aristocrats found that the commoner could pun with the best, suddenly they didn’t think punning was such a mark of wit anymore.
oh, how the “my tea!” have fallen.
Seconded!
I will try not to assail your ears, I know you have a delicate Constitution.
That’s an interesting observation. Humor tends to be subversive, and generally doesn’t favor the powerful. As for puns, Wiliam Safire was a great punster, and he was conservative’s conservative…. though perhaps not by today’s a-Paul-ing standards.
Punaise, thanks for the link to the Dick Cheney stuff. It brought to mind a similar FDL Ted Stevens poetry contest.
The winner in the limerick category was egregious:
The combination of rhyme, rhythm, and ooze at the end makes it particularly powerful.
[And for the record, egregious is a woman.]
such bonhomie, Richard!
Aloha, John and Punaise, Mahalo for this Book Salon…!
Let me dispense with the obligatory *groan*, as I’m so wont to do over the years to the Pun Meister’s many fine ministrations…! ;-)
That would make you the current champ, almost.
Have-nots making fun of haves can be cheeky and amusing, haves making fun of have-nots just seems mean (see also: Rush Limbaugh).
Not sure I understand the distinction between puns and word play in general. Are there any rules of thumb, and does it matter?
It’s an admirable quality, I reckon.
The Tea Party and puns go together like Diet Coke and Mentos.
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/05/28/facebook-updates-fro.html
What do you do when a significant portion of the population believes subtlety is evidence of communism.
Punny, meeting you all at dis plays…I’m all hears.
;~DW
I was talking with an ad sales supervisor for the NY Post this morning. The Post is hands-down the most punning tabloid in America. This person said that 75% of the paper’s daily sales come from newsstands, so catchy headlines are absolutely essential. Hence, the puns.
Safire is also evidence that you have to really know language — with all its twists and multiple meanings — to be a great punster.
Ages ago, I was an exchange student in Germany. Early on, I realized that if you can “get” puns and humor in a foreign language, you have truly become fluent in that language.
indeed, unassailable.
So much for conservatives not being punny. Maybe they have liberal copy editors…
Everyone has probably encountered a cleverly (or not so cleverly) named hair salon or pet grooming boutique, coffee shop or deli. Somewhere out there must a pizza joint run by pacifist monks: Give Pizza Chants.
Do you have some examples of your favorite puns in business names and products?
No one’s decked me yet.
Among online news and commentary sites, puns serve the same purpose. Do you see any counterparts in the online media world in that respect?
When I worked as a data entry clerk ages ago, I saw a check from a store in San Francisco called Stormy Leathers.
There are funny liberals and funny conservatives. But conservatives are by their nature uncomfortable with ambiguity, and humor usually turns on it.
egregious, FTW!
(There was also a “Rickey’s Steel Erection”, but I don’t *think* it was supposed to be funny…)
The Chinese historically have often put criticism’s of their government in the history of a former dynasty. America well Asmiov’s Sci Fi Foundation series and Herbert’s Dune Series both do the same thing but set the arguments into the future.
But I wonder if the Puns all cultures use are universal and have themes Campbell’s myths would recognize. Which of the 12 Caesars would a Roman Punster most associate Bush with?
Punning in another language is an art. At a reading recently, my high school Spanish teacher showed up. I hadn’t seen him in at least 25 years. I was able to make a pun in Spanish, though, and he laughed. So clearly he had done his job well.
Eh, punaise, who canz be topping that pizza mind?
this is a great book! what inspired you to write it?
Jocktavian?
And then there’s the New Yorker.
I loved your discussion of puns being outlawed there. It strikes me as a case of the New Yorker wanting to clearly separate themselves from the riff-raff at The Post.
I give up, which one?
we’re gunwhale have to put a stop to this…
Knot if aye can help it.
An editor, who saw that I had won the O. Henry championship, suggested a book on that topic. I felt the topic was too narrow for an entire book, but decided to see what had been written about punning in general. I discovered that pun books fell into two categories: academic writing and joke books. I saw an opportunity to write a book about punning that would be engaging and accessible to a wider audience, one with a rich appreciation for language in general. And so I developed a proposal on that, which led to The Pun Also Rises.
will you sue? not me.
My father will be very grateful. Whether nature or nurture, he is largely responsible for the way I am today…
Ah but I liked Will Could the GOP as it has gotten more nuts and power mad have shown their mental degeneracy by preferring Rush Limbaugh to Will Safire’s puns?
Or lets put it another way when was the last time a Lefty could say they disagreed with but respected a GOPer Zbigniew Brzezinsk might be the last GOPer alive who I disagree with but think is smart.
P. J. O’Rourke might be the last GOPer who had a sense of humor.
Well, that’s nautical, but nighs, Eli.
Not unless you wind me up.
Clearly he must have imbued in you a love of language…
Plank you. Plank you very much.
A lifetime of puns, and my stepmother was right there with him.
thanks. i love how you weave the history of puns through the ages — what was the hardest part to research? trying to find the first pun?
Humor is so highly personal, that everyone must find someone funny, even if most of us don’t.
like a sea-going Sartre, he’s a sextant sensualist.
The major difference between Lefty and Righty humor is, the Right elect theirs !
I’ve been waiting all week to say … “Gentlemen, start your enjoins !”
Welcome John … *Bows To The Master* !
Ah ha, you high sieze me with swell tidings, then, wood ya, Eli?
The hardest part of the research was untangling all the different factors that led to the decline of the pun’s status in western culture. Doing so required a tremendous amount of reading.
Another challenging part was learning how the brain processes sound and language, and translating that from scientific language into plain English.
When I think about where I got my love of language, I put Dr. Seuss right up there with my parents.
it’s a fine line between a well-placed zinger and the stream-of-consciousness patter that tries to make random but obscure connections… often falling flat.
speaking from experience, of course…
I was thinking Claudius a stutterer, widely considered stupid and a coward during the Coup against the last emperor he hid. However Claudius was somewhat competent.
I was hoping you could tell me:)
Nice:)
That would explain the masturbation…
The decline of the pun in western civilization took place in England during the 17th-18th centuries, primarily. It happened in the USA only after WWII, when comedy became more free-form and open about sex, drugs, dysfunction, etc.
Nero, my heart, toothy.
uh-oh, here we go…
Late to the party. I’ll try to be nice and sit over here.
Everyone must find someone funny? Bush’s joke about that woman he executted on death row her last words Please… please don’t kill me? Someone found that funny?
Er someone not John Woo or dick Cheney.
Most scientific ideas fall flat. So does most art. So do most evolutionary mutations. That’s the nature of progress; true and useful connections are the few that survive, in any field. Including punning.
Nero ok :)
Your book illustrates the intrinsic link between puns and human creativity. In a nutshell I guess you could say it’s a product of thinking outside the box and celebrating ambiguity. Your thoughts?
I once had this wonderful conversation w/an IBM researcher who had idolized my dad about narratives. IBM was doing a bunch of consulting w/corporations using narratives to drive process change. All their “experts” were in the sciences (psychologists, for example).
I asked how they were dealing w/irony.
The jaw dropped. They hadn’t thought about it.
I noted that the comments about the VP they were boasting about might not be worth boasting about.
Survival of the wittiest?
That strikes me as a comment about oral culture. It seems to be a good punster you need to live well in oral culture. Highly schooled people aren’t necessarily good at that–less well educated people often are.
A successful pun depends on the listener being able to “get it”. This implies shared linguistic and, to some degree, cultural references. Thus the puns you cited form the Pun-Off were fairly universal (although you did have to spell out your first response – the “Wright flying machine”.).
Here in blog-land the puns tend to flow from specific conversations about current events. A pun that makes sense in a particular context may not age well, losing all relevance without knowledge of the specific people and events referred to.
Case in point: a few years ago televangelist Ted Haggard was caught up in a scandal involving male companions and a package of drugs that was hastily discarded into a trash can. Without that context, this legacy pun retains little meaning: “There’s a meth-thud to his man-ness”.
Has the internet affected punning?
I was particularly intrigued by the link between punning and oppression, although it does seem pretty inevitable. You talked about how language and textual analysis is a part of Jewish culture, but oppression is also a large part of Jewish history. It makes for kind of a perfect storm for punniness and humor.
You’re correct. The Pun Also Rises is a book celebrating creativity and its fuel, ambiguity/uncertainty. Without uncertainty, we would not be forced to experiment. And without experimentation, there would be no progress. Yes, we make mistakes. But hopefully we learn from them. So we should embrace ambiguity and uncertainty as positive forces, generally.
You recount how punning was used to settle duels. If this occurred in India would it constitute a Punjab?
Ah, but their “DSK arrested in sodomy probe” headline, which will long be remembered also led to a lot of confusion about the actual offense.
Yes, being articulate isn’t about education. Think of all the poetry and rap that flows from sources other than traditional education.
Sikh trouble and you’ll find it.
he gave at the orifice.
Just walked by a tool store owned by a guy named Flanagan–it was called “O’Tools.”
And if I ever open a restaurant, it will be a mostly stews restaurant named “Braise” which is a play on my hubby’s last name.
Raja that.
it’s part of my Delhi ritual.
What about in other cultures? Or are they still punnier than their Anglo-American banksters?
Ah, yes, the Crystal Methodist.
I recall making an oblique pun re Mr. EW that drew a chuckle from you, but can’t for the life of me recall what it was.
I try not to release too many calcutting remarks from my verbal Bombay.
Are you india own puns?
Ceylon into the sunset?
Other cultures pun, too. Most don’t survive translation, though. From speakers of Pitjantjatjara (I may have missed a letter there!) to speakers of Tzotzil, people pun. It’s endemic to the human condition.
I’m usually pretty Hindu them, but that means sometimes I just Bengal them terribly.
Yes, it’s very Buddhaful.
I respond ta millions of puns every day…
Might it have had something to do with bogs?
When Buckwheat converted to Muslim he changed his name to Kareem O’wheat.
oh, for peat’s sake, that does ring a bell.
That’s nearly oat of bounds
You recount a shaggy dog story on pages 20-21. I have to sheep(dog)ishly admit to not really getting it. Was the punch line itself a self-referential inside joke about the structure of shaggy dog stories?
That sounds more Mueslim to me.
it goes against the grain.
Someone is trying to curry flavor amongst us.
I once came across a hooker named “Tulips”
JP, I’m a Lutheran pastor, and I enjoyed your comments about puns in the Bible. Over the years, I’ve been stunned by people who can’t believe that the Bible has puns and humor to it, starting with Genesis and going right on through to Revelation.
But if, as the Psalmist says, God sits in heaven and laughs at humanity’s puny attempts to play God, surely we can do the same with one another.
Care Tibet on that?
what was she petalling?
I think it’s spelled with two Ns, Peterr.
Sounds flaky to me.
Was Yogi Berra mentioned in your book?
It’s governed by the “arising under” clause.
that’ll take the starch out of your caller, pastor.
I think that much of the humor, of course, was probably lost in translation. Why do you suppose that many people think that religion and humor are at odds, while embracing both in their lives?
A French variation of the knock-knock joke is the “Monsieur et Madame ____ ont un fils (ou une fille)”. Have you encountered these in the English language?
A women’s hygiene spray. The slogan was “If it ain’t fresh, I’m out of business”.
Sports could probably be a chapter unto itself. Like when a sports reporter asked John McKay what he thought about his team’s execution and he said “I’m all for it.”
Or when another one asked Tug McGraw (IIRC) about whether he preferred grass or astroturf and he said, “I dunno, I’ve never smoked astroturf.”
Reminds me of a Tom Robbins novel in which the narrator mentions the town of Humptulips, Washington, then says that he gets an erection every time he sees a wedge of Gouda.
Which brings us back to the discussion of humor and punning as practiced by liberals and conservatives.
“Embrac[ing] ambiguity and uncertainty as positive forces” is not something conservatives are particularly known for.
Ah, winnowing chaff, a genuine thesher jest; the pun as the one true coin of the realm?
Yogi Berra’s was generally known for misspeaking more than deliberate punning. So he didn’t make it into the book. But I enjoy his twisting of language.
I am unfamiliar with those. Can you elaborate?
On the other hand, they *do* require a Herculean capacity for cognitive dissonance.
John, are you an omni-punner or do you have a preferred specialty or strong suit?
Excellent gouda would best come from a cheese factory in Nazareth.
I think it’s just barley the germ of a possibility right now, but maybe someday. At least I hope sow.
An example for your next book
http://www.stirlingobserver.co.uk/lifestyle/2011/05/18/king-arthur-s-table-or-knot-51226-28709791/
Omni, definitely. When it comes to wordplay, my strong suit would be chain mail.
That was the actual gist of my question–I wasn’t sure if anything he said was a pun, but it was a twist on language. “if you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
Appealing to the sort of person who thumbs through the card catalogue at the library appreciating (and even anticpating) the unintended juxtaposition? And, as well, the “new” word?
Hmmm …
JP, do you have a favorite pun? If so, what is it.
Nazareth? Gouda thunk it?
Eh?
Sew???
(What has happened to the thread??)
Ghost-written by Mark Twine?
Someone showed me a drawing of a complicated knot and asked me what I thought of it. I said “Knot Nice” which when spoken instead of writing is even punnier!
Ah, the card catalog. I love the smooth pull of those drawers…
Now you’re just needling me…
For lots of folks, they have had it drummed into them that the Bible is A Sacred Book, and church is A Sacred Place, to be taken Seriously with a capital S.
“Don’t laugh — this is important stuff” say generations of parents to their kids.
But honestly, you can’t read the book of Jonah — even in translation — and not realize that God has a sense of humor. Those who read Jonah in worship with solemn faces and somber tones of voice do violence to the story.
Eye am NOT!
Cheeses of Nazareth are at their blessed best!
Then what’s your point?
My favorite pun is always of the moment. Spontaneous puns are the best, in context, at the split second of delivery. While some puns hold up over time, they’re never quite as funny.
Heh, heh, heh …
:~DW
Here’s a site with many examples. It requires a pretty good knowledge of French pronunciation. Some are just plain silly, others are sublime.
Q. Monsieur et Madame Tontuyau ont un fils. Coomnet s-appelle-t’il?
A. Ramon.
Mr. and Mrs. Tontuyau have a son. What is his name?
Ramon.
Ramone ton tuyau means clean your pipe, or have your chimney swept.
And laughter is serious stuff, too. Where would we be without it?
Jonah is, of course, interred in the Whaling Wall.
Just the nature of notions, thread-bare, or utter wise.
Oh, yes, those exist in English. And they’re similar to the authors/book title jokes:
The Yellow Stream, by I P Daly
The Tiger’s Revenge, by Claude Bawls
Etc.
The Human Race
by Willie Maykit and Betty Whoant
I hope weave knit strayed too far from discussing Mr. Pollack’s yarn.
Not to get sidetracked, but are you a fan of Car Talk’s running list of staff credits? (represented by the celebrated law firm of Dewey, Cheetham, & Howe). They range from the sublime (Brake Adjuster: Schlomo Quigley) to overwrought (Air Traffic Controller: Ulanda U. Lucky), with lots of silly in between.
We is warped!
now you’ve got me in stitches.
…lest the discussion spin out.
looming is trouble.
Is there a name for the “Show me a happening city in the Sudan, and I’ll show you an animated Khartoum” formulation? My dad has a particular fondness for those. (And that is one of his…)
Seriously I knew a fellow whose last name was Porn.
His first is Richard.
(And, likely, woofed …)
Don’t sweat it.
I actually knew a kid named Richard Wacker.
And very shirtly, I imagine.
They haven’t got my credit manger yet Helen Waite. You want credit? go to Helen Waite.
So true so true.. a pun is when the pregnant moment just happens and it just spills out to the open.. Have fallen on the floor at some of my own, course my daughters panicked when it happens.. but shit they were good at that instant, never to be as good as it was as uddered!
Dick was the nicest fellow I ever knew.
I know the genre, but don’t know if it has a name. Interesting question…
Amen.
then there is the sad story of poor old Harry Baals, who couldn’t get a building named after him.
From the Marx Brothers radio play, Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel: “Hey Ravelli, stop berating that car! What do you think you are, a car berater?”
Blessed are the cheesemakers . . .
We shuttle done sumthin different, punaise, but wool have ta spin it outta hole-cloth, however baaahdly we haf to fleece the herd of that …
Because he was a crotchety old man?
hey, that’s piling on.
So puns seem to arise from subconscious connections we make between words with similar sounds and different meanings. They seem to indicate a mastery of language you can’t be fluent in a foreign language unless you master its puns.
In a broader scope our humor depends on the difference between what is said and what is actually done by people in power and requires empathy for others.
GOPer power based put others down to build yourself up humor suggests they are trapped at the survival first stage of Maslow’s pyramid and or they are Double High Authoritarians/ Psychopaths and have no empathy for others.
There are exceptions William Safire but I postulate you can’t be Hitler, Sarah Palin, Bush level crazy with hate, power etc and still do puns….well not intentionally Capt Kirk from Star Trek reading Sarah Palin like a beat poet shows that GOPers create material for puns.
or a former jock.
I knew both Anita Wacker and her brother Chuck Wacker.
I frequently employ puns in fiction. I had a law firm Heiney Bollax and Keister in a serial that was on AOL for a while.
In his youth, was he strapping?
He’ll have his day eventually – he’s still groin’ on them.
One day I showed up at my daughter’s new house to help them move in. A fellow there who considered himself erudite hated puns, and something about the move gave rise to one. (I seem to recall it was something along the lines of a Rise in your levi’s). He gave me this horrid look, got up, walked out, never came back.
I didn’t like him either so I resolved to find another pun should he ever show up…
He left his girlfriend there as well.
A psychological study of what Puners have in common and a look at their brains would be interesting. If the only way man has left to evolve is moral humor might be an indication of moral and mental development.
A beutifuly crafted, all-time classic contrepeterie, via my sister-in-law, goes like this:
Il vaut mieux la philanthropie d’un ouvrier charpentier que les tripes en folie d’un ouvrier partant chier.
Alas, it’s not quite as fluid in English: “Better to have the charitable donations of a working carpenter than to have the guts in turmoil of a worker urgently leaving to to take a shit”.
low hanging fruit of the loom.
it was a softball, and you hit it out of the park.
A rise in your Levi’s drove him off? Maybe he was just tired of lifting boxers.
The English version is a bit more constipated.
Our brains are remarkably similar. But we use them quite differently.
Or he doesn’t like comedians who work blue.
That much hate is well an emotional reaction people who hate puns should be studied…by pet psychologists.
must have been a tighty whitey.
One way or another, he wasn’t having a ball.
Neuron pathways to different areas of the brain should be more developed in the language and I suspect logic centers.
Right Left brain communication in Punsters should be higher.
his grammar teacher had issues with his dangling modifier.
Late to this chat — what a terrific book, and a wonderful introduction to it, thanks so much Punaise! After knowing Punaise on the blog for a couple of years and marveling at his punitude, I recall our meetup in Boulder Creek for the Bay Area Firepups, where I explained to Mrs Punaise that I would like to open up the back of her husband’s head to see how it works.
Which made the sections of John Pollack’s book on neuro-studies of punning very worthy to me: there’s something about the innards of a true punster’s brain that works differently, or better, or more smoothly, than the rest of ours. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, expecting something much lighter and frothier. It was one of those “little books,” along with Strunk & White and Eats, Shoots and Leaves, that will always have a place of honor on my shelves.
Thanks to both of you for being here today.
Such a fun sounding book!
Love using puns and hearing them.
Two friends and I used to challenge each other with puns. We went at it at the tail end of a 2 hour hike, laughing at each others attempts, some of which were stellar and others were as painful as the black fly bites.
One friend’s 7 year old son took it all in as we walked. Finally as we neared the top of the mountain, he pointed to the side of the trail and said “Hey, look! A high alti-toad!”
The three adults looked at each other, laughed and decided that the boy had trumped us all!
We do get better with practice, it’s true…
Q. Monsieur et Madame Remords ont un fils. Comment s-appelle-t’il?
A. Yves.
Yves Remords = ivre mort (dead drunk).
bonus points since remords means regret, remorse.
Teddy:
Thanks so much for reading it, and I’m glad you enjoyed it. I too love books that make me take a closer look at something I think I know. So thanks again for adding it to your library, and I hope you’ll spread the word(s).
John
Teddy!
RE:mords. Well done.
I have two puns I lay claim to inventing;
they close cemeteries at night because they want you to go in “mourning”
and after all those beef puns (I don’t want to “steer” you wrong and their’s not much at “steak”) I added;
and if you don’t eat yours the “cattle”
anyway, sorry I was late to this thread, I miss punaise
Ok. In googling a pun line for it’s author, I ran across this:
http://www.alphadictionary.com/fun/pun.html
I don’t know. Sometimes I liken it to random synapses firing off and connecting subconsciously. Hard to articulate.
Late, but uncowed, I see.
flankly, my dear…
Would you consider the oft-cited ‘707’ to be a visual pun? It signifies LOL fallen backwards in its chair. Or is it just another emoticon?
…I don’t give a dam?
Meat puns are veally rare.
Two of my fave puns: Why was Six sad? Because Seven ate Nine.
And cartoon where a child points at a lake, captioned, “Maman, quatre cinq!”
Weirdly, though I dislike math, these never fail to make me giggle.
Why? Because it was past participletating?
A lot of emoticons are visual puns, so I suppose that would qualify on the margins. If it takes such explanation, though, it probably isn’t as strong as others:)
utter nonsense!
it’s a beau-vyin’ matter, Scarlett.
Rhetchingly bad… or tarable, I’m not sure which.
Sure, man. Tanked.
I see.
Euclid was a dreamer. Always thinking of the pi in the sky.
You expect me to be patton you on the back for that one?
Atlanta hand, but I’m kinda busy right now.
..said the blind man to his deaf son as he picked up his hammer and saw.
You keep linkin’ these together, don’t you?
Speaking of visual puns, back in the day, there was a commenter around these parts who went by the moniker “3sivund” . . .
On reflection, maybe that’s closer to a palindrome.
As we come to the end of this great Book Salon,
JP, Thank you for stopping by the Lake and spending the afternoon with us discussing your new book and punning around.
Punaise, Thank you very much for Hosting this great Book Salon.
Everyone, if you would like more information:
JP’s website and book
Just quick reminder:
Membership drive! Are you an FDL member? If not, please join and help keep FDL delivering kick ass activism and independent journalism – and puns. You can join HERE.
Thanks all,
Have a great evening and Holiday!
Big Bertha vanne Nation?
He’s the linkin’ memorial.
I’ll grant you that.
yeah, whatever happened to that guy? he was kind of upside down and backwards.
Thank you everyone, for your puns and perspectives. I hope you will like “The Pun Also Rises” on Facebook, too, and spread the word. Always remember, Pun with Pride!
Thanks, John! This was great pun!
And thank you too, punaise!
An upstream landslide suddenly altered the course of a river, creating a cascade that brought water pouring down onto a fragile but important stone formation at the base of a cliff. Townsfolk called in expert geologists and hydrologists to devise a fix, but ultimately they concluded that this was impossible. Their report to the town council: “Let the falls chip where they may.”
Thanks, John! Excellent to have you here.
Hence Chippeway Falls.
Well, that was fun. I don’t even smoke, but I think I need a cigarette. Thanks to everyone for pitching in.
I really do recommend reading The Pun Also Rises.
Great job keeping the conversation civil at the end there, guys.
Amen.
And also a big thanks to you, punaise, for agreeing to host the salon.
Really, who else could have done it justice?
my three blog-punning/snark rules:
1. never apologize.
2. never explain.
3. there are only two rules.
In any event, my contempt for Joe Lieberman will never subside.
yeah, we nearly got sacked.
Mahalo Nui Loa, JP and Punaise for this great groan fest…! *g*
Eli – glad we could lure you back into pun-land. You’re quite the talented interlocutor.
Thanks, and right back atcha. It’s good to be back, if only for a little while.
Great meeting of the twisted minds.
Thank you JP, punasie, Eli, Bev, and all …
;~DW
you blew your cover, dude.
DW! Glad you could make it.
Couldna miss the Punnic Warz, punaise …
Thanks so much to all, can’t wait to re-read this whole thread!
And, folks, please buy this book. Or two copies — give one to a pun-hating friend. S/he will come around, believe me.
It’s just that good.
Petro!
A bit of housekeeping. In addition to the serious conversation with John on the subject of his book, by my count we had pun-threads covering:
South Africa
ships and seafaring
Roman emperors
India
Oats and other grains
flowers
cheese
sewing and weaving
scrota
cows and meat
Gone with the Wind
WW II
in other words, par for the course. cheers!
277 comments, punaise. That’s quite an accomplishment.
Thanks so much!
It was a lot of fun. Glad to have been invited!
I can only imagine how challenging it must have been for John to juggle several different “serious” questions while trying to parry the puns in rapid-fire sequence.
It was a blast, Jane. I took a bath after participating and the number “of if only” items popped up that were better than what I wrote as I soaked, ah well! Next time.
Just glad I didn’t take a bath in this thread!
it soak, eh…
so great to be awash in puns!
great thread! I think i needle re-read it and order the book.
May I commend all here for their execution of wordplay? Capital punnishment!
…Capital punnishment!…
Indeedy…! ;-)