Wed 26 Mar 2008
Not all people, granted; in fact, it only occurs to me because I personally love ‘em. But there are a lot of folks out there who react negatively to puns or even to the abstract notion of puns. Where’s all this wordplay animus coming from? Did puns beat someone up as a kid?
Posted by Josh Millard13 answers so far!
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June 15th, 2009 at 7:24 am[...] an epic rise in related neologisms, portmanteaus, and puns. And the worst of these are the puns, because people often have an irrational, passionate hatred of puns. Yet nobody could resist them, or so it seemed for awhile. We haven’t seen this level of [...]
Isaac Asimov wrote a short story theorizing on this. Jokes were hand-me-downs from aliens, and since puns were man-made humor as opposed to alien-made humor, that’s why they don’t generate laughs, but instead groans. Let me scrounge for the title.
1956’s “Jokester.”
I love a good pun. I still groan when I hear them, though, maybe because it’s such Grandpa humor? In my family, anyway, the grandparents were the super punny ones, so I guess I associate puns with somewhat cheesy vaudeville jokes (which I also love, to my friends’ chagrin).
I love word play. It doesn’t always make me laugh out loud, but that doesn’t mean I dislike it. But what I do find is that many people don’t know how to construct puns correctly. Of course, “correctly” is subjective. So I guess I mean “according to my rules.” I can’t wait until I’m King of the Universe, so that I can enforce my rules!
To me, a good pun is a double entendre. With emphasis on the word “double.” Too many people try to pass off single entrenres — or 1.5 ententres. I don’t find them satisfying.
For instance, my dad used to drive me crazy by riffing on Louis Farrakhan’s name. He called him Farra-can’t. To me, that’s just stupid, because “Farra” doesn’t mean anything.
Datson (the car company) used to have a great slogan: we are driven. It’s not funny, but to me it’s a perfectly constructed pun. It’s a true double entendre. It means both “our cars are driven by drivers” and “our staff-members are obsessed with their work.” It’s a very packed statement, meaning two things at once. And both things are apt.
Once, when I was eating at a steak house, I mentioned that it was odd that there were no churches near by. A witty friend said, “That’s because there’s a separation between church and steak.” I though that was brilliant.
Hee. I tend to pun a lot. And I think they (mine and others’) are terrible and lower than sarcasm on the pecking order of witty things to say. But I still giggle inwardly whenever someone says one.
I guess I’m just juvenile.
Why puns are generally shitty and annoying…a post about Thomas Veatch’s Theory of Humor, on Metafilter.
And since self-linking isn’t disallowed on the BBQ, I will shamelessly do so here…I wrote a blog post about my favorite pun/joke of all time, “a seal walks into a club…” The post references the Veatch paper, explains some of the finer points of puns, and articulates why I think this particular pun is hilarious.
iamkimiam, that was an interesting blog post. I think it’s true that many people (most people?) need a joke to contain violation in order for the joke to be funny. But there are other sorts of jokes that at least some people find funny. My guess is that there are several kinds of jokes that don’t contain violation, but I can only think of one — my favorite type: character humor. Character humor CAN contain violation, but it doesn’t have to. And at least one type doesn’t: over-the-top stereotype.
Here’s one of my favorite jokes — which is from a P.G. Wodehouse story:
“Bertie, you wouldn’t let down a pal?”
“Yes, I would.”
“But we were at school together, Bertie.”
“I don’t care.”
“The old school, Bertie, the old school!”
“Oh, well — dash it!”
Yes, I think it’s really funny. Yes, I realize that most people don’t. (I’ve shown it to many people, and most don’t think it’s funny — and they think I’m odd for finding it funny. A few do find it funny, but in a “mildly amusing” way rather than a laugh-out-loud way.) I guess you can shrug it off by saying, “grumblebee’s just a weirdo.” But since I AM grumblebee, I think it’s worth exploring.
I think it’s funny because Bertie is SO true to himself. He’s truer to himself than I expect him to be. I guess you could say, “Aha! THAT’S the violation. You only expect people to be just so true to themselves, and this violates that expectation.” To me, that’s pushing the violation theory. Violation jokes, which I do find funny, give me a naughty feeling (if just for a second). This joke doesn’t. It gives me a warm feeling — a feeling of Bertie clicking perfectly into his slot. And that feeling delights me.
I also love the fact that he’s SO adamant about letting down his pal. But all it takes is an appeal to the “old school” to ware him down. He gets worn down in 2 seconds. And yet it feels psychologically sound. I wouldn’t have expected it, but I believe it. And I’m delighted that Bertie’s friend knows him so well that he knows exactly what buttons to push.
Finally, I’m delighted by the whole world this conjures up. With incredible economy, Wodehouse conjures up a ridiculous (but seemingly truthful) world in which “the old school” is like a magic spell — or like a siren call that no one (or at least Bertie) can resist.
As for the seal pun, I do think it’s a true pun, because club has a double meaning. It would delight me even more if seal had a double meaning, too.
I do agree that if you’re looking for the most universal jokes — the ones likely to resonate with the most people, violation is your friend. But that’s kind of like saying that if you want to turn on the most men, you should show some cleavage. It ignores all the guys who have quirkier tastes.
The problem isn’t so much with the puns themselves as the fact that they’re so easy. Even little kids can grasp the idea.
So, naturally, they’re the most overused type of joke. Hearing “the door isn’t ajar! It’s a door!” isn’t funny after the fourth or fifth time.
On the other hand, new, clever puns are a lot of fun, like the steakhouse one mentioned above.
Have you ever read a personal ad where a person goes on and on about how they’re this great catch, and you can’t help but think “Geesh, shouldn’t other people be the judge of that? You don’t seem all that great to me.”
So it is with puns, and the people who make them. It’s the expectation that what they’ve done is created humor that makes it impossible for me to laugh at what they’ve done. I’ve yet to hear a pun in the wild that was artfully inserted into a conversation without an air of “Look at me! Look at what I’ve done! It’s funny.”
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