A History of US Puns

There was, for instance, the time he conducted a crew of new S.A.R.H. (Society for the Aesthetic Rearrangement of History -BJ) recruits – all from late twentieth-century Terra – on a training study of Carter’s World, a newly established agricultural colony attempting to support itself by the export of edible nuts. Barely into their second generation, and having yet to show a profit, the colonists were technologically backward. Nevertheless, they showed a surprising ingenuity in the use of their few advantages. It was this resourcefulness that Feghoot was demonstrating to his rookies.

“Look at the perfection with which these streets are graded”, exclaimed one student. “Earth-moving machinery on this scale is strictly high technology stuff. How can they do it?”

“A new alleyway is being constructed, nearby”, said Feghoot. “Let us walk that way while I explain.” As they strolled, he told his students that countless centuries before, the Carter’s World system had been inhabited by a now-vanished race of giants. This very planet had served them for a nursery, and among the many artifacts they had left were thousands of childrens blocks, immense and precision-cut. You simply jack one up onto logs, bring it where you want it, put collapsible jacks underneath, snake out the logs, spread soil more or less evenly beneath, and collapse the jacks.

“I see”, said the student. “It’s not graded road at all; its a simple hammered-earth base.”

“That’s right,” Feghoot went on smoothly. “You just hit the road jack and don’t come back no mo.”

His students registered dismay and anguish.

“Isn’t that right, old-timer?,” Feghoot demanded of an ancient Carterian standing by the mouth of the newly completed alley they had just reached.

“Ahm afraid not, suh”, said the senior citizen, and the students giggled at Feghoots discomfiture. “Oh, we used to do it that way, but it was far too much trouble. It’s the soil heah. You see, the very same soil which produced our famous cashews is so high in clay content that a child could roll out a road of it. Then, we simply use a system of lenses to bake it into hardness. Ahve just completed this alley mahself, and ahm just a retired professor of Sports History, much too old and feeble to handle hydraulic jacks.

“So you see,” he finished, eyes twinkling, “Mah hammered alley is really cashews clay.”

Howls of agony rose from the students, but Feghoot never hesitated. “And he”, he said, turning to his students, “is clearly the gradi

We have a one year old son who is learning to use a cup. Tonight he was on the porch, "drinking" some water wearing a new and adorable little Nike outfit. The shirt got soaked so I took it off and let him continue to "drink" from his cup. Well of course he eventually dumped it on the floor.

So Dad is sitting there and he tells me to "just wipe it up with the shirt".

I say "NO WAY! I'm not using this brand new Nike shirt to clean the floor!"

Dad responds with "Just Do it™…"

...and looked at me with a face like it was the most clever hysterical thing that has ever been uttered in human history.

Me and this poor kid have a long road ahead of us...

... the guide showed us all around the plantation and gave us the history of caster, granulated, confectioners, and pearl sugar. I asked the guide “how much brown sugar do you make?”. He replied “no we have nunna dem here sir”

“Why not? Are they harder to find?”

“Yes. Demerara”

So my wife is working on Genealogy stuff, and was asking her dad about some of his family history. After telling a few stories about some of his other uncles, he comes to his uncle Charles. "I was named after him, you know..." he tells us.

We look at him more than a bit incredulously, as his name is Michael.

He smiles and says "What? I sure as hell wasn't named BEFORE him..."

My ex girlfriend is standing at the opposite end of the museum from me!

I want to say hello but there's just too much history between us.

...They learned a lot of history about Joseph Smith, who apparently had close to 40 wives. They were telling us this, and my mother-in-law said that he once stated that he "thought no more of taking another wife than buying a cow", to which my wife commented "...Wivestock!"

I love her so much.