The Human Face Puns

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...

I have written this book to sweep away all misunderstandings about the crafty art of punnery and to convince you that the pun is well worth celebrating.... After all, the pun is mightier than the sword, and these days you are much more likely to run into a pun than into a sword. [A pun is a witticism involving the playful use of a word in different senses, or of words which differ in meaning but sound alike.]

Scoffing at puns seems to be a conditioned reflex, and through the centuries a steady barrage of libel and slander has been aimed at the practice of punning. Nearly three hundred years ago John Dennis sneered, “A pun is the lowest form of wit,” a charge that has been butted and rebutted by a mighty line of pundits and punheads.

Henry Erskine, for example, has protested that if a pun is the lowest form of wit, “It is, therefore, the foundation of all wit.” Oscar Levant has added a tag line: “A pun is the lowest form of humor—when you don’t think of it first.” John Crosbie and Bob Davies have responded to Dennis with hot, cross puns: “...If someone complains that punning is the lowest form of humor you can tell them that poetry is verse.”

Samuel Johnson, the eighteenth century self-appointed custodian of the English language, once thundered, “To trifle with the vocabulary which is the vehicle of social intercourse is to tamper with the currency of human intelligence. He who would violate the sanctities of his mother tongue would invade the recesses of the national till without remorse... ”

Joseph Addison pronounced that the seeds of punning are in the minds of all men, and tho’ they may be subdued by reason, reflection, and good sense, they will be very apt to shoot up in the greatest genius, that which is not broken and cultivated by the rules of art.

Far from being invertebrate, the inveterate punster is a brave entertainer. He or she loves to create a three-ring circus of words: words clowning, words teetering on tightropes, words swinging from tent tops, words thrusting their head into the mouths of lions. Punnery can be highly entertaining, but it is always a risky business. The humor can fall on its face, it can lose its balance and plunge into the sawdust, or it can be decapitated by the snapping shut of jaws. While circus performers often receive laughter or applause for their efforts, punsters often draw an obligatory groan for theirs. But the fact that most people groan at, rather than laugh at, puns doesn’t mean that the punnery isn’t fu

My cousin's girlfriend (CGF) is a primary school teacher and last night we were discussing her class size and the subjects she teaches.

Me: "How big are the classes you teach"

CGF: "ive got 28 in english and maths, 30 in science and 28 in topics"

Me: "What on earth is topics?"

CGF: "oh its stuff like history, R.S, Art, Geography and all that stuff"

Me (With the biggest grin on my face holding back laughter): "OH, THE HUMANITIES"

my girlfreind and CGF groan, me and cousin laugh and high five.

Sidenote. My couisn is one of the biggest dad jokers ive ever met, so he really apreciated the terrible joke.