The Misunderstanding Puns

My favourite 'dad joke' is purposefully misunderstanding the kids and watching their disbelief as they try and reword things so even an idiot can understand. We have a family app so they need permission to download some apps onto their devices (because we are "controlling" 🙂).

So every now and then this will happen:

Child : Can I get an app?

Me : sure, if you're tired just go and lie down.

Child: no, an APP

Me: yes, lie DOWN

Child: No, I need an... I want a...I just want...an app.

Me: or an early night?

Child: weary sigh

Me: you do look tired

• thinking I'm the best joker in history*

That was a short version. If it didn't make sense, read it aloud.

The kids will put me in a home at the first opportunity.

The salesman pointed me to a bunch of different options. Ultimately I think I found one that I wanted but the cost was a bit much. I asked the salesman if I could sleep on it and he said yes.

There must have been a misunderstanding because a few minutes later he kicked me out of the store.

After a long list of dad jokes in a chat, one of my friends told me to get hit by a truck. I responded with:

"that would be a semi-solution" and then: "If I am misunderstanding a part of this, please articulate your concerns to my friend lorry, she will clarify"

many people left the chat after this

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

OK, this just happened: bumped head, bag of frozen veggies, < enter dad stage left (the doorway, stage right is a window, and it's shut).>

Me: what happened little man? Him: <he explains> Me: So... mummy peed on your head? <Wife smirks condescendingly> Him: what?

Now, this is what I need help with, it's not the first time this has happened either, the wife goes on for a minute or so explaining how "wee" is sometimes called "pee" and how I'm deliberately misunderstanding him for comic effect.

If this wasn't bad enough he then howls with laughter for about five minutes getting me to repeat what I said again and again, all the while jumping around in the bed and generally totally cured by my comedic genius.

This isn't the way it's meant to be, is it? Can I enrol in a local parenting class, or should I send my wife to couples therapy?

Post: 60 matches down, only 4 to go.

Dad: Time to buy a new box then.

Bonus:

Dad: or did I misunderstand?

Other comment: No, he's talking about the football.