Business Rule Puns

ROI is king.

Two high school students named Steve and Josh found themselves broke on a saturday afternoon while strolling around in the city mall. They hadn't eaten lunch and they were getting hungry, but alas, they had no money for food and they were hours away from home.

"I heard there's a place downtown where you can get a sandwich for free" Steve said to Josh.

"That sounds great, let's check it out" Josh replied, and they headed downtown.

They soon found the place. It was a small shop, too small to feel like a real business. The place had no tables or chairs, and not really much furniture at all. An old man stood behind a small counter and eyed them as they entered.

"Welcome to the Laughing Hoagie" he said.

"What is a laughing hoagie?" Josh wondered.

"It's the name of this sandwich place. This is not a regular sandwich shop. We have a special offer here for people who can't afford to pay for their food." the man said as he smiled a toothy smile at them.

"So it's true then," Josh blurted out, "we can get free food here?"

"Not so fast." The old man said. "There is a condition."

"What is it?" Steve wondered aloud.

"Well," the man started "you have to listen to one of my jokes, and the one of you who laughs the most genuine laugh gets a free sandwhich. The other one gets nothing."

As he said this, the old man opened a small refrigerator that stood behind the counter and produced a large, footlong sandwhich with ham, cheese, bacon, lettuce and tomatoes. It was covered in a white dressing and gave off a faint peppery aroma. The boys' mouths started watering at the sight of it.

"What? So only one of us gets a sandwhich?" Steve asked, taken aback.

"Those are the rules," the old man grinned, "if you don't like it, you may leave."

"Nah, we'll hear the joke." Josh said. Steve looked at him, and then nodded to the old man.

"All right." the old man rubbed his hands together as if preparing to dig into a strenuous task.

"What did the mother Buffalo say when her boy left for college?" he asked, and looked expectantly at the teens. They both stared at him with blank expressions.

"Bye Son!" he exclaimed, and struggled not to burst out giggling at his own quip. Josh chuckled a bit, but Steve just frowned.

"That was the worst joke I ever heard!" he exclaimed.

"Well," the old man said as he handed the sandwich over to Josh, "if you don't like jokes with really bad punchlines, then this sub is not for you."

Hello ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.

I've been very busy with personal stuff for the past few weeks, so I've let this subreddit drift unattended. Reading some of the reports and comments after coming back makes me realize that my absence led to some unwanted events happening!

Let's start with the fun stuff: We now have a new fancy rulebook! If you suspect a post of breaking these rules, feel free to report it in the relevant category, or use (8) other if you suspect it to slip through the cracks of one of the other rules.

Secondly, as of right now, we do not have an explicit rule forbidding inflammatory subjects like race, politics, etc, as the rest of reddit seems to be melting down, but so far we remain unscathed. I wish to let you all crack puns like adults without having to put on training wheels, but if any of the above subjects become a problem then I will swiftly revisit this. Consider this a privilege, not a right, and do try to avoid abusing it! Piggybacking off this, any post that is more 'lewd' than PG should be NSFW tagged. If it is inappropriate for an office setting, I will manually NSFW it, and repeat offenders will have consequences.

Third, you can now request puns! start a self post with [request] and put in whatever information is necessary, such as "[request] puns about clocks".

I'll keep this post stickied for about a week or so, to keep it as a nice feedback net, and we can adjust rules, add/delete/modify them as needed, to keep our subreddit of lovely puns in peak condition!

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