New Journalism Puns

...it's pier reviewed.

The would-be mentor insisted on going to a seafood restaurant and then he ordered his favorite meal for the both of them. When the hard working, fresh-out-of-journalism-school grad asked the veteran newshound how he always managed to get witty phrases from the Prime Ministers and Presidents he interviewed, a sly smile swam across his face.

Intrigued, she watched intently while he reached for his wallet then removed a €5 note. Holding it toward her face over the table, she was surprised when the greying beat writer dropped the money directly on her uneaten dinner and held an index finger to his closed lips.

As they both looked down at the seafood platter, his paper Euro was suddenly sucked under the rings of fried calamari until it disappeared from sight. After what sounded like a stand-up comedian clearing his throat, a male voice with an Eastern European accent clearly rose out of her food. It said, "Trump asked for dirt on Biden so I sent him some good Ukrainian topsoil."

As the gobsmacked gal with mouth agape slowly raised her eyes to her grinning dinner guest's face, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "squid pro quote".

Required Explanation: "squid pro quote" is a play on words for the saying "quid pro quo", a Latin phrase meaning "something for something". In the news at the time of this posting a tremendous amount of discussion is being circulated about whether or not US president Trump dangled a quid pro quo offer in front of Ukraine's newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky. The deal had nothing to do with seafood however, so that was just a red herring. It should also be noted that Mr. Zelensky, before diving into politics, was a stand-up comedian.

Everyone knows the Pythagorean theorem, but few people know that Pythagoras was an avid and accomplished explorer who visited the new world before the Vikings or Columbus ever laid eyes on the continent. On one of his early visits he encountered a village and happened upon a woman, heavily pregnant sitting on the hide of a bear. He asked her what she was doing and she told him that she wanted to give birth on the hide so that her child would have the strength of a bear when he was born. As he walked further into the main part of the village he saw another woman, again quite pregnant sitting on the hide of a deer. When asked she replied that she wanted her child to have the grace and agility of a deer. Seeing a trend he was taken aback when he saw a very pregnant woman sitting on the hide of a hippopotamus. Surprised both at the choice and at the existence of such a creature, he wondered what she must wish for her child, but she replied that there just weren’t any other hides available for her so she took what she could get.

Many years later when he returned to the same village, he encountered the first woman and asked about her child. Was he as strong as a bear? She pointed him out and sure enough, her son was busy ripping a stump out of the ground with his hands, as strong as a bear! Amazed, he sought out the second woman, who pointed out her son, running through a field at great speed, as graceful and agile as a deer! Intrigued to say the least, Pythagoras sought the third woman. She pointed out her son, and he didn’t believe his eyes - he was both as strong as a bear and as graceful as a deer; a mountain of a man with grace and poise.

He wrote in his now-famous travel journal his amazing discovery; that the sons of the squaws on the two smaller hides are equal to that of the squaw on the hippopotamus.