Respondent Conditioning Puns

Trevor loved tractors. And I mean, really loved tractors. Forget any obsessions or high-level interests you may have, chances are they pale in the face of Trevor’s love for tractors.

Every day Trevor would get up, in his tractor-themed bedroom in his tractor-themed house, with its tractor-themed wallpaper and tractor-themed carpets, and he would make his bed with its tractor-themed duvet and tractor-themed sheets. He would go downstairs in his tractor-themed pajamas into his tractor-themed kitchen, with its tractor-themed tiles and cupboards, and he would eat his breakfast while perusing the latest tractor-themed magazine or annual.

Trevors’s degree in Agricultural Engineering hung on his living room wall, along with a copy of his thesis, which centred around (you guessed it) tractors. The living room was decorated with all sorts of tractor-related trinkets, including die-cast models, paintings and drawings.

The hedges in Trevor’s front garden were trimmed in the shape of tractors. His lawn was vividly decorated with tractor-driving garden gnomes, and his garden furniture was constructed from various parts from vintage tractor designs.

Trevor just had one thing missing from his otherwise tractor-centric life; he had never actually owned, nor driven, a real tractor.

Not for his lack of trying, of course. Trevor had been to many tractor shows over the years, and visited many farms with friends of his, but none of the tractors he had seen had ever been quite right. Trevor was so knowledgeable about tractors that every single one he had come across had possessed some hidden trait that he wasn’t keen on. His first experience of driving a real tractor had to be perfect.

One day, Trevor was flicking through one of his favourite publications, Powertrain Quarterly, when there was a knock at the door. Trevor answered, and it was his friend and fellow tractor enthusiast, Jeff.

Trevor welcomed Jeff in, and over tea and crumpets served on tractor-themed crockery, they discussed the merits of aluminium drawbars and front-end loaders. Eventually Trevor pressed Jeff to explain the reason for his visit.

“Well” said Jeff, “As I’m sure you know the convention comes to town later”.

The convention. Trevor had been thinking of little else the past three weeks. The neighbouring town annually threw a convention for farmers, particularly farmyard machinery. There would be combine harvesters, lawnmowers, and of course, tractors.

“Yes of course” replied Trevor

A little boy named Tom was approaching his 3rd birthday, and absolutely adored the show "Tractor Tom", partially because of his name being spoken, and partially because he loved tractors.

As the day drew nearer, his parents decided to buy him a toy tractor as a gift. The rest of his toys were gone with the wind at this point, as Tom spent all his waking hours playing with this one tractor toy.

Fast forward a few years, and Tom's now approaching his 10th birthday, with his love for tractors intact and intensified. His parents discuss what to get for him, and decide that a ride-on tractor to replace his bike is the best gift they can give him.

Tom absolutely loves the gift, and spends all of his time out of school riding around the neighbourhood while his bike collects dust in the garage.

We come forward a few more years, as Tom approaches his 18th birthday, with an only intensified adoration of tractors. His father pulls him aside on the morning of his birthday, saying "Now son, I know that we've promised you a car, but we know what you really want."

He leads him outside, to a brand new tractor with a bow on it, saying that this is his welcome to adulthood.

Tom is beyond excited, and spends the next few months going everywhere in his tractor - grocery trips, bars, classes, friends' houses.....

Again, a few years later, Tom is driving down a back country road, in the middle of nowhere, with his tractor, in the middle of a storm. The tractor breaks down, and with no air conditioning or any form of modern comforts, Tom is in a miserable mood until someone finally comes past for him to flag down for help. After this, Tom realises that although tractors are fun, maybe they're not the best transport method out there.

Tom ages through a few more years, and finds himself driving down another road in the middle of nowhere in his car, and sees a house on fire just off the road. Being a good samaritan, he pulls over and heads up the driveway to a woman running out of the house screaming "Please, help, help! My baby is trapped in there! Go and call 911, please!"

Tom turns around, then, before leaving, has a brainwave.

He turns back and walks towards the flames, saying "Don't worry, ma'am, I've got this."

He takes a deep breath in, and the fire disappears into nothingness. As you'd expect, the woman is in awe, and asks, "Oh my God, how did you do that?!"

Tom simply responds, "Well you see ma'am, I'm an extractor fan."

Boyfriend and I went to Portillo's (Italian Beef sandwich place in Chicago) and ordered sammies.

While we were eating, I started a story with the phrase, "so, I kind of have a beef with..."

He pauses, looks down at my now-empty sandwich wrapper and responds with,

"well, you had a beef..."

Also, I've stopped asking him to call my phone when I misplace it because I'm tired of the "what do you want me to call it?" response.

Boy and I have been together for...8 months or so, dad-jokes only got super frequent recently - men of /r/dadjokes - is this a condition that occurs after several months of dating? Please help.

:)

"It needs to be used before it goes bad."

Mr.Brotato responds: "Would you say it's no longer in....mint 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

My newborn daughter is currently in the NICU recovering from a heart condition which had caused some respiratory complications. Because of these respiratory complications she had been intubated since birth until just a few days ago which had prevented her from learning how to breast feed. This morning, I told my wife to keep me updated with how things are going as she spent some time with our daughter so that I could get some of life's necessities completed. My wife then sent me a text explaining that the doctors had decided to allow our daughter to breast feed and that our daughter had just "latched" for the first time. I responded, "That's great news! Thanks for keeping me abreast!"