Right Effort Puns

The doctor said: 'Your patella measures 2.54cm'. I said: 'Inch-high knees?' He said: '您的髌骨是2.54厘米高.'

I’m sleeping with the bartender’s wife. Can you hold him in the pub for an hour after he closes up?” Paddy was not very fond of the idea, but being Patrick was a lifelong friend, he reluctantly agreed. After the pub closed, Paddy struck up a conversation with the bartender asking him all sorts of stupid questions in an effort to keep him occupied. After some time, the bartender became suspicious and asked, “Paddy, what are you really up to with all this?” Paddy, filled with feelings of guilt and remorse, confessed to the bartender and said, “I’m sorry…. my friend Patrick is sleeping with your wife right now and asked me to keep you occupied.” The bartender smiled and putting a brotherly hand on Paddy`s shoulder, said "Jerk", I think you’d better hurry home, my wife died two years ago.”

Noted researcher Rosemary Fuller was involved in a lab accident today. She's working on the theory that herb-based formulas can actually reverse or accelerate the aging process. Parsley, for example, has been shown to cause rapid aging, and recent efforts have shown good results with oregano-based anti-aging serums. Ms Fuller was, unfortunately, standing near a vat of simmering oregano serum when a nearby researcher nudged her and she fell in! It appeared at first that the anti-aging serum would cause her to de-age down to nothing. Now, though, it looks like she'll be all right. The Parsley's aged Rosemary in time.

We're a fairly advanced society, we need jokes with content that makes us think. All these easy laughs are making us dumber by the second, and we just keep rewarding them with upvotes that convince the lazy among us to keep churning out lazy jokes. Comedy is one of the only common traits things in every society and culture on this planet and we may not always agree with what is funny, it's very subjective, but no society or culture has no comedy. It's one of the most effective unifiers in all human existence. Of course it's just my two cents, but we really need to avoid cheapening it. There are 6500 spoken languages in the world and this is the most widely spoken, the least spoken languages of course being sign language. Someone once said "a world without laughter would be like a world without warmth, a dark hole in the ground filled with cold water." I know they mean well, but I think it's worse than that. There are three unwritten rules for how comedy should function in the world. We have to learn to follow them or we're doomed as a people, forever, however just like there are two butts in the word "assassin", there are two caveats to this dire situation with lessons learned from the best there is. One is the lesson we can take from Switzerland, I'm not entirely sure what makes them so good at integrating comedy into their lives, but their flag is a huge plus. The other is the lesson we can learn from farmers who know how to put what's important first, how to put in the effort into growing something, and they are always outstanding in their field. We get too caught up in standard modalities of thinking and none of us are totally all right, in fact most of us are at least close to half left. In closing, the absence of comedy when you really think about it, is fear. Fear of the ups and downs of life, much like a fear of elevators. And just like a fear of elevators, we all must take steps to avoid it. Thank you for your time.

Disappointed

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

Three bulls one large, one medium, and one small are out of grass in their pasture. The large bull looks over next to their pasture and sees another pasture with beautiful and lush grass, so he takes a few steps back and charges straight into the fence and breaks it! The large bull started eating.

The two smaller bulls come in too and start eating the new grass.

"Hey!" said the large bull, "I put in the effort to eat this grass, go find your own!"

So the medium bull finds another pasture right next to the ones they're in, then he charges at the fence and breaks it and starts eating in that pasture. So the small bull comes in and starts eating.

"Hey!" exclaimed the medium bull, who then continued on to give the same spiel that the large bull gave the two smaller bulls.

Then the small bull looks around, but doesn't see any new grass fields. However, he spots a fence that led to a road. So the small bull opens the gate and walks and walks and walks to find that pasture.

Wanna know the moral of the story? A little bull comes a long way.

We use these red sliding sheets to help transfer patients from the operating table to their trolley (they're widely used in hospitals and care environments for various patient manual handling tasks). For those who are unfamiliar, it's basically a double layered, frictionless sheet you position under the patient in order (theoretically) to transfer them with minimal force and effort.

One particular colleague hates them, and today ranted:

"I would love to punch the guy who invented these and has probably made millions of pounds and retired"

To which someone immediately responded:

"I bet he's a right slippery character though".

I was in AP Economics and this girl was complaining to the teacher about how he wouldn't give any more hints about our essay questions for the final. Another teacher walks in to see what the commotion is about...

Teacher: What's her problem?

Econ Teacher: She's complaining about how she doesn't want to make an effort in this class

Teacher: This is an AP class right? Doesn't that mean you have to put forth effort?!

Me: No, it means Advanced Placement.

They all groaned and pointed at the door. I just sat on my desk and giggled. I think I'm pretty funny.