Suppressed Puns

I’m not sure how to feel about it.

That sounds to me like one of those cons' piri piri theories.

They say it's gone anti-viral.

Guess who came crawling back

A suppressed groan, and minor eye roll later:

You know, because he died on the crapper?

Me: starts making baby noises. Her: what's that all about dad? Me: I think that's how I began Her: Big eyeroll while attempting to suppress giggles

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 son to his friend "hi!"

Friend "hey!"

My son "hay is for horses!"

Friend ... Silence

Me ... Proud smile and suppressed laughter

Back in the 90s, I remember playing some N64 after school when my dad came home from work. He comes into the living room and asks me what's up and, as a teen, I say "nuthin" and keep playing while he just stands there. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see he's looking at me with a stupid grin on his face that's he's trying to suppress poorly. Finally, he asks me to pause the game. I turn to him and he asks "You want a Hertz donut?" I obviously know this joke, but to make it worse, he's already making a fist, ready at his side. I roll my eyes and say "No, I do not want a Hertz donut." He just relaxes his hand and says surprised "Oh, you don't? You sure?" I say I'm sure and he says okay and walks back out to his car, leaving me to return to my GoldenEye. A few seconds later, he comes strolling back in the room, with a box of a dozen donuts in his hand, while he's eating one, with the same stupid grin on his face. On the box of donuts, "Dunkin" has been crudely crossed out and Hertz written beneath it in Sharpie marker. He walks into the kitchen saying "Guess you won't be having these Hertz donuts!" I'm in awe. I follow him into the kitchen and he finally relents and lets me take a donut. I ask him "So, you bought these donuts, and just put this joke together on the way home?" He says he thought of the joke earlier in the day at work and had to buy the donuts for the bit. I start laughing hysterically thinking about him sitting at work itching to leave to pull this off. As we sit there, quietly eating these donuts, he breaks the silence with a mouth full of donut, with "Had to stop at CVS to pick up a Sharpie too." I almost choked on the donut jimmies.

TLDR: Dad offered a Hertz donut, should've taken him up on it.

(Note: posto in bengali means poppy seed)

Uncle: what do you call a place that sells posto

Me: idk drug cartel lol

Uncle: no...postoffice suppresses chuckles

sigh