“A pun is the lowest form of humor—when you don’t think of it first”*…
Pun, noun. Origin unknown “The use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more meanings or different associations, or of two or more words of the same or nearly the same sound with different meanings, so as to produce a humorous effect; a play on words.” – Oxford English Dictionary
Pity the poor pun. For the last few decades, puns have been the province of clever headline writers, anxious shopkeepers, and embarrassing uncles; otherwise, they tend to be deployed sparingly, and with a dose of irony. Indeed, the late William Safire, the New York Times‘s long-time language writer, wrote in 2005 that a pun “is to wordplay what dominatrix sex is to foreplay – a stinging whip that elicits groans of guilty pleasure.” But puns have a long and storied history– they featured in the parables of Jesus and in the plays of Shakespeare— and they play an important role in the present, allowing Chinese social media users to address “forbidden” topics.
Are puns making a comeback? Sally Davies explores the question in BBC Magazine‘s “The Pun Conundrum” (from whence, the photo above).
* Oscar Levant
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As we punder paronomasia, we might recall that it was on this date in 1784 that Benjamin Franklin wrote, in a letter to his daughter Sarah Bache, of his displeasure with the eagle as the symbol of America; he preferred the turkey.
