What in the Word? Rules for Better Punmanship

[Eupher]

By John Pollack

The hardened vegetables, stalkers on death row, began chanting: "Lettuce out!" A gourd, sensing a plot, scanned the celery, but Cool Head Luke was already over the garden wall and into his getaway car. A Pinto, it wasn't mulch to look at, but the hot tomato behind the wheel sure was. Luke gave her a peck and told her to floret. "I'm a new man, Julie Anne," he said. "Head for Boston. I can blend in there—just arugula guy."

For readers who can't stand puns, this tale of escape is both crime and punishment. For punsters, it is a cornucopia of 20 puns. But in the perpetual war of wit between those who would steal meanings and those who would lock them up, there is a middle ground—rules to pun by, most of which I've just broken.

Puns are at their best when spoken, because they derive most of their power from ambiguity—ambiguity that is often diminished in the act of writing. Spelling a word requires us to favor one meaning over another, which saps a pun of dual interpretations as soon as it is read. This is one reason puns enjoyed their heyday in English prior to the spread of the printing press.

Shakespeare and his audiences loved puns, both comic and serious—think, for example, of Richard III's unhappiness with the "glorious summer" made by "this sun of York." Since the Elizabethan era, though, the standardization of English and the pursuit of scientific certainty have elbowed the unruly pun out to the very margins of acceptability.

To avoid making an unwelcome pun, focus first on the meanings or associations the pun will evoke and only secondarily on humor. Contrary to popular perceptions, a pun doesn't have to draw a laugh or a groan. Its primary role is to serve as an intellectual hyperlink, a form of shorthand that lets us pack more meaning into fewer words. This is not an argument against funny puns, but effective humor usually flows from unexpected meaning. In 2006, for example, the New York Post announced President George W. Bush's dismissal of his long-serving Secretary of Defense with the headline RUMS FELLED.

Wall Street Journal

[CG6468]

I heard a mold was refused entrance into a party once, and he just asked: "Why can't I come in? I'm really a fun guy!"