Introduction: Fun with Puns

Puns are all around us. But many of us go through our lives and never notice, except when somebody says one on purpose and punctuates it with an elbow in our ribs. Many more puns emanate accidentally, and in that case, the observant receiver may end up poking the would-be punster in the ribs and saying, “Oh, I get it!” only to be greeted with a blank stare. This phenomenon is the “Unintended Pun.” My goal is to be the elbow in your ribs—to help you hone your ear (and eye, as we’ll discuss), to discern those puns, and react appropriately and collegially, as the situation warrants (and dodging the blank stare).

Since I could talk, I have enjoyed making puns, and enjoyed receiving other people’s puns. In the 1980s, I read a book named The Society of Mind by Marvin Minsky. One of the points of that book is that connections in the brain are formed around various things, including word sounds as well as word pictures. Later, a work colleague was explaining her home appliance problems: “The stove quit working, and my refrigerator isn’t doing too hot.” I laughed out loud, thinking she was trying to be funny, despite her woes. She looked at me and thought I was making fun of her broken appliances, and was quite offended. This soon led me to think that there was more to Unintended Puns than meets the ear, and I began recording them for some possible future use. The more I thought about it, and the more I heard (and verified by asking loved ones and close friends) Unintended Puns, the more I wished I had the expertise to investigate the brain and deeply understand the connectivity of words and metaphors and speech.

For now, instead of pursuing a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience, I’ll start this blog. I’d love to hear from you and get your impressions and experiences. If you’re anything like me at all, we can enjoy this quest together.

I’ll leave you with a New Year’s gift—some of my collected Unintended Puns from the past few decades to whet your appetite and spur your contributions.

November 30, 1989
While discussing aches and pains and broken bones, I said: “I sprained ankles all over the joint.”

August 14, 1992
A contractor had just removed half of the concrete which had covered the backyard of our property in Baltimore. We were hoping to make a nicer yard for our children in addition to improving water drainage. The first step the contractor had done was to pour lots and lots of dirt in the yard. He said: “If I didn’t do it right away, my name would be mud.”

May 20, 2005
I was thinking about how to explain the weather to my Midwestern cousin, who was visiting Arizona. It occurred to me that you have to watch yourself in the summer because of how hot the sun gets. I thought this, but caught myself before saying it: “Out here, everything revolves around the sun.”

May 1, 2009
A work colleague was explaining to me that his girlfriend wants to have a cooking contest, during which a bunch of people will cook meals with the same set of ingredients, all doing it within an hour. He says he’s not sure it will work, since there’s only one stove: “I’m not sure how it will pan out.”

September 23, 2009
My wife is a physician, who specializes in seeing patients with migraine headaches. An e-mail from someone helping her set up a solo practice said: “What I mean is that your positive asset is your practice, though it has many headaches attached with it.”

In the next few days, I’ll share some ideas I have for some “guidelines” on how to distinguish an Unintended Pun from its lesser brethren, the Intended Pun. Also, I’ll posit a sort of rating scale on different axes so we can start thinking about these puns in a slightly scientific way.