Psychology of the Unintended Pun

In my first post, I mentioned that I started thinking that Unintended Puns were more than coincidental, and fairly common, when I offended a colleague by laughing when she seemed to be making fun of her own difficulties:
“My stove isn't working, and my refrigerator isn't doing too hot.”

It is these awkward social situations that I am hoping we can help each other avoid.

The first step, I believe, is that when we hear a pun, we must realize we are immediately faced with a one of two dilemmas. If the speaker is not too subtle after saying the pun, the dilemma is easily resolved--we will be faced with a metaphorical or physical poke in the ribs, followed by the speaker saying something like Get it?! , and we can either laugh, or groan, or whatever seems appropriate at that moment.

It is when the speaker is more subtle in general that we have to tread lightly. If he or she never uses puns, you can probably assume this pun is unintended, and simply make a mental note to send it in to your favorite Unintended Pun forum. If he or she is known to tell a pun or two, or if you do not know the speaker well enough to know if he or she uses puns, you have to go on alert. This is where the following guidelines may help. Please feel free to comment on these to help improve them. I have developed them over the years from trial and error, but as with any good scientific endeavor, I would love for these guidelines to improve through further testing.

1. The speaker says it with no glint in their eyes, and no hint that they expect you to get anything.
   
2. To probe a little, you play along as if you think it's an intended pun, and the person still doesn't react. Remember, we don't want to become social misfits, never getting puns, either, in our thirst to not offend anybody.
   
3. Important to note: It doesn't have to make you laugh to be worth contributing to the Unintended Pun Forum--many of my recorded Unintended Puns are not funny, except when you take them in their context. In other words, the Unintentional Word Play itself may not be funny--it is the context in which it is said that makes it interesting.
   

What about guidelines for the radio, TV, or the written word, when you don't know the speaker or writer at all, and they certainly aren't looking at you for a reaction? I think that's a lot of fun, and just the other day, I brought one example to this forum for you to help decide. Part of the Psychology of the Unintended Pun is to determine how and why they are uttered, and perhaps when we have no context, due to its not being spken within a conversation, we have the best scientific soup in which to test our theory. A few more for the road:

December 14, 1991 While describing his dislike of the commercialization of Christmas, a work colleague said: “Sometimes we get wrapped up in the presents.”
January 6, 2011 After explaining options for dinner to my son, which included heating up a can of corn and making hamburgers, I said: “Okay, we'll play it by ear.”