The unintended pun in everyday life.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

New Year, New Category of Unintended Pun

Despite millions of people having as their number one resolution for the New Year to stop saying Unintended Puns, nothing can stop the subconscious mind from uttering them. (Okay, I doubt even one person made that even their lowest resolution, but I had this image of people contorting their lips, tongue and jaw, trying vainly to stop from saying what they know is about to be an Unintended Pun--and it made me laugh.) Reminds me of Mr. Universe in Firefly: "Nothing stops the signal."

Anyway, I think we've run across a new category--the Mixed Metaphor Unintended Pun, contributed by our favorite punster, my daughter Claire. She is a big fan of Ron Paul (as am I), and has been following the news coverage of his campaign. Of course, if you pay attention to the news about the Republican primaries, you know that finding information about Ron Paul requires quite a bit of persistence--the mainstream media seem determined to keep him out of their stories about the primaries, whether because they don't know what to make of him (definitely part of the problem) or because they hope by keeping him out of their stories he won't win the nomination.

But thanks to Claire's persistence, we have a lovely Unintended Pun, which even if it weren't a pun, would make a funny combination of metaphors.

From Ron Paul’s Secret Plan To Actually Win in BuzzFeed. Click here for the story.

January 3, 2012
“One of my running mates is a Paul supporter and there’s nobody in the world that works harder and she doesn’t just work for him – she does a lot of the heavy lifting in my district,” said Karen Karls, a Republican member of the Idaho House of Representatives, a state where Paul’s campaign is focused on validating the candidate with the endorsements of local elected officials. "I know some people maybe think the Paul supporters are sitting in the weeds taking pot shots at us, but seriously a lot of the people that probably would support him would be very likely to get involved long term, and that’s really what a political party needs."


I love the mixed metaphor by itself; the bonus of its making a pun qualifies it as one of the finest quotes ever. With humor like this, maybe the media will start looking more to Ron Paul supporters for their stories; then maybe they'll start noticing that what Ron Paul himself has to say makes more sense than what the other candidates are saying.

1 comment:

  1. What do you think? This is a blogger (escapefromobesity) talking about her modified Medifast plan:

    "On Plan B, I don't go hog wild; it's not a free-for-all of bacon and cheese and sausage."

    ReplyDelete