A Very Tall Pun

I'm beginning to wonder if I should reference news pages. They seem to be actively edited, so that for the second pun in a row, I can't find the page I want to quote, even though this time I just read it the other day. I'm wondering if the writer or the editor had the pun pointed out, and that particular sentence was removed, or if more prosaically, the article was simply edited for brevity.

Anyway, once again, I can't point you to the actual utterance, almost certainly an Unintended Pun, and in this case, pretty funny if you can picture the context. So, you'll have to trust me, once again. But ask my friends--I'm pretty trustworthy.

As a fan of Cleveland sports teams, I have been following news of Cleveland's NBA team's pursuit of an oft-injured center named Andrew Bynum. He is 7 feet tall, and plays at a weight of about 280 pounds. He has had quite a bit of success early in his career, playing for the Los Angeles Lakers on several playoff teams alongside NBA great Kobe Bryant.

approximately July 18, 2013 At the press conference to introduce the newly signed Andrew Bynum, General Manager Chris Grant said: "It is a pleasure adding a player of Andrew's stature to our roster."

I was not in Chris Grant's mind when he said this, but I am positive when he said "stature," he was not referring to the player's height, but rather to his playoff experience and general success in the league. But, when you are standing next to a man who is 7 feet tall, and currently weighs over 300 pounds, what other word would come to mind? I submit this as a stellar example of the activation web at work--Mr. Grant's mind surveyed the landscape of words to capture his thought to express "success, experience, exposure to great players" and came up with the only word it could when in the presence of such a massive person.

Please leave your comments, especially if have come across any Unintended Puns in your daily life.

Huh? A Study in Obfuscation

approximately June 23, 2013 An NBA draft prospect said: "My weakness is my strength."

"My weakness is my strength." Without context, and even with context, this sentence can have so many different meanings, it's almost mind-numbing. In this case, I think the player was saying that he knew he needed to work out more so he could get physically stronger--he was using the word "weakness" in its metaphorical sense, and the word strength in its actual, physical sense. This play on words/almost-impossible-to-understand-sentence sent me on a research project, looking on the Web for "my weakness is my strength", resulting in a lot of hits. Apparently, most uses are the more standard fare, using both "weakness" and "strength" in their metaphorical senses--that is, "one of the worst things about me is one of the best things about me," and then the author explains what he or she means. In some cases, it has a spiritual meaning, others, some kind of internal awakening, in another, it was political of some kind. But I didn't find any cases where the words were mixed, as in the NBA prospect's quote above, so I think we have something of an Unintended Pun.

The multiple meanings I alluded to above:

• The one I already mentioned--my metaphorical weakness--the thing I'm not so great at, is my physical strength
• The opposite--my physical weakness is my metaphorical strength--because it keeps me humble, or relying on my family or God
• Both metaphorical (seems to be the most common)--my metaphorical weakness--the thing I am not very good at--is my metaphorical strength--is the thing I end up being the best at.
• And then it gets really interesting, because if we decide that the last item is the case, that both "weakness" and "strength" are being used metaphorically, we have then to learn what is the weakness and what is the strength. But the player was quoted only one more sentence, with no further explanation.

So I think the activation web comes into play here. The player knows he has an area of his basketball game that needs to improve--he needs to get physically stronger so he has more stamina, so he can withstand the more physical play at the NBA level vs. college, so he can drive to the basket and not have the ball knocked out of his hands as easily, etc. He chose the word "weakness" instead of "area of improvement" or some such because, of course, it is close in his mind's web to the word "strength." But the result is obfuscation, and a pretty good entry for our blog.

These Aren't Really Puns, So What Are They?

Today's entries don't seem to be exactly puns, but they nonetheless have the "feel" of somebody choosing words that "fit" the previous words they used, in the same way that I've tried to define and describe Unintended Puns. So I would appreciate your feedback on how they fit this blog's intent.

For the first one, I wrote it down, but don't have a link for it. If you find a link, please post it in a comment so we can give credit to the right person.

approximately May 15, 2013 One of the contestants on the reality TV show The Biggest Loser lost 120 pounds. She said: "I didn't know I had it in me."

She means, of course, that she didn't realize she had the courage and perseverance to lose that much weight. But here on the Unintended Pun Forum, we notice the irony in the world, especially in how people word things. So, as I said, it's not really a pun, though I suppose you could make a case that "it," if you look at it in the pun sense, refers to the weight she lost, and of course that is what she had in her, so in that sense, there is a pun. But I wouldn't usually allow that the word "it" can qualify as a pun, since it's a pronoun, and also very short. What do you think?

The second one came out of my mouth, as many of these puns do--I am quite a purposeful punster, and maybe that "practice" results in many Unintended Puns as well. This happened as I was driving on the notorious AZ Loop 101--I have referred to it as a NASCAR raceway in previous posts. I noticed a small, boxy car in my rear view mirror. It then disappeared in my blind spot. For some reason, I spoke out loud, though nobody else was in the car with me, and I chose a "jive" accent.

May 20, 2013 As I needed to move into the lane where the small, boxy car was, I said: "I see you, my Kia Soul Brotha'."

Why in the world did I choose the jive accent and wording? That one made me laugh out loud to myself. Of all the cars it could have been (I am something of a car buff, so I usually can recognize cars), it was a Kia Soul, and I chose to add "Brotha'" to my little expostulation. Again, not really a pun, but something happened in my brain to make me choose this combination. What was it? Was it the same activation web that results in Unintended Puns?

The (Almost) Perfect Unintended Pun?

Okay, pefection basically doesn't happen within the human realm. Outside the human plane, you've got Plato's Ideal Forms, God's immutable character and will, maybe one or two others I can't think of right now. Inside the human plane, you have chocolate cream pie, chicken tikka masala over basmati rice...I already gotcha, because you're thinking "Those aren't perfect, but [insert something here] is." So anyway, when I say that I've got the "almost" perfect pun, I realize that perfection on this human plane is in the eye of the beholder. The way to assess, of course, is by using the Pun Factors: Fitting, Humor, Context, Depth, and Subtelty (this last I'm not sure is a good factor). This one we'll see works in all but Subtlety.

As I type, I am looking at pine trees, hillsides, and blue skies beyond. No, I'm not looking out the back window of my Phoenix home, but rather of our new weekend getaway home in the mountains north of Phoenix. And when I sleep away from my own comfortable bed, I try to remember to bring my own comfortable pillow. This time, I forgot, thus setting us up for the almost perfect Unintended Pun.

It's perfect for several reasons.

• You actually sleep "over" a pillow--Fitting.
• You use a pillow during sleep--Fitting.
• I had just lain down to sleep when I said the pun--Context
• I had tried to say a different metaphor, but couldn't get the words right, so I switched into the pun-ic metaphor--just plain Awesome.
• Maybe other reasons, which you can help me with.
• And finally, perhaps because I was so tired, but I think more because of the beauty of the pun, I actually laughed out loud-- and I never laugh at my own jokes--Humor

The metaphor I was trying to say was "don't cry over spilled milk." But I was very tired, so the words would not quite form themselves into a coherent sentence. As we know here on the forum, the brain has a way of subconsiously helping us out of our verbal dilemmas, making its associations far better than we could have consiously, thus bringing us to the almost perfect Unintended Pun.

April 27, 2013 As I lay down to sleep resting my head on a cushion not my familiar pillow, I said to myself: "Well, it's not my regular pillow, but I won't lose any sleep over it."

Alas, I in fact did lose sleep over it, or at least near, or on it--the piece of resistance--Depth!

I'd appreciate your grading of the perfection of this pun, as well as submitting more reasons for its beauty and perfection. Thanks for helping me have fun with this.

The Puns Just Keep on Comin'

As 2011 draws to a close, and the first year anniversary of Baring My Sole beckons, herewith are a number of puns I have collected recently. They come from all quarters, socio-economic strata, and lifestyles. Unintended Puns, in fact, know no comfort zones, and rear their delightful heads wherever our brains are taken by their utterers' association webs.

These first two would be interesting to rate in our Pun Factoring scales.
--they are funny, at least based on context, they are fitting, and they are subtle.

December 17, 2011
I wanted to dress warmly to an office Christmas party, which I thought might be held outside (remember, this is Phoenix--it was a high of 70 degrees that day), but I also accept my city-slicker fashion sensibilities: "I don't think I could pull off boots."

November 14, 2011
My daughter Claire had recently moved into an apartment with two other girls. Since there wasn't a lot of furniture, including no kitchen table chairs, she started thinking about how she could make the apartment more comfortable: "I wonder what I can bring to the table."

This next one brings up another way to notice that you have just said or are about to say an Unintended Pun.

November 14, 2011
A colleague at work explained that he never knows if the product he gets at the cafeteria will be fresh: "The potato chips, for lack of a better term, are a mixed bag."

Continuing in the potato vein, this one is from an e-mail chain in which various contributors to a Christmas dinner were discussing what they would bring. The pun may be on purpose, but I don't think so.

December 13, 2011
To end the back and forth about a particular item on the menu, one of the dinner guests suggested to the hostess: "I can make the mashed taters if you want that off your plate."

So, that's a wrap on the first year of Baring My Sole. I hope you have enjoyed reading and thinking about these creations of our subconscious minds, fabricated by the very neurons that make up our brains. I suspect that, just as with dreams, headaches, personality types, and just about everything to do with the mind and brain, Unintended Puns will never be understood much beyond the behavioral level. But it's fascinating and fun to dig into them as much as we can.

Happy New Year, everybody!

The Burst Continues

There was another burst. This burst, however, was very different from the one I blogged about last time: In a period of about 20 hours, I heard an Unintended Pun, my wife heard one at her medical practice, and my daughter thought one. So this burst was just in the ether, and therefore probably has a different explanation. It couldn't be due to "heightened awareness"--instead, perhaps there is an Activation Web that connects familial nerve endings. Okay, I'm just kidding. But it was fun having the last two reported to me after having just heard the first one.

September 22, 2011
At a meeting of a number of pastors of my church's denomination, one of the pastors was describing that another of the pastors was doing a great job leading his region's churches in the missions work they are doing. The missions-oriented pastor's name is John Pickett. The first pastor said: "He is leading the charge in New Mexico."

September 23, 2011
Claire had made a comment about a strong odor in our house, which led to a fairly heated discussion. Later, she thought to herself: "I didn't think I was making that big of a stink."


September 23, 2011
My wife, Christine, is a physician. She recommended that a patient begin using a powder that is mixed with water. The patient expressed concern that it might not taste very good. When Christine suggested she could mix the powder, water, and some frozen fruit in a blender, the patient said: "I could give it a whirl."

Claire and I discussed an aspect of the Association Web/Unintended Web theory: using the "Pickett's Charge" pun as an example, if the pastor had said "He is leading the way," we of course would think nothing of it, and we would have just gone on our way (accidental pun). So of course, the vast majority of sentences are NOT Untintended Puns. I guess I would say this simply means that the really "perfect" puns, like Pickett's Charge, are so awesome and enjoyable, and accidental, that there must be something to them, and we should just be glad our brains work that way.

Obvious But They Really Oughta Know Better

Okay, this post shows a little more about what I do at work. Last time, I described a conversation about satellites, hinting that I work on communication systems, which happens to be the case. This time, I'll again reveal a little more, describing part of an article I read at work. This shows that as part of my job I need to understand some fairly esoteric issues with regard to technology.

In an article on the SSWUG website, Ben Taylor wrote about virtual machines. Click here for the article. In this technology context, "virtual" means "acts like something else." For example, in the movie The Matrix , the characters had to make the choice to stay or leave the "virtual" world that had been created by the bad guys. But Mr. Taylor used the same word in its more common meaning in the same sentence as its technology meaning, when another word could have been used, which would have been much clearer.

August 17, 2011
Here is the sentence: “With the ability to use a virtually free host operating system such as Linux, the licensing costs for virtual machines has fallen.”

Mr. Taylor could have used "essentially" or "almost" or one of several other words to get his meaning across. Linux can be downloaded for exactly free for those who know what they are doing. There are other costs, such as maintenance, etc., which I think is what he means be "virtually." But of all people, in all contexts, you would think he would have chosen just about any word besides "virtually." I mean, the title of the article is "Are You Virtual?" But perhaps this is either an intended pun, in which case I've just wasted my time on this post, or this is futher proof that the human brain cannot be stopped when it comes to the activation web.

What do you think?

The Pun as a Boundary Line and an Integrator

I am about 30% through a fascinating book called Boundaries of Order by Butler Schaeffer. Click here for the book's Amazon page.

In what I have read so far, the author describes how today's technologies, especially but not only social media, have started to lead to the disintegration of centralized, institutionalized, hierarchical, vertical structures, in favor of decentralized, organic, horizontal associations. He uses examples from nature, including biology and chemistry, as well as species other than humans, to show how they are organized in the second way. He also discusses that though institutional structures try to emphasize human dualistic thinking to segregate us into various groups ("You're either with us or against us"), human language and thinking can show us that our minds actually often subconsciously integrate what our conscious minds segregate.

This may be the strongest evidence yet of the reason behind Unintended Puns, or the activation web, that I described from Dr. Motley several months ago. This activation web, perhaps, subconsciously integrates two thoughts that our conscious minds had segregated. Here is a long quote from Dr. Schaeffer's book:

"Humor seems to be a reflection of our unconscious mind’s awareness of the harmony found in seemingly contradictory relationships. Whether we are considering jokes, puns, sight gags, witticisms, irony, or satire, humor provides a pleasurable meaning because it gives us the opportunity to integrate what our conscious mind tells us is to be segregated. James Thurber described “humour” as “emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.” It operates along the boundary lines separating the expected from the unexpected, sometimes bouncing back and forth from one side of the line to the other, giving us glimpses of the complementary nature of the world. This is what gives puns their potency: a word or phrase used to communicate different meanings than when such expressions are used in a different context. Puns challenge the boundary lines of what we like to think of as the mutually-exclusive meanings of our abstractions."

In terms of the purpose of investigating Unintended Puns, I think Dr. Schaeffer is saying that puns, as abstractions, allow us to mean two different things at the same time, which allows us to integrate two thoughts into one. Unintended Puns are often silly or mundane, but show that our brains are perfectly capable of doing such a thing; therefore, as an example: we as humans can handle the fact that a person might be of a different race or nationality, but not want to kill or harm us just because of that difference (as Dr. Schaeffer discusses in a different part of the book)--our brains can deal with that fact, even though some institutional structures in some contexts would have us keep those facts separate.

We don't have to think in terms of the simple segregated groupings that many of us have been taught most of our lives. Our brains are capable of integrating things that we've been told can't be integrated.

Let me know what you think. This seems right to me, but maybe it's too big of a leap to think that Unintended Puns show that we are capable of holding two disparate thoughts in our minds at once, especially thoughts that have been inculcated by years of teaching.

How Common Are Unintended Puns?

Here are three puns from today, and one I read the other day. The first is from a work colleague who said it with absolutely no look that he meant to be funny. The second is from a quote in a news story, again I think said with no intention to make a pun. The third is a pun from a Yahoo! article which might be intentional. You'll have to decide. The last can't be intentional, because it is too morbid and sad for somebody to try to make a pun about such a thing.

I include these very recent ones to help us see how common these Unintended Puns must be. I'm one person, reading a few web pages a day, talking to a few people a day. And yet I've collected about five this week. I'm pretty sure our brains are up to something--and the activation web has a lot do with it.

Here are the puns:

February 25, 2011
While describing his excitement about finding a new gym, a work colleague said: “Have I told you about my new gym? It's worked out great!”

 The next one is subtle--the pun involves a person living in a town called Klinger using the word "cling" to describe people's reaction to a great young basketball player. Click here for the article.

February 25, 2011
Philly teen a legitimate phenom, by Cameron Smith: “...the Klinger (Pa.) Middle School student is focused on being a middle school student...He is a nice kid, and people are going to cling to him.”

 This next one could be on purpose. It's from an article about spouses sharing household chores. Click here for the article.

February 16, 2011
Economics: the key to happy couples' division of labor, by Dory Devlin: “Once you’ve ironed out all disagreements/agreements of splitting chores between the two of you, get ready for some new battles over what chores the kids should do.”

Finally, the morbid, sad one. The headline contains the pun.  Click here for the article.

February 25, 2011
Article by the Associated Press: “Daycare Fire Raises Questions, Sparks Investigation”

So, today's question: How common are Unintended Puns? If I notice them all around me, am I just a crazed victim who can't escape the taunts and abuses of a vast conspiracy? Or does the brain generate these word combinations on a frequent basis? Please help me decide. My sanity may depend on it. Not really--this is a guilt-free blog.

Verbal and Physical Slips--Unintended Pun Counterparts?

It occurred to me that verbal slips, as discussed in the previous two posts, based on Dr. Motley's research, probably have their equivalent in physical slips, with both probably coming from mental confusion and/or overlap of conflicting intentions. I'm thinking of the tennis player who has positioned herself to hit a lob, and then at the last second changes her mind in favor of a passing shot. The result is that she ends up hitting a perfect setup to the opponent waiting at the net, who then creams the cream puff (unintended pun) for a winner.

Or the baseball outfielder, who upon picking up the line drive base hit, looks up to see the lead runner rounding third. He wants to make a great play at the plate, but then remembers his team is ahead by four runs, so should keep the hitter at first. He attempts to stop his throwing motion, but instead of completely stopping, he only partially stops and lets go of the ball, so the ball ends up rolling toward home plate--and the hitter uses that delay to run to second, and the lead runner scores anyway.

When I mentioned these thoughts to my main sounding board, Claire suggested that this sounded a lot like the comedian Brian Regan, who discusses mixed up common sayings in one of his hilarious bits. See at 1:40 particularly: "Take luck."

Click here for a few good laughs.

Some of the "puns" I have collected are actually kind of like "mixed media"--not just "word play" but more like play between words and other stuff--the word "curry" said in the presence of the smell of the spice curry. The feeling of being tired combined with having trimmed hedges leading to saying "I'm bushed." In other words, so to speak, it seems that the brain doesn't just combine words in its "activation web." (Dr. Motley's term) It seems (to me, anyway), that it combines other things we are sensing or feeling--perhaps much like throwing the ball part way between two places we meant to, or saying parts of two things we meant to say, as in Brian Regan's piece, or smelling and saying "curry." The activation web takes over, and brings these elements together somehow, at a subconcious level.


Today's Unintended Pun, ripped from today's news:

February 19, 2011

Scientist finds Gulf bottom still oily, dead by Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer: “That report is at odds with a recent report by the BP spill compensation czar that said nearly all will be well by 2012.”

The irony is, of course, that "all will be well"--oh, you know what I mean.

Actual Science Behind the Unintended Pun

My somewhat scientific bent led me to want to add a somewhat scientific bent to these musings. So I googled “Freudian slip unintended pun,” which led me to an abstract of an article entitled The Production of Verbal Slips and Double Entendres as Clues to the Efficiency of Normal Speech Production, by Dr. Michael Motley of UC Davis. I had added “Freudian slip” to the search, because

1. "Unintended Pun" on its own was returning mostly people reporting their own puns (which of course helps prove the subtitle of this blog), but didn’t get me any scientific information.
2. My daughter Claire, a regular contributor to these pages, had noted that in one of her college classes, she was studying Freudian slips, or parapraxis, which seemed somewhat like Unintended Puns.
   

I figured adding a more “science-y” term might yield more science-y results. And lo, Dr. Motley's article was the primary result.

Click here for the abstract of Dr. Motley's article.

It’s probably a good thing that I only found the abstract, since the full article would most likely be well beyond my understanding. But it did lead me to Dr. Motley. I e-mailed him, who kindly replied, pointing me to two articles he wrote for popular consumption. I could not find links to these articles, but they would be available at most large public libraries, and would make great reading for those of us interested in how “slips” and Unintended Puns lurk just behind so much of what we say.

Here are references to the two articles:

• 1985 Motley, M.T. Slips of the tongue. Scientific American. 253:116-126.
• 1987 Motley, M.T. What I meant to say. Psychology Today 21(2):24-28.
  

Claire found the 1987 article and sent me a copy. Dr. Motley describes a theory known as “spreading activation,” in which

“a person’s lexicon, or mental dictionary, is organized so that each word in it is interconnected with other words associated by meaning, sound or grammar—somewhat like the interconnection of point in a complex spider web. When we prepare to speak, the relevant parts of the web are activated, causing reverberation within the system. Activation spreads first to the most closely related words, then to words associated with them, and so on. Each word activates an alternate part through the web. The cumulative activation for each word is tallied by checking how often each ‘point’ in the web ‘vibrates,’ and the word with the highest accumulation activation (the most vibration, in our web analogy) is selected. Verbal slips would be explained as the result of competing choices that have equal or nearly equal activation levels.”

This sounds so much like how I’ve attempted to explain what I’ve called my Unintended Pun theory—the brain being organized in such a way that words, metaphors, word pictures, and similar-sounding words come tumbling out when we least expect them, creating a combination of words that we don’t mean to come out, but that nonetheless do come out. Thank you, Dr. Motley, for doing this research.

Pun for the road: This one's a little subtle, but you movie buffs will get it.

August 19, 1991
After learning that George Lucas had just contracted to do three more Star Wars movies, a friend said: “He's the driving force behind those movies.”