Puns for the New Year

Happy New Year, everyone! I've got a couple of recent Unintended Puns to share with you, both said by me. I guess one of them isn't so much a pun, but it's kind of a pun (perhaps you can give me your opinion of its pun-ness). In saying it, I realized another way that one can tell that one is saying, if not an Unintended Pun, at least a word play.

On to the puns, to start the New Year on the right foot.

November 19, 2012 To be honest, I can't remember the full context, but while discussing the nature of desert plants and their defense mechanisms with a work colleague, I said: "I wouldn't want to get on the bad side of a cactus, and I do mean the bad side."

This made me think that a way to tell that you've just said a pun is that you repeat yourself: "and I do mean the bad side." I could have said the much more mundane, "I wouldn't want to get stuck by a cactus." But as I realized that the "bad side" of course had a double meaning--the outside, as well as the mean side, I repeated myself to accentuate the humor.

The second one comes from me just talking to myself. (Yes, I do that, and have most of my life. What can I say? I'm doing it right now.) I had been trying to decide whether or not to buy an extra long twin-sized bed for my son, the advantage of which would be allowing him to sleep better than on a regular length twin-sized bed, but of course take less room than a queen-sized bed. But as a I contemplated the extra cost of less common-sized sheets, I decided against the purchase.

November 21, 2012 I said to myself: "When you throw the (extra cost of) sheets on top of it, we should just buy another queen."

I actually laughed out loud at that one.

If you catch yourself repeating something, or discover some other method of noticing word play or better yet, Unintended Puns, drop us a line.

A Seasonal Word Study

During this season of gift-giving, I want to pause from the Puns, and instead give you a gift in the spirit of this blog--a word study meaningful to the Christmas story.

The Bible accounts describe the "birth" of Jesus of Nazareth--born in a manger with cattle and hay all around. It was a humble, quiet scene, except perhaps for a baby wailing for its mother. But other parts of the account give more details about this "birth" that should make us think about Christmas much more deeply:

• A host of angels appeared to shepherds and told them about this newborn baby, announcing that he would bring peace.
• An old man named Simeon, having spent most of his life waiting "for the consolation of Israel," upon seeing and holding the baby Jesus, was moved to pray to God, "For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel."
• And of course, even how Mary became pregnant is a great mystery--"The Holy Spirit will come upon you."

So, this was no ordinary "birth." It was, however, necessary, that Jesus of Nazareth be "born" as a human being, to have both a human nature and a God nature within Him. He could then live as a human being--live a perfect life, to become the perfect sacrifice, to fulfill God's perfect justice, and therfore be Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the savior of the world. Instead of ordinary, this "birth" was extraordinary in ways beyond our imaginations: it represented the insertion of God into the world, the collision of the eternal with the temporal, the King of kings entering His kingdom.

Given all this, when you think of the "birth" of Jesus over the next few weeks, think of God entering the world, or a King entering His domain. Snow, and reindeer, and trees, and lights are all fun and festive. But please think of God and this birth on a deep level during this Christmas season.

I'll return next time with some great Unintended Puns.

Merry Christmas.

No Predictive Puns, But Some New Ones

Turns out the deck didn't have to come down after all, though it was touch and go for several weeks. So last blog's pun didn't have actual Predictive Power, just the potential. We still don't own the property, either, but that's a story for another time, perhaps if someone utters a great Unintended Pun during closing. This time, I'll just post a couple of great recent puns, the first is one I thought, and the second was reported to me by a work colleague that he heard on the radio. We'll have to take his word on it, since I didn't hear it myself. If he made it up, he needs to start writing fiction--it's awesome.

October 4, 2012 As I was driving on one of the local NASCAR circuits on my way to work last week, everybody was passing a relatively slow-moving truck, which was dominating the road by taking the center lane. I thought to myself: "Trucks are a real problem on the 101. Everybody has to dodge them right and left."

I guess my favorite Unintended Puns, except probably for the ones that are truly hilarious (see below), are the ones that state a simple truth. "Dodge right and left" of course is exactly what drivers had to do to get around a truck in the middle of three lanes, but I just meant it in the sense of "dodging all over the place."

The second one comes from my work colleague, who heard it during an interview on the radio. Police in the subject city are going to be wearing minicams on their uniforms, to record all they do as a way to prevent unwarranted lawsuits, as well as to provide a sense of accountability for the police.

October 10, 2012 The interviewee said something like: "The camera makes the police press the pause button as they go about their work..."

Assuming he didn't say it on purpose, which is unlikely, this is really funny. The speaker reached into the part of his brain where recording equipment resides, looked for a metaphor to help describe the police's need to think twice about what they were about to do, and chose the exact right image to fit the situation for the speaker--and one that is the exact wrong thing to do in the situation that the police would be in. He or she is about to do something really bad to somebody (Taser a homeless person, punch somebody slumped over their car, or worse.): "I'll just press the pause button on this darn minicam. Nobody will ever know. bwahahahaha." Hilarious pun. And scary for the rest of, what with editing equipment available to splice something together to make the paused and re-started recorded session seem benign.

Please follow our blog, and report the Unintended Puns you come across. They'll help us understand our brains--and much more importantly, lighten our burdens and give us a laugh.

A Pun with Predictive Power?

My wife and I are in the somewhat long and somewhat unpleasant process of buying a property in the very pleasant town of Prescott. The house in question is very nice, backs to National Forest land, has most of the features we were looking for, all at a price we are willing to pay. After the home inspection conducted by a private inspector hired by us, we requested a number of items be repaired. This list, incorporated on a form called a "BINSR," included our request that two additions to the house, which had not been "permitted" by the county upon construction, now be formally submitted and approved for permits. As regular readers would suspect, I don't care much about the county issuing these permits. It's mostly a formality, allowing the local municipality to collect its fee for doing very little. But most people do care, so that later when we sell the house, we would need to get the permits. So we want to get the additions permitted now, before we purchase the house.

June 18, 2012 As my wife described her thoughts on this, she said: "If the seller isn't willing to do the permit work, things kinda fall apart."

Besides being a nice pun, as the process has moved forward since she said this, it has turned out to be something of a predictive pun. One of the additions is a deck--a deck that spans most of the back of the house--a great place to spend time out of the Phoenix heat, admiring the National Forest/Scrub, enjoying the great outdoors. But, turns out that the deck needs some shoring up, so would potentially fall apart if it were not worked on and properly repaired. Christine of course meant that the deal could fall apart if the seller were not willing to do the permit work, and the reason it was a pun in the first place was because we knew at least the railing and stairs had to be repaired. But I am giving this pun the Power of Prediction due to the added need for beams being replaced. So, we have a first--A Pun with Predictive Power.
Anyway, please post your puns. We love a good pun, especially when it's Unintended. I know they are out there. Just add them in your comments.

Political Pun-entary

Regular readers of The Unintended Pun Forum will not be surprised to learn that I am not a fan of minimum wage laws. As with most do-gooder government intervention, forcing employers to pay a minimum wage has had not only unintended consequences, but to have had the reverse impact that its orignators wanted. Before any further comment, let me present today's pun-entary, which when analyzed to its core, provides all the comment needed.
After a months-long search, my son recently obtained a minimum wage job working at a nearby grocery store. As part of his in-processing, he was required to provide his Social Security card, to prove to the company that he is an American citizen.

April 9, 2012 As my son described this process, he said, with sarcasam in his voice: "Paying somebody $7.75 who isn't a citizen would be un-American."

Besides being a nice pun, this statement covers so much ground, and provides subtle and profound political commentary that you'll rarely find in the mainstream media. It gets at so many things in America today that are indeed un-American, that so many Americans just accept as "American":

• It gets at the illegal immigration problem--are illegal immigrants "taking" jobs from American citizens, or just doing jobs that Americans wouldn't take anyway, and therefore just making life more pleasant at an inexpensive price?
• It reminds us of one of the core beliefs that founded this country: "Don't Tread on Me"--and yet forcing employers to pay a certain wage, regardless of the employee's skill or experience is a great example of treading.
• It hints at how entwined the government is with companies--they have to follow so many regulations, becoming part of the bureaucracy and essentially agents of the state in enforcing those regulations, or face fines and penalties if they don't enforce them.

Then, to move beyond the pun-entary a little: Minimum wage laws actually raise unemployment and decrease the incentive to work--as I have read in the on-line pages of The Daily Reckoning, to get rid of unemployment, you only need to do two things:

1. Get rid of minimum wage laws.
2. Get rid of programs that provide incentives to not work.

Please share your Pun-entary, or any other Unintended Puns. There's nothing better than a good commentary, especially when told in the form of a pun.