Depressing Subject; Still Some Puns

I just finished listening to a set of CDs from The Teaching Company called "Utopia and Terror in the 20th Century." It's part of The Great Courses/Modern History series, this particular one taught by Professor Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius of the University of Tennessee. He covers many of what I have thought of in the past as The Top Ten Bad Guys of the 20th Century--Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, others--suggesting that their attempt to remake their societies into something of a utopia led them to use terror and violence, and of course often turning the death and destruction inward, on the very people they had supposedly hoped to re-make into "the perfect people." As with all the Great Courses, it is excellent, and in this case, makes for sobering and at times very uncomfortable listening--how could sane people follow these obviously insane "leaders," to the point, in the case of China during the Cultural Revolution in the time of Mao, where an entire population dressed exactly alike for fear of offending somebody?

Despite this serious and difficult topic, Dr. Liulevicius was unable to avoid during his 24 lectures saying a few Unintended Puns. One of them barely counts, as explained below, one of them I misheard a mispronounced word into an Unintended Pun, and one of them is blatant.

This first one kind of doesn't count, because there may not be another way to say it. I include it as an interesting historic note.

January 15, 2012 Said the professor in explaining how one of the most unintelligible, but at the same time somehow powerful and motivating and destructive, pieces of writing was put to paper:" "Hitler dictated Mein Kampf."

This second one is a new case for the Pun Forum. The Professor pronounced the word "totalitarianism" two different ways. The first time he used it, at least when I noticed it, he said it such that the word "total" was pronounced as usual, followed by the rest of the word. Sort of like "total-it-arianism."

January 10, 2012 As I got to thinking about this word later, I thought he had said" 'total-Aryanism,' which fit perfectly with the subject at hand, which was Hitler's attempt to re-make the German people into 'total Aryans.' "

Okay, now back to our usual brand of Unintended Pun, though again quite sobering in its context and meaning. The Professor was explaining the practice of eugenics "good born," which sadly for Americans, had its roots in the United States. It was made use of by many of the utopian madmen examined in the lecture series, most widely by the Nazis.

January 12, 2012 In explaining the idea behind eugenics, and how it took hold in the scientific community as a way to "improve" on human nature by among other things the sterilization of certain "unfit" people, the Professor said" "Eugenics was seen as the cutting edge of science."

The 20th Century saw some horrible and widespread violence, almost all of it brought about by a very few men attempting to create a legacy of...what? Mao Tse Tung, who must be in the Top Five, said "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." All of these "leaders" knew the only way to reach their goals was to seize control of their governments, and in most cases, they then tried to move outward from there. They persuaded millions that the utopia/perfection they sought was not only reachable, but if reached, would make all of them happier, feel better about themselves, and perhaps make them remembered forever--despite obvious evidence all around those millions that they were causing suffering and bloodshed and unhappiness. Since human nature doesn't change--there will always be insane men who want to "lead" us to some new utopia--may the average sane person find within the ability to resist the barrel of the gun.

Thank you for reading these Unintended Puns, and please resist the calls for utopia.

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.

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!

Two More Fun Puns

Our daughter woke up with horrible abdominal pain a few weeks ago, so bad in fact that we took her to the ER. The problem was not life threatening, but something that required a procedure (an endoscopy, or "scope" in the gastro-intestinal biz) that my wife the physician had suspected might be necessary based on symptoms from the previous day, and therefore had already set up an appointment for later that day. But because Claire had been admitted to the hospital, we cancelled the appointment, and therefore needed to set up another appointment with a different doctor.

October 11, 2011
Christine explained that she wanted to do a little research into this second doctor's practice: "I want to scope up the new doctor's office before I make the appointment."

Here is another one, also with a medical theme.

October 10, 2011
A colleague at work explained that he wanted to know the cost of the glasses before he bought them: "I wanted to know what I was looking at."

These Unintended Puns are so much fun--just don't point them out to anybody who isn't familiar with this blog. As we have discussed, they'll just look at you with a strange expression. But as you create a circle of friends and family (as with my family), you can point them out to each other and get a good laugh as you say them, or even get a good laugh as you stop yourself from saying what you were about to say.

Some Fun Puns

More about my job. I was researching a problem we are having at work. We are loading the operating system Linux on to a computer that doesn't have a monitor, which requires us to use a terminal emulation program.

October 17, 2011
During my research, I ran across the following description of a problem. Note: the term "X" is short-hand for a software program called "X-Windows," which is used to display data from one computer to a different computer: "I was just reminded that the changes I mentioned in the last comment are probably related to a different issue that appeared later in the install, after X actually started. We are seeing the video corruption at the very beginning of the install so X isn't even in the picture yet."

October 2, 2011
During his sermon, our pastor was describing that the Bible has some very strong proof for many of its claims, including even historic and archaelogical evidence: "When you start digging into the archaeology..."


October 3, 2011
I requested that my financial advisor purchase shares in the company Transocean on April 20, 2010. As it happens, that is the very day that the oil rig Deepwater Horizon, which was owned and operated by Transocean, exploded off the coast of Louisiana. Transocean owns and operates such rigs all over the world. The stock price, needless to say, has not done well since that day, though we have continued to hold on to the shares because it is a well-run company that generates a large amount of revenue. My wife Christine was pondering its low price recently: "Wow, that price has really tanked."

I really love the "X" pun--it is literally true that "X isn't even in the picture yet." The other two are just fun ones to start your week.