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.

Mrs. Malaprop and Unintended Puns

You remember Mrs. Malaprop, the fictional character who always mixed up words to hilarious effect. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about "Malapropism":

The word "malapropism" comes from the French "mal à propos" meaning "inappropriate", and was personified by Richard Brinsley Sheridan in his comedy The Rivals (1775) as "Mrs. Malaprop", a character who habitually misused her words, while Dogberryism comes from "Officer Dogberry," the name of a character in William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing who also makes this kind of error. These are the two best-known fictional characters who make this kind of error--there are many other examples. Malapropisms also occur as errors in natural speech. Malapropisms are often the subject of media attention, especially when made by politicians or other prominent individuals. When used intentionally, malapropisms can be an example of irony.[citation needed] The philosopher Donald Davidson has noted that malapropisms show how complex the process is by which the brain translates thoughts into language.

I highlighted a couple of the sentences, given that one of the purposes of this blog is to explore the neuro-electro-mechanical origins of Unintended Puns. I suspect that malapropisms have much the same origin as Unintended Puns, as we have discussed in many past posts, and therefore could be researched in much the same way.

I'll leave you with a pun from a sports article forum. It's the kind we love here at the Pun Forum in that beyond just being a simple pun, it expresses a truth as it makes the pun--enriching the sentence in a way the writer did not intend, and perhaps would not understand without an explanation.

January 2, 2013 I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, so I follow the Cleveland professional sports teams. Earlier this year, the Browns pursued Chip Kelly to become their next head coach. In an article entitled Browns have sights on Oregon's Chip Kelly (the article is no longer on Yahoo's site), a commenter, obviously a Browns fan, below the article said: "I will go with the flow and let the chips fall where they may. Wears me out hoping and wishing."

Please post your Unintended Puns, or give us your ideas on how they happen.