Pun

Part of the 'Essential things everyone should know but don't know they should know' project

A pun is a joke that uses a play on words. It is the type of grammatical error that has me lost for words, and using one is like having sex as a nun - you turn out having a dirty habit. But it's not the only joke form people worship; jokes about eggs never fail to crack me up, while those about the ocean have me all at sea. Contrary to other jokes, it is punbelievable that anybody could misunderstand one.

Puns have been around since the creation of the earth, so let us observe their groundwork. If we dig a little deeper, we can get to the foundations of their movements, and finally set them in stone. One tends to relate a pun to the theme of the conversation, or create a lexical set of words which either have a partial link to the theme, or none at all (if you are really good). Here are a few of the circumstances in which the rumblings of a pun may occur, and all erupt in laughter:

• Awful chat up lines: 'Do you have a map? I'm lost in your eyes'
• The boyfriend of a rich girl offers to help her aristocratic parents cook; dropping an egg and cracking it, he smooths over the occasion: 'Oh! Smashing.'
• At a public speaking event the speaker, no less than Calvin Hartley, finishes his speech on Lycophagus Syndrome. The unfortunate expresser of thanks glosses over a two minute commentary by replying: 'Well! That speech had me lost-for-words!'
• Describing one's job: 'You just don't know how much pressure there is being an underwater diving expert'
• Being a police officer, making an arrest of a graffiti artist: 'Well the writing's on the wall...'
• Berating the disabled: 'Want a hand?' (Not recommended)

Appropriateness

The use of puns has become near universal, but is not always appropriate. However, academic essays and speeches ought to be full of them:

The Cold War, often described as the winter of the twentieth century, was a time of bitter relations and icy conduct. The atmosphere was as thick as the snow in Moscow, because both countries were poles apart when it came to foreign policy. After the thawing of the Second World war, liberations snowballed into an avalanche of communist uprisings and a blizzard of funds from the west in retaliation. However, this is the tip of the iceberg, because there were a hail of other reasons as to why the Cold War reached its eventual peak.

Below will soon be a list of indispensable puns for the reader's education. After all, you don't learn this at school.