Despite their unpopularity, puns are some of the best uses of wordplay. A person can take something as simple as breakfast and turn it into an eggcellent joke.
Now wasn’t that pun?
If you are still reading this after reading that pun, I congratulate you for being one of the limited numbers
of oddly eccentric people who can take a punny joke, or at least tolerate one.
I hope you can take the further pun-ishment.
From my experience, most people react to puns in one of four ways: they either laugh
hysterically, groan, walk away or ignore that the pun was even made.
A comedian thrives on reactions from his or her audience, which is why he enjoys the first three responses.
But having a pun ignored is like someone crushing one’s heart into the ground.
Back when I was younger, I tried to be the comedic one at school. This, however, didn’t
work because no one laughed.
I thought they weren’t laughing because I was unfunny, so I quit making puns.
One day, I was surfing through Facebook —on my surfboard — when I came across a post
that changed my entire outlook on life.
If you’re wondering, I don’t use Outlook; I prefer Yahoo
and Gmail.
The post said that if a person truly wants to master comedy, he or she should tell
all the jokes that pop into his or her head, even if they suck.
It was as if I were seeing the sun for the very first time, then blinking away because it was too bright.
If I could make a bunch of puns, someone would laugh at at least one of them.
So I embarked on the long, ludicrous journey of becoming the ultimate master of puns. I do not
enjoy rap, by the way.
There will always be people to laugh at puns, but there are some who just don’t respond to them.
It’s not the punster’s fault for not being witty enough; some people simply ignore the fact that puns
exist.
What’s the problem with enjoying a good pun?
Other quips, like “Your Mama” jokes, are accepted, yet jokes involving puns are
discriminated against.
It’s as if no one enjoys a good clever joke anymore. Instead of appreciating a good pun, people would rather hear a comedian insult their mother.
Puns are not only amusing, they make both the punster and the receiver of the pun think
critically about the joke.
A joke takes both sides of the brain to figure out, according to a study done by researchers at the University of Windsor in Ontario.
The left side of the brain processes the language of the pun and the right figures out the joke’s dual meaning.
Puns breathe new life into words, giving them a whole different meaning.
The same is true of punsters.
A witty remark might just be a little joke to some people, but to the pun maker it is a way of
life.
Without puns, the world would just be full of single entendres, and what fun is that?
