cunning? more like PUN-ning

"Look—before you turn into a real nag..."

That would be the caption I almost submitted this week. A pun! A homonymic pun, to be precise. Though I did eventually settle on an even funnier submission (to be revealed later this week!!), I nearly went with this one solely out of my deep and abiding love for puns. Namely, bad puns. The more horrific the better. In fact, I would argue, the funniest puns are often not even puns at all: they are failed puns; horrifically failed puns.

But before we get all analyzy in the post-postmodern humor department (in which the unfunny is funny and vice-versa, and the act of joke-making itself can be a joke), let's first read this very amusing New York Times article on puns. Here M. Tartakovsky includes nearly all the chuckle-inducing anecdotes and ideas about puns that I myself would, were I to have some sort of nepotistic connection to the NYT Opinion section.

The one point of Tartakovsky's that I really hadn't considered before was "Surely puns silence conversation before they animate it." True true! Off the top of my head, I can't think of a more one-sided form of humor than the pun, whose only real purpose is to prove its quipster's cleverness. Maybe from now on, rather than groaning or giving the requisite (condescendingly-toned) "har har har," I will instead respond to every pun by referencing Lamb. Pistol to the ear again, eh? When all my intellect wants is a little tickle... (If you thought punsters were bad at making friends, you clearly haven't spent enough time with expert non-sequiturians such as myself.)

And on that note, I do believe I'll be off to bed for the evening. Especially because the Indian food I made for dinner seems to not be agreeing with me very well. (Indian food? More like Indigestion food, amiright??) Har har har.

PS (for readers of indelicate sensibilities only): Why oh why am I not the first to coin this term?