from the puns-not-just-for-dads-anymore dept.
Humor me please, and consider the pun. Though some may quibble over the claim, the oft-maligned wordplay is clever and creative, writer James Geary tells Quartz. His upcoming book Wit's End robustly defends puns and tells the distinguished history of these disrespected witticisms.
"Despite its bad reputation, punning is, in fact, among the highest displays of wit. Indeed, puns point to the essence of all true wit—the ability to hold in the mind two different ideas about the same thing at the same time," Geary writes. "And the pun's primacy is demonstrated by its strategic use in the oldest sacred stories, texts, and myths."
[...] Indeed, many a great mind has been inclined to pun. The 18th-century English poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge thought it was practically a prerequisite to intelligence, declaring, "All men who possess at once active dance, imagination, and philosophical spirit, are prone to punning."
US president Abraham Lincoln, despite his somber countenance and grave duties, was famously punny. Once, he received a letter from a Catholic priest asking him to suspend the sentence of a man to be hanged the next day. Lincoln quipped, "If I don't suspend it tonight, the man will surely be suspended tomorrow."
By using the same word—suspend—in two ways, Lincoln illuminates the relationship between the literal and metaphorical, legal and physical senses of a single term. It's a link that in conventional thinking remains invisible, Geary explains.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the groundbreaking psychiatrist and writer Sigmund Freud appreciated puns precisely for this reason. They reveal the accidental connections that our minds make, just as the Freudian slip reveals insights into a person's unconscious thinking.Rhyming ideas
"Puns are all about exchange and they create an intimacy," Geary insists. "You're in it together, sharing a secret. You both figure it out and that play is the archetypal creative aspect of the mind and being in a relationship."
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday September 04 2018, @04:35PM
Punning is a disease, or so I'm told by my associates.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 04 2018, @04:52PM
To paraphrase Sigmund Freud, "sometimes a pun is just a pun."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 04 2018, @04:57PM (1 child)
do not Incorrige
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday September 04 2018, @09:37PM
Be inciteful instead.
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(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Tuesday September 04 2018, @05:07PM
those of us who are are prune to ponning.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday September 04 2018, @05:16PM (2 children)
He was kicked in the head by a horse [rogerjnorton.com] when he was ten years old. He was knocked unconscious and stayed that way overnight.
After that Lincoln suffered deep depressions for the rest of his life; everyone who ever knew him described Lincoln as "The most melancholy man I ever met".
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 05 2018, @11:19AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday September 06 2018, @01:09AM
"Zeugma".
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday September 04 2018, @05:25PM (1 child)
That's not a puny story, that's a puny one.
You can shorten it to "puns are witty" and you ain't gonna lose anything by cutting away all the other fluff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Tuesday September 04 2018, @05:27PM
(fuck typos, I ruined my pun)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Tuesday September 04 2018, @06:48PM (2 children)
I don't need a pun case, all my puns are free.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday September 04 2018, @07:48PM (1 child)
But do you have the right to keep baring puns?
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday September 04 2018, @09:23PM
How the mighty have felon.
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(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 04 2018, @07:58PM
> ...writer Sigmund Freud appreciated puns precisely for this reason. They reveal the accidental connections that our minds make...
Fucking correct, Mom. I mean, man.
(Score: 4, Funny) by acid andy on Tuesday September 04 2018, @08:52PM (2 children)
If I wanted an elevated display of wit, I'd stack lots of books under my TV and watch a comedy show!
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday September 04 2018, @09:22PM (1 child)
I took the emergency contraceptive, A.K.A. the morning after pill.
But she still got pregnant anyway!
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 04 2018, @10:42PM
"Never hit your grandma with a shovel... it will make a bad impression on her mind."
--- remember from some lyrics in a song long time ago
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Wednesday September 05 2018, @03:05AM (1 child)
An orientation toward making puns is common among people in the higher reaches of giftedness.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Wednesday September 05 2018, @01:03PM
By Gifted, I assume you mean poisonous, because puns are toxic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @03:24AM (1 child)
Those with high levels of wit can usually pun well but that does not mean puns are among the highest displays of wit, any more than "active dance" is the highest display of wit.
I think even dumb AIs can pun well even if they still have difficulty telling the difference between a street sign and a truck.
A top marksman is probably better than average with a water pistol but that doesn't mean water pistol fights are among the highest displays of marksmanship, or that important in judging marksmanship.
You know someone is very smart when most of the smart people around say that person is really smart:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Cognitive_abilities [wikipedia.org]
He was probably very good at puns too but praising him for punning would be like praising a top chef for his instant ramen dishes.
Those who think puns are among the highest forms of wit probably can only manage punning at their highest level of wit.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Wednesday September 05 2018, @07:36AM
I imagine the highest forms of wit would be incomprehensible to people insufficiently smart.
An example is mathematical jokes [wikipedia.org]. Other academic fields will have their own in-jokes that can only be appreciated by experts in their fields, I'm not picking on mathematicians.
There will come a time when an AI will laugh at a joke made by another AI, and will be unable to explain the joke because we are insufficiently intelligent to understand it. At which point, the highest form of wit will be incomprehensible to humans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @12:20PM (1 child)
Not on pun in ten did.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday September 06 2018, @10:16AM
for those wondering, it's
no pun in ten did
it simply takes more cpu power to come up with puns, it is a sign your brain can sustain more load, but also that you're squandering your resources...
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @12:27PM
Must pay my tab sometime