The pun is still mightier
Corny jokes have not outlived use, endure despite apparent disdain
By: Paul Bowers
Second-year print journalism student
Posted: 3/30/09
Ordinarily when an artistic practice goes out of style, people simply let it die, like fresco or disco. Not so, however, with puns.
As much as we seem to despise them, we allow them to live on, and sometimes - when the temptation is too great - supply a few ourselves.
Even Shakespeare, who did more to shape the English language than perhaps any writer since, was guilty of it. If the literary community had taken punitive action against punsters, the bard would surely have been barred.
"Truly, Sir, all that I live by is with the awl," a cobbler says to Flavius in the first act of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar." "I am, indeed, Sir, a surgeon to old shoes; when they are in great danger, I recover them."
The New York Times ran an op-ed piece Saturday titled "Pun for the Ages," in which a Fordham Law School student called inveterate punsters "the scourge of dinner tables and the despised prolongers of office meetings."
Indeed, proponents of the pun are like the audience at open mic night: sometimes they get a bad rap.
What is it about puns that gives them their staying power? They've been eliciting the same reactions for centuries now: the groans, the rolling eyes, the occasional begrudging chuckles.
My grandfather, Harold C. Bowers, was notorious for his puns. We used to call each other on weekends and trade jokes: What do you call a cow with two legs? Lean beef.
At his funeral, my father, David S. Bowers, told some of the old jokes. During the eulogy.
And today, I, Paul M. Bowers, carry the torch. Much to the chagrin of my classmates and coworkers, I never hesitate to pounce when wordplay presents itself.
What is it, I have wondered, that gives this God-awful humor its longevity within my family? At a cursory glance, it seems to only bother people. The term "punch line" has often taken on a literal meaning in my experience. But I suspect that at least some of the anger is a result of thinking, "I wish I had said that first."
It takes a certain type of person to make a pun work. In some ways, throwing an impromptu pun into conversation is a sacrificial act. It's humor at the speaker's own expense, a subtle self-deprecation for the sake of lightening the mood.
So much of today's humor is about criticizing an externality, from political punditry to parody songs to biting satires like "Thank You for Smoking." While these have their place, it is a relief sometimes to hear a joke without a target.
When my grandfather told his jokes, people would rub their temples and pretend not to be amused. I used to be embarrassed by my father's puns.
Now I see that theirs is among the purest forms of humor, one that does not attack or belittle. A pun's only weapon is language, and its only casualty is the speaker's pride.