There’s nothing wrong with a good pun. The reason puns are thought of as lowly, or cheap, is because truly good puns are very difficult and very rare. They are not a pointless scrambling of words and letters, and they should not be so obvious–or so reaching—as to elicit nothing but groans and rolling eyes. In fact, puns are so difficult, an entire sub-genre of humor has grown up around them: jokes about how bad puns are. (See Pearls before Swine.) I’ve done maybe two or three good puns in my entire career. I count the above as one of them.
Clear as Mud
By Jimmy Johnson
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281 responses to “Clear as Mud”
There are good puns and dumb puns. Most will get a groan. However if you are tracking dirt into the house, the time for a pun is very poor.
I showed my wife today’s strip…She wants her royalty check.
Good Morning all! It is early for me, since I did not get to sleep until 6 AM. Nothing in particular bothering me, just could not sleep. So I shall be running behind all day.
Debbe: Prayers for you. Seeing people we love not getting along has to be one of the hardest things in the world to endure. Been there – done that! Is Andrew not taking medication? Unfortunately, not taking prescribed meds is a byproduct of bipolar.
Arlo, Arlo, Arlo…
Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.
Rule #2 about comedy is timing, timing, timing. The penalty for breaking the rules of comedy? Death. See above.
It’s been said that puns are the lowest form of humor, and of course: They are the foundation.
Punsters are obviously guilty of thinking faster and about more than the situation requires. So of course they are resented by the other folk who are struggling to cope and don’t have any brain power to spare.
It was a Dobie Gillis thing to say
I was thinking about getting all literal–so I will. As a gardener, soil texture and composition is critical. “Dirt” can be a variety of mineral and organic content. Since she gardens, Janice clearly knows the difference in soil types. Dry mud implies compacted soil, with no air space due to original displacement by water, currently dehydrated, hard, and brittle. She would have certainly known if it were lawn or garden soil, “manure”, mud, or dried mud.
Just saw an inflammatory comment on a story about Detroit and another person posted: “Sir: If you have no idea of what you are talking about, you should not post anything”
I was half tempted to post “But if everyone did that, then I would have nothing in my newsfeed”>
Steve – too true!
Janis reminds me of a Peanuts strip in which Linus’ toast was not prepared to his satisfaction. “Do you expect me to eat raw toast??” he demanded.
Puns have been displaced as the lowest form of humour by blends¹. Blends are just like puns, except instead of having to come up with different words that work, you just take the whatever words you want and mash them together to produce a new one.
¹ Often called portmanteaus, but those are properly a subset. Although common usage has degraded that to the point that they’re practically synonymous to most people.
Oh my goodness, Village posters! All the above entries are brilliant. I was going to comment on a few, but after reading and thinking about them, I am in awe.
OF due 1410-1430 CST. emb
http://www.nps.gov/features/yell/webcam/oldFaithfulStreaming.html
One language that depends on portmanteaus and blends is German. Where we tend to go with acronyms and to shorten words, they happily compound them. For instance, I might need an MRI… a German would need a Magnetresonanzbildgebungs. A technician might bring in an X-ray cart to my room… a German would use a Röntgen Wagen.
TruckerRon, I can break down 3/4 of the MRI, but then my Coilege German breaks down. Magnet-just what it looks like. Resonanz-resonance. Bild-picture. Gebungs-?
oh yeah, my Rosetta Stone has taught me an X-ray is a roentgenbild (bild-picture), lettuce is saladhead and a sandwich is occupied bread
Twenty years ago I was a technical editor called on to format and pull in text, photos, and diagrams for a medical device manual. Everything had been translated into French, Italian, German, and Spanish (FIGS for short). When we put the completed manuals side-by-side with the original English, the German version was, by far, the thickest. Only the Spanish was thinner than the English.
Compounds are not blends or portmanteaus. Just concatenating stems isn’t enough… the words need to be mashed together in a blender with bits flying out. German has no fear of just using long compounds so it traditionally doesn’t bother… but an example of a German blend would be, “Teuro” (teuer + Euro).
For the Bird watchers here. This is pretty good.
http://www.grindtv.com/wildlife/barn-owl-prevails-during-surprise-in-flight-attack-by-northern-harrier/#XwMzZ1xVMPWjeFZx.97
emb: Thanks for the post quoting the Composers Datebook. I’ve enjoyed the Writers Almanac for many years but didn’t know about the other one. I will be sure to share it with my musician friends.
First trip to the supermarket today, since February, when I broke my ankle and was in a cast for weeks. Was a little nervous about driving … couldn’t do that either … thankfully, the shopping was entertaining and fruitful. Rather slow, but when I finally got back to the car a nice woman offered her help putting the bags in, which I gratefully accepted. Noticed the car parked beside mine was a Toyota Prius Hybrid (have I got that right?) and when I backed out I read the vanity license plate WATTGAS. Not sure if it’s a pun, but I got a big charge out of it.
Nodak Wayne, the video of the barn owl was great — I am a bird watcher (informal amateur.)
Trucker Ron, I loved your comment!
Whistling Rufus, it’s been too long! Let’s see you here more often.
OF due 1825-1845 CST. People gathering there now may not have access to the prediction. emb
http://www.nps.gov/features/yell/webcam/oldFaithfulStreaming.html
The seatbelt in the backseat of my car has never worked and I’ve spent all day trying to figure it out. Then it clicked.
Debbe, thanks for introducing me to breaking cat news. I check it out every day.
Nodak Wayne: Thanks. Action fast enough that had to view the video 2x to be sure Tyto* kept the vole. Now have to look again / sex of the harrier.
Charlotte: “Toyota Prius Hybrid” is correct, and they are great. Daughter now has my ’03, which had only 80,000 mi. on it. Got a new white one last summer; still reach into my pocket for the key, or if I’ve remembered not to bother, am likely to reach again when I go to start the car. Learned to drive late, ’54?, in Ann Arbor. Rode subways in NYC. Classmates were high schoolers*