Afternoon Inquisition

Sunday AI: Horrible Puns

I have a confession to make: I LOVE PUNS. I really do.  I loved this Nerdolympics pun-fest. (The Protractor Pull! Differential Equestrian! Krebs Cycling!)

I love this flea illustration.  There is an entire section of Cheezeburger for pun lovers like me.

The holidays, for me, are when I get together with family and see who can be the most annoying punster.  The first person that gets yelled at to “Shut Up!” wins.

Some people hate puns, and have claimed they are the lowest form of humor. Others love them; there is an annual Pun Contest each year (complete with “Punslingers”).

Do you love puns or hate them?  

What is your favorite pun?

Did this photo make you laugh, or just annoy you because it mangles two languages, not just one?

The Afternoon Inquisition (or AI) is a question posed to you, the Skepchick community. Look for it to appear Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3pm ET.

Bug_girl

Bug_girl has a PhD in Entomology, and is a pointy-headed former academic living in Ohio. She is obsessed with insects, but otherwise perfectly normal. Really! If you want a daily stream of cool info about bugs, follow her Facebook page or find her on Twitter.

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19 Comments

    1. Thank you, that comic was awesome. As are puns, even the bad ones, but I have to say that, because I can rarely resist making a pun, no matter how bad.

  1. So a while back, my father-in-law had my wife and me over for brunch, and made us eggs benedict. The next day, I told my wife that I had then looked up eggs benedict on Wikipedia – as we do – and told her I found out something interesting. Apparently, in France it has now become the fashion to serve Eggs Benedict on a hubcap instead of a regular dish, claiming that there’s something in the shiny, metallic surface that really brings out the flavor of the sauce. I guess there’s just no plate like chrome for the Hollandaise.

    I had her almost all the way to the end.

  2. I got the best set-up for a pun at work for a pun and managed to take advantage of it with perfect timing. Some stuff had got moved around in the department to make room for other stuff and some bookshelves had been moved in fron of our whiteboard blocking it from view. At a meeting, the boss noted that due to the whiteboard being behind the booshelves, he couldn’t see what the next item on the agenda was supposed to be and I managed to blurt out that we had a hidden agenda.

    I was depressed for days because I may never get a set of circumstances and a set-up this good for a pun again ever.

    1. That’s a good one!
      Don’t be sad that it may never happen again – be happy that it happened at all!

  3. Bug is the queen of the pun and has the genius to make almost anything sound suggestive to great effect!

    You know, it’s odd, I actually dislike puns but seem to enjoy and (try to) attempt quite a few of them here.

    Pondering, pondering, how to get humour to work over the internet when the timing is something like a 12 hour delay, no visual cues and who knows what works with you guys. Practice, I guess, is the key to it all.

    Tip of the hat to all who manage to pull it off. I reckon there ought to be a Nobel prize for humour.

  4. Generally, I like puns. It depends mostly on the source and the nature.

    I really don’t have a favorite pun. Too many to remember.

    Most I like are from the Bad Astronomer. <3

    Had to look twice to pick out the pun. Classic. :)

  5. One of my favorites comes from SF writer Spider Robinson…

    Our story takes place in the distant future. Interstellar travel is commonplace; contact with alien races is a familiar experience. One day, however, a planet is discovered with only one inhabitant, an enormous humanoid three miles high made of a granite-like substance. At first it is mistaken for an immense statue left by some vanished race of giants, for it squats motionless on a plain exhibiting no outward sign of life. It has legs but never rises to walk, a mouth but never eats nor speaks, what appears to be a functional brain but the organ lies dormant. Yet it lives.

    This puzzles scientists, who try in vain everything they can think of to provoke some reaction from the behemoth, but it just squats motionless and seemingly thoughtless — until one day a xenobiologist, frustrated beyond endurance, screams at it, “How could evolution give legs, mouth and brain to an organism that doesn’t *use* them?!” This is the first time anyone’s asked a direct question in the thing’s presence. It rises with a thunderous rumble, scattering clouds, pauses for a moment to think, and booms, “IT COULDN’T!” The giant then squats again.

    “Ah, of course!” exclaims the scientist. “It only stands to reason!”

  6. You all know the story of Daedalus and Icarus… The father and son duo who escaped from Crete by fashioning wings of feathers attached to wooden frames with wax. It’s been told and retold down through history to modern times and the tragic end of Icarus as he flew to close to the Sun, lost his feathers when the wax melted, and plunged into the sea is an oft used metaphor.

    The part that always gets left out however, is Daedalus’ comment as he circled above the spot in the ocean where Icarus vanished:

    “Son, how many times did I tell you… Loop before you leak!”

    And, of course, there is the moral of the story…

    He who levitates is washed.

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