Another
book I found hiding on one of my shelves is a little collection of puns and
shaggy dog stories. The editor, James Charlton, asked writers to supply a story
to play on the various expressions he gave them for the assignment. Stephen
King was given “Read any good books lately?” He had no trouble coming up with a
story about London’s shortage of rooks that were dying from pollution. King
brought it to the end with, “Bred any good rooks lately?” Thus the title for this
collection by Charlton. I thought I would summarize a few for my readers’
amusement but then realized that the stories were too long to use. That led me
to the question of puns and shaggy dog stories, many of which are short enough
for inclusion here.
But
first, some definitions.
A pun is a play on words, the humorous use of a word or phrase to emphasize or suggest its
different meanings, the use of words that are alike or nearly alike in sound
but not meaning. For
example (because I’m an old English teacher), “Santa’s
helpers are known as subordinate Clauses.” “The grammarian was very logical. He
had a lot of comma sense.” You get the idea. Puns are usually greeted by groans
and hesitant laughter. Some are better than others. “She had a photographic
memory but never developed it.” Groan!
“The two pianists had a good marriage.
They were always in a chord.” Groan!
Groucho Marx was fond of using them on his tv show and would always tap his
cigar and twitch his eyebrows at the moaning audience. Then there’s one of my
favorite plays on words, “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a
frontal lobotomy.” And a few more just to keep you groaning.
What’s the difference between deer
nuts and beer nuts? Beer nuts are a $1.75, deer nuts are under a buck.
Atheism is a non-prophet
organization.
How do you know when Santa's in
the room? You can sense his presents.
A New Year's resolution is
something that goes in one year and out the other.
A friend of mine tried to annoy me with bird
puns, but I soon realized that toucan play at that game.
Did you hear about the cat that swallowed a ball of
yarn? She had a litter of mittens.
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
How
does a shaggy dog story differ from a pun? Mainly by its length. I’ll include
Donald Hall’s response to the Stephen King story about good books:
“Here
where we live in New Hampshire, the little creeks roll down Ragged Mountain
across our fields, squirt under Route 4, and piddle into our hayfields on the
other side. My wife spends all fall and much of the spring working on borders
to these little springs, planting bulbs, fertilizing, and then keeping the
borders clear and clean, because if there’s anything she likes, it’s to weed a
good brook.”
A
spoonerism doesn’t really fit my topic for today, but they’re often so funny
and so much like puns that I have to include a few examples. A spoonerism is an
error in speech in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are unintentionally
switched between two words in a phrase. Such errors are named after the Oxford
don and ordained minister William Archibald Spooner, who was famous for doing
this. Once, Dr. Spooner raised a toast to her Royal Highness, Queen Victoria,
and proclaimed: “Three cheers for our queer old dean!” He also
said as he was scolding one of his students about poor work habits: “You’ve
tasted two worms.” And once when he wanted to speak to the dean: “Is the bean
dizzy?”
I’ll
supply only a few shaggy dog stories, the shorter not necessarily the better,
but more fitting for the length of this blog.
(1) It
seems there were two frogs sitting on a lily pad, when all of a sudden, a fly
came along. One frog put out his tongue, ate the fly, and started laughing
hysterically. Soon the other frog joined in the laughter.
Later in the day, the other frog ate a fly and the
two frogs burst out in laughter. As time went on, the frogs enjoyed the flies
so much that the sight of a fly would cause them to double up with pleasure (if
it's possible for frogs to double up!). But of course, the most pleasure came
when the fly was actually eaten.
A third frog hopped up to the first two and asked
what was so funny. The first frog answered, “Time.”
“What?” said the third frog.
The second frog explained: “Time's fun when you’re having
flies.”
(2) A
butcher got along great with everyone in the neighborhood except a mysterious
Swami. They hated each other. One evening, the Swami's pregnant wife had
intense cravings for liver, and the Swami had to go into his enemy’s shop. “Give
me a pound of liver,” he said to the butcher’s clerk. The butcher whispered to
the clerk from the back of the shop, “Here's our chance to get that no-good
bum.” Pointing to the clerk’s thumb, he said, "Weigh down upon the Swami’s
liver!”
(3) When
Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb, he had trouble selling it. People just
didn’t trust this “new” way of making light. In order to promote his idea he
decided to go around the country installing lights in different towns in order
to drum up publicity. While in Oklahoma, Edison stopped by an Indian
reservation and offered to put lights in any building they wanted. After much
thought the Indian chief decided that he wanted lights in his outhouse, so he
could see what he was doing at night. This made him the first man to wire a
head for a reservation.
(4) A
king carried environmentalism too far when he prohibited hunting of any kind.
Soon the realm was overrun with lions and tigers and bears. “Oh My!” shouted the people. They
revolted and threw the king out of the country. It was the first time the reign
was called because of the game.
Have you had enough? Well, in case you’d
like just an old-fashioned joke without any play on words, here’s a good one:
On a passenger flight, the pilot comes over the
public address system to greet the passengers. He tells them at what altitude
they’ll be flying, the expected arrival time, and a bit about the weather, and
advises them to relax and have a good flight. Then, forgetting to turn off the
speaker, he says to his co-pilot, “What would relax me right now is a cup of
coffee and a blowjob.” All the passengers hear it. As a stewardess immediately
begins to run toward the cockpit to tell the pilot of his slip-up, one of the
passengers stops her and says “Don’t forget the coffee!”
No comments:
Post a Comment