Puns & Shaggy Dogs

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. 
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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!”