Dear Toast Readers, before this relationship we have goes further than you reading the title and my name, there’s something you have to know about me. It’s very sad, and I want you to prepare yourself: It’s about my family. Look, it’s a tragic fact of biology – some genes just don’t mix right and you get conditions endemic to a whole set of otherwise nice people. In my family, however, it’s a little worse than with most. You know how in Twilight, all the Native Americans turn into wolves?* It’s a little like that.
Except drastically worse.
We’re punners.
Sometimes I blame my father, who has been known to run three blocks in pursuit of a good** giraffe pun (i.e. – Giraffes are such experts at arts and crafts. Especially basket-weaving and gi-raffia.) But the truth is, the great man himself is in no better control of these terrible circumstances than is Jacob from Twilight***
Well, okay. We do get to keep our clothes on, at least. Also, very few of us are fucking morons.
If you don’t believe this is a serious condition, then, I’m sorry, but you’re a judgmental asshole basing things only on your own experience, which sounds to me like it’s blissfully pun-free.
“Sure,” you say. “Punning is a horrible thing. But in my family there is alcoholism and a history of split personalities. In fact, we have nine alcoholics in my family of three.”
Nope. This is worse.
You still don’t believe me? Well, I didn’t want to do this to you, but I’m tired of this heartbreaking condition being overlooked. I see the only way I can convince you that the Ellis family inheritance, much like the dreaded Hapsburg chin,**** is the worst genetic trait a family of royalty***** could have. So I offer you an accurate representation of of a conversation on what would otherwise be a fairly pleasant holiday. Let’s take last year’s Thanksgiving, perhaps:
MOM
Would anyone like more stuffing?
BROTHER
No thanks, I’m stuffed.
NIECE #1
I bet your argument will crumble by dessert.
FATHER
Yes, but by then he’ll be pie-eyed.
SISTER
I guess that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.
MY POOR HUSBAND
Can I have a roll?
SISTER #2
Yep, right there next to the rocks.
ME
(with resigned sadness)
Here, let me just roll this over to you.
NIECE #2
Do we have any sparkling water, or just flat?
NEPHEW #1
No, all our water is unfortunately sharp******
NIECE #2
Well, I guess that’s natural.
SISTER #3
Can I have the gravy?
BROTHER
Sure, but you don’t have to be so serious about it.
FATHER
Does anyone need more wine?
MY POOR HUSBAND
Sure, I’ll take some.
FATHER
Well waa, waaaa, waaaaaaa. Was that enough?
MY POOR HUSBAND
God help me.
BROTHER
Gosh, you already want more helpings?
NIECE #1
He just can’t help himself.
SISTER #4
Mmmmm, these potatoes au gratin are delicious.
SISTER-IN-LAW
Oh good, I was worried they’d be g’rotten.
MOM
Oh, stop being such a bunch of turkeys.
If you think I’m kidding – well, I’m not kidding, and I offer this as proof: I thought up every one of those puns in approximately 90 seconds, and believe me when I say I am far from the best/worst of my family.
If you still don’t understand the problem, that’s because you’ve just viewed the control side of the pun experiment. Everyone in my family is used to this; we’ve grown up in the warm glow of puns rewarded with chuckles or even groans if we’re really lucky. And then often pie. The real trouble starts when you put us out in actual human society without our den-mates. For example, here’s how that conversation would go with my ex-in laws, who were deeply lacking in a pun gene.
ME
Does anyone need more wine?
EX MOTHER-IN-LAW
Sure, thanks.
ME
Well, waaaaa waa waaaa.
(Crickets.)
ME
Wine…you know, whine…wine like this,
and then I made a whiny sound?
You know what, never mind, I’m keeping this bottle.
EX MOTHER-IN-LAW (to her son)
I’m so glad this is just a re-enactment and you divorced this woman in real life.
This is the problem with genetic punning. It is something that flourishes in a dark confined space, surrounded by its brood mates. The moment it goes outside, it quickly turns you into a blind mole popping out of its hole into the center of Times Square. You get your confused looks, your socially mortified looks, your scream-and-throw-garbage-at-you looks.
You are 100% medically blind to the idea that there are normal ways to respond to questions that do not involve wordplay.
And let me tell you, it’s all pun and games until somebody loses both eyes.
Footnotes:
*I hate these godawful books and that’s the last time you’ll find me referencing them.
**There are no good giraffe puns. Even about necking.
***I meant the last Twilight reference except for now.
****History is fun!
*****Not real royalty, of course. Pun royalty. Like the Borgias, who were never any fun at a party.
*******These are musical puns. You know how with some terrible illnesses, there are telltale signs that ALWAYS show up first? In our particular multi-generational cult of punning, that first terrible sign is be musical puns. You could call them our signature. It gets us in treble frequently.
Tags: family, horrible horrible things, humor, jessica ellis, language, puns
I admire the traditions of your beautiful tribe.
Thank you. We bear the scars of our troubled ancestry with pride.
I got in trouble in grad school for punning too much in class. One of my profs said, “Just *grow up*!”
I sat there, pouting and muttering about Shakespeare. Puns were good enough for him, right?
Jessica, I hope you marry into a better family best time!
I’m grad you told us that. He must have had a bard time dealing with those jokes. As a punster myself, I take bride in the puns we tell.
My people
I have a relative who is a retired judge, and he was able to subject innocent attorneys to his terrible puns for decades. They had to laugh because HE WAS THE JUDGE.
He never understood why we were more likely to groan than laugh as kids, though now I’m realizing that I, too, may have inherited the horrible pun gene.
My stepdad is not from an English speaking country, and it is a source of genuine bewilderment to him that puns are considered “low” humor here, and to be met with groans rather than admiration.
It took me till adulthood to realise that not everybody’s family was like this. Mine is.
My maternal grandfather is the man who told a twenty-minute anecdote about “a friend” trying to buy a purebred German Rex cat in Holland that turned out to be the setup for the line “How Dutch is that moggy in the window?”
(Also, pun-dueling, D&D-style: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0761.html)
I have a five minute one that ends “He’s the one-eyed once whore, buying purple weeple feeders.”
I am ashamed.
My dad built me up once with “two obese Patties, Special Ross, Lester G, pickin’ bunions on a Sesame Street bus” and I will never remember how the rest of the joke goes but DAT PUNCHLINE THO
I have one that ends with “I left my harp in Sam Clam’s disco”.
I learned it as “Sam Frank’s disco”.
That is beautiful. Both the story and the link.
(You left a parenthesis in the link. Here’s the fixed version.)
My dad’s ended with “It’s a knick-knack, Patty Black, give the frog a loan!”
Yes, I know all the rest. Yes, it takes a long time to get through.
Currently making the rounds in my family: “Did you hear that YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook are all going to be combined soon? (beat) They’re calling it YouTwitFace.”
I frequently tell this joke because it is perfect.
Phew, I am so glad that my family is not the only one afflicted with this terrible condition. And now my 11-year-old has been thoroughly brainwashed and regularly whips our asses at punning, so the infection continues into the next generation.
I’m so stoked to see Jessica on The Toast 🙂 And no, I’m not trying to butter her up.
Just sticking with dry humor instead?
You just had to jam that comment in there, didn’t you?
Sorry, I’m a bit crusty with my puns.
I knew you could rise to the occasion if you kneaded to.
I think you guys are spreading it on a bit thick.
Nobody got my pun’d screen name here so I had to change it. Standard Tuber, does NOBODY get that?
I don’t, but while generally pun-friendly I seem to have an anomalous genetic inability to EVER divine the source or reason for someone’s username. It might just be because I’m old and you all have different pop culture that I don’t know the nuances of, but I’d prefer it to be a disease. Oh, and now you have to explain it or I’ll never get to sleep.
Well, to be fair it’s a double-layered pun.
So, Standard and Tuber are stand-ins for other words. Thesaurus-dot-com should help.
But I can’t just give it away. Because as much as a Pun-ist enjoys making a pun, there is a perverse joy in making a pun that no one gets. Bwahahaha!
ETA: ok, one more hint. This is a user name. And, typically, user names are used for one common thing on the internet.
…regular potato? Please forgive me, as I am Not Clever.
I mean it! Proof: my username is my cat’s name.
So close!!! Nearly there!!!
So… have you read Little Town on the Prairie?
‘Cause if you haven’t this comment doesn’t make any sense!
I haven’t! 🙂
Well there’s a scene in it where Pa makes the same pun you made for a game of charades. I was just re-reading it the other day (Laura Ingalls Wilder books are like my security blanket)!
Wut!
WHOA!!! Okay, I cheated and looked it up in Little Town on the Prairie, and that is brilliant! You and Laura Ingalls Wilder both deserve super pun points for that. I wondered what your username meant for as long as I’ve been commenting on the Toast, and I had suspected it was some kind of pun, but I just wasn’t clever enough to figure it out myself. I guess in the grand sport of puns, I’m less of a competitor and more of a… particle spud.
Ah you got it!
FWIW, I don’t get it either.
Ahh. *smiles knowingly, still totally doesn’t get it, though*
EDIT: OK, I was able to get there with all the clues above. Well played, Tom Brokaw, or whoever you really are. I’m just relieved you’re not Couple No Sex Potato.
I don’t get it and it’s driving me crazy. Regular turnip? Common beet? Normal yam?? Thesaurus.com is no help at all. I’ve googled it and all I get is this thread. Is it “garden variety” something something root vegetable? Is that the joke?! WHAT IS IT I DON’T CARE IF IT’S FUNNY OR NOT I JUST NEED TO KNOW
Ohh… is it “regular beet”? -_-
It’s Common Tater… Commentator!
Ooh, that’s clever!
My parents both have the dread disease. It is uncontrolled. For my brother and myself, it’s more like herpes. Mostly doesn’t cause problems, but every once in a while, there’s an outbreak. Usually when it’s least welcome.
Yes, but the pun characteristic can be venerea-ted in society. Don’t give up, some of us like it.
“**There are no good giraffe puns. Even about necking.”
I’m sure we can think of one *necks* time it comes up.
Sounds like a tall tale to me.
No matter how hard you try, they’re just always a bit spotty.
We call it “the punitentiary” in my family – if you’ve made an exceptional one.
My husband and I have a terrible, terrible problem of making portmanteaus out of EVERYthing. Our portmanproblem must not be genetic, but rather airborne or spread by skin-to-skin contact like herpes, because we both have it.
I would say that easily 1/4 of my comments on the toast are either a portmanteau or a terrible pun. Which is okay. I’ve learned to accept that part of myself, and I’m happy with it.
(my favorite one ever may have been the one where someone was talking about being pooped on by bats (??? what was even going ON in this Link Roundup I have no idea) and I just said “guano-h no!”. I think about it a lot and laugh every time.)
My proudest Hairpin comment was the time I referred to the phenomenon of ruining a scented candle fragrance by keeping it in the bathroom as “some kind of Poovlovian effect.”
The pun-manteau is, of course, the highest form of wordplay.
What if it IS genetic? Any offspring you have would risk having two copies of the gene. O.O
Whenever I make an exceptionally terrible pun (or random nonsensical wordplay that doesn’t even rise to the level of punning), my husband labels it a “punt.”
And he claims he doesn’t like puns. Suuuuuure.
Your family and mine must come from the same part of punland, because I could have written this article without changing a word.
Shared puns is one of the things I miss most since my mum died, enough that I’m getting kind of tears just thinking about it. My dad and my brothers are nearly as good, but it’s just not the same without her.
I find it so comforting that I am not the only one afflicted by this, and so happy to know I am amongst friends.
While we are prone to many kinds of wordplay including puns, the epidemic in my family (particularly for me and my sister) is reference humor. My poor mother, who is not afflicted, is saddled with four people who follow up half their sentences with “That isn’t a real thing I believe, it was a Big Lebowski quote” or “Yes, yes I know the phrase is ‘olive branch’, have you not seen Ocean’s 13.” The Avengers only made it worse by giving us “I understood that reference!” as a pop culture reference. We are like a terrible post-Aladdin-everyone’s-trying-to-be-Robin-Williams-with-his-Elvis-impressions-and-Disneyland-jokes animated movie.
It’s just turtles all the way down.
There are so many degrees to puns, just gauge the audience a while and you’ll find the right temperature to roast them at. My Aunt has made my eyes roll more than anyone else with her non-stop punning. She has such go-tos as “I resemble that remark” and “Will you do me a flavor?” I don’t think she’s asked anyone to do her an actual FAVOR for decades.
My mom is known to bid someone farewell by saying “au reservoir” and for some reason, of all the heinous humor populating my family group (“I resemble that remark” is also popular), that’s the one I JUST. CAN’T. HANDLE.
ETA: And what’s even weirder about my problem here is that I myself am known to tell people that I bid them ennui. I AM SITTING IN A GLASS HOUSE.
I think at least once a week my husband asks if I want some wine and I answer I have had enough today and then side-eye the spawn. He laughs every time.
All those in 90 seconds? Wow, puns really are your forte.
Thank you! It doesn’t quite make up for my total lack of social skills and/or unusual grass-like odor, but I like to think it at least looks good on a resume, provided that that resume is for a pun-related job, which the economy has really killed off.
I was hoping my use of forte would be an intro to a cacophony of music puns but I guess we should give it a rest. (Grass-like odor seems way better than my gin-soaked-onion aroma.)
All your puns will get you in treble one day.
Only if the staff doesn’t have the ear for them.
Maybe people aren’t feeling too sharp today.
OK. OK.
So about six months ago we were outside the ice cream place, eating ice cream and looking at the kittens in the window of a pet shop. An old disheveled white dude comes up to us and says
“Do you know why the little birds always succeed?” I give him the bright smile that says “Skip to the bit where I explain that I don’t have any cash”
“They always succeed because they have no teeth: they cannot bite seed.” Then he just walked away.
I used to tell this story as a “Berkeley is amazing, y’all” anecdote, but this last Tuesday, we were eating ice cream and looking at kittens again – dude, we do this once a week, the ice cream people know us by name – and again, an old disheveled white dude approaches us and says “Do you know why the little birds always succeed?”
Now, I smiled at him in delight, and my delighted smile makes me look like a Utahraptor, so he botched the dismount, but still: he got us again! Oh no! The joy, the pain!
Then my husband insisted that he was a different guy. RIDICULOUS. SAME PHENOTYPE, SAME PUN, SAME PLACE. Unlikely.
But while we were visiting other places that have things almost as good as kittens in their windows (fancy hats) we saw BOTH OF THEM. TOGETHER. In a cafe. Chatting.
What is this, is this a secret club, am I being punked?
CLEARLY this pun must be met with a better pun next time, help me think of one.
When is a bagel not a bagel? When it is a sea gull!
I THINK I KNOW WHERE YOU WERE. I hang out there a lot! One time they had a bird born in the 70’s and my husband bonded with it. As I was born in the 80’s, I will never understand.
Also, have you ever been approached by the lady who tries to sell you her self-published poetry books at the coffee shop across from Moe’s (Caffe Mediteraneum or something)? One time, the cover had a bolt of lightening photoshopped (or just regular cut-and-pasted, you never know) above her head. Amazing.
Oh yes! That is the place! We think of it like the best bar ever: you stand in a line talking pleasantly with your friends and you can hear them, and if conversation lags: ice cream flavors. Then at the end, ice cream! And kittens! Or birds, depending!
Ahhhh, I missed a change for a multi-lingual pun! Shit.
Oh, you think you know where I was? Est-il ici?
There are puns my family has told so many times (just for the halibut) that we no longer say them, we just pause in a discussion of fish for dinner and say “Oh, why would you want to have that? Any particular reason?”
“Oh no, just because. You know, seems like a good time. Do you have a reason for eating it?”
Sometimes it takes a little moment, the baiting the other person towards the obvious pun.
My in-laws are not native English speakers. When I married my spouse, his family came up, bless them, and occasionally the conversation would take a hard turn into a series of allusions to a pun. This… this did not aid communication and comprehension. My family is having a serious face talk in coaxing tones, and it makes NO SENSE, and then we return to the original discussion, and MY IN-LAWS ARE TERRIFIED because they understood all the words but none of the meaning and the faces! The serious faces! WHAT IS GOING ON DO THEY HATE US?
Puns.
I dunno, that kind of sounds like the cook was fishing for a compliment.
I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS BAR
I was 16 and we were studying Chaucer’s The Merchant’s Tale. We got to that bit where May has sex with Januarie and it says sth along the lines of ‘she rated his playing not a bean’. I commented that after Januarie going on about how excited he is about the sex, this was ‘rather an anti-climax’. My English teacher groaned and told me to keep such puns to myself. The thing is, I really didn’t even mean to make the pun. For a moment I thought about protesting my innocence but then I realised that (a) no-one would believe me, and (b) why would I even want to disown it?
This one time, my sociology class was revising together, and we did this quiz thing where we split off into groups, each of which assigned itself an animal sound to answer questions with. One section, the teacher read out sociologists’ names and we had to say who they were and what have you. One of the sociologists was named Katz. I knew the answer.
I honestly didn’t even understand why everyone was laughing. It took me a good five minutes to click.
This sounds like a wonderful family and I would love to be a part of any of your pun-filled gatherings.
I work with two different people that cannot resist a pun. Note that I very carefully did not say a GOOD pun there. My response often times is “No. No. No.”
My family says that I am an incorrigible punster, and insists that I should not be incorriged.
I make puns occasionally (What’s the best name for a discount, end-of-summer beach supplies store? Sarong song!), but where I truly shine is in finding the unintentional word play of others.
Viz. we had to watch the Battleship Potemkin. GIRL: That was so long. BOY: Yeah, I think we’re all in the same boat. ME: *frenzied, solitary laughter*. Or, a TA was talking about religion (specifically the Crucifixion) in class, and he wanted to clear some facts up. “Just let me nail a few things down,” he said.
I love a good pun, and I come from a punning family, but where we really excel is making crap up. For instance, as a young girls, one of my sisters mused at the existence of gravy. My father very seriously told us the tale of a Revolutionary War colonel by the name of John Jacob Gravy, who needed to stretch his troops’ rations. He added some flour and water to the bottom of the pot, there was more to go around, and they called it gravy! Of course, my father’s nostrils were flaring and lips were quirking, so we knew it couldn’t be the truth, but he didn’t budge for a couple of days (until my mother made him). Every Thanksgiving since that time we remember Col. John J. Gravy and his ingenuity.
My husband makes stuff up all the time, and since we grew up an ocean apart, he often says things that *might* be true about his home country, but then again…. So even with internet-proof that Sea Scouts and that Canadian kid’s show about Hobo the wandering German shepherd truly exist, I generally have to disbelieve 80% of any childhood stories he tells.
We’re celebrating graduation at the fondue place. There are gluten-free types with us. One of the dessert options is s’mores, which is melted chocolate & marshmallow & something gluten-y.
We want that one, but without the gluten-y thing. So we ask if they can leave it out.
Waiter: S’mores, no gluten, got it
My spouse: We call it S’lesses
(Reader, I married him.)
(Like 21 years earlier, but that was because I knew that was in him. The boys & I are good at it – the older boy is truly his father’s son – but that man I married is a pun machine. He gets this *look* when he’s about to speak that we know means Puns Ahoy, and no amount of begging by his children can stop it. Not that they really want to. Mostly they want to one-up him. Our dinners are often quite unbearable to the pun-adverse.)
I envy punners. My husband is one, my grandfather and uncle also, but I just can’t do it. I think it’s because when I hear a word, I see how it is spelt, so homophones just don’t work for me – I think “But they aren’t the same word, why is that funny?”. Being too literal to pun is a terrible affliction.
You can’t tell a pun to a kleptomaniac as they always take everything literally.
Puns are fun!
Okay, I’m not as good at this as your relatives are.
Having walked back from the cinema this evening with my two sons and a friend of mine, which was just the family making increasingly contrived puns on the word ‘university’ (sample: where do wallets go to learn how to hold onto their money? Uni-purse-ity.) while my friend just looked increasingly horrified, I understand completely.
It's Common Tater… Commentator!
I just cannot believe no one has brought up Andy Zaltzman and his pun runs on the Bugle! Youtube is your friend here – the dog themed one is amazing, but I think the fish one has to be my favourite 😀
Only giriffe-giraffe think there are no good giraffe puns (I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry).
Vive the Repunlic and death to all who oppose it*.
*I said I was sorry.
No good puns about our long-necked friends? You bet giraffes there are!
When those who love wordplay clash with those who don’t, it’s the Punic* Wars all over again.
*(Punnic?)
"say what you will about the merits of national socialism, at least it was an ethos." <– I have to force myself never to make this reference except in very specific company. Not A Real Thing I Believe.
Yeah it turns out that when you have a religious "or at least spiritual" Mom who is really sensitive about the fact that all three of her kids are atheists, her children responding to her questions about whether or not they believe in anything, any sort of higher power, with "We are nihilists, we believe in NUZZING" doesn't go over so well.
Libya just can’t see as far since they got rid of Colonel Giraffi