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Best puns and jokes.


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Originally Posted By: meAzuma
Originally Posted By: Erasmus
Questioner:
Hey what's this:
~~~~(imagine a hand+arm gesture)
Questiony:
I don't know... What?
Questioner:
Me neither but here comes another one
~~~~


That sounds awfully familiar. Is that from a movie?

I don't really remember, I just heard it a while ago and it stuck
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Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S
I'm tempted to respond to VCH's question by saying "You're right" and locking this thread. But you all know my bias against the sort of puns that have been showing up here, so that wouldn't be very fair.


You could probably get a more pun-friendly mod to do it.

I'm tempted to create a forum where we discuss the line between posting games and actual discourse, but I suspect it might not be quite meta enough to avoid closure.
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You're actually right. As Slarty says, my error wasn't in closing that thread but in allowing this one. Mea culpa. And actually, while I like puns, they're funny when they're witty, and they're almost by definition not witty when dumped, without context, into a thread. Maybe a long enough post with enough context could pull one off with panache, but in a pun thread they're really all going to come off as forced.

 

On the other hand, amidst the puns, we've had some chatter worth chatting about. So because this thread actually isn't a posting game, although it more or less was intended to be, I'll leave it alone. But if it becomes a pun-dump, it's over.

 

—Alorael, who got in his merciful act for the day. He can go back to snatching crusts of bread from orphans, gnawing on them, and spitting the soggy remnants back into their wide, soulful, tear-filled eyes.

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Originally Posted By: Actaeon
I'm tempted to create a forum where we discuss the line between posting games and actual discourse, but I suspect it might not be quite meta enough to avoid closure.


Discuss the difference between intelligent discourse and posting games here. Use a sequence of at least five words from the prior post in yours!
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Originally Posted By: Trenton-Mind
http://www.spiderwebforums.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=251792&gonew=1#UNREAD

Alorael yelled at someone for doing a quotes thread and said it is going to obviusly do nothing on the topic and just snow ball off to other things.


no, i read the thread, i was deliberately misunderstanding VCH's intent in posting that for comedic effect. see, because his post had a question-and-answer structure like many jokes, and this is the jokes thread
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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 months later...
Originally Posted By: Harehunter
Do you also get blamed for a particularly pungent pun, even when you're not in the room? In fact, when I fail to close a meeting with a wise crack, people ask me if I'm feeling all right. Apparently, they take me seriously when I tell them "If I ever lose my sense of humor, it's time to check me for a pulse."
I haven't had that happen before. I have, however, been asked if I'm all right when I go for more than a few minutes without making a pun, even if said pun is old. I've also been accused of lying when I claim that I'm not a pun's originator.
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The one characteristic about puns that most people cannot abide, is that the badder the pun, the better. I am so used to playing with words all day, that it just becomes second nature. I think I posted once, after having been reprimanded for excessive punning, that I see the opportunity for puns every where. I have restrained my self to only 10% of the puns I think of. In other words, not all my puns get posted here, only one pun in ten did.

 

(I know that one is old, but it still has a distinct pungency.)

 

The one thing that I think most people get fed up with is when a stream of puns begins to feed itself. One quote embedded with another quote and so on. This construct would be aptly named a punned-it-tree.

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Welcome to the pundits pun-house, where the folks all have too much pun, playing with their pun-wheels beneath the foliage of the punned-it-trees. They come here to be punished in the fashion of the Marx brothers.

 

All sane people would be well advised to heed the warning at the top of this thread. Since I am here, I give proof that I am not sane. But I would rather be insane that out-sane.

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In college we had a physics professor who loved fishing. When he was out of his office, he put a sign on his door with a man in a boat and the caption below read...

 

"Gone Fission."

 

Meanwhile, back at the punhouse, the pundits were playing a game of pun the tail on the donkey. The pundettes, perched prettily upon their puncushions, enjoying their hot-cross puns and ice cold pun-ch. The pundits preferred a beverage with a little more kick, so they poured their pints full of bootrear.

 

A little alliteration goes a long way.

 

I picked up the pungent habit when I was in the army. There was a group of us that would meet at the mess hall for breakfast after P.T. When you have a group of four punsters vying to out pun each other, it tends to get rather aromatic. Over the years I have gained the dubious title of PunMeister. The challenge my co-workers have is to concoct a pun so foul that it elicits a groan instead of my usual laugh. That just makes their whole day.

 

By the way, if you crave a good source of material, I highly recommend Piers Anthony's series of Xanth. His trilogy in now in its 32nd book and counting.

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Originally Posted By: Harehunter
In college we had a physics professor who loved fishing. When he was out of his office, he put a sign on his door with a man in a boat and the caption below read...

"Gone Fission."
Yeah, I heard that pun back in the day. Was there, perchance, a mushroom cloud pictured in the background?

Also, that reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw when I was in college:

"Alcohol and Calculus don't mix. Friends don't let friends drink and derive."
Originally Posted By: Harehunter
I picked up the pungent habit when I was in the army. There was a group of us that would meet at the mess hall for breakfast after P.T. When you have a group of four punsters vying to out pun each other, it tends to get rather aromatic.
I guess being in the same room as that group could be classified as cruel and unusual pun-ishment.
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Another good technique for polishing your pun-generator is working cross-word puzzles. You have to bend your mind into unusual contortions in order to link the clue to the answer. It doesn't hurt to have learned a smattering of other languages. I frequently see clues of the nature "Friend of Juan". There are some puzzle makers that explicitly indicate that the answer is a pun by ending the clue with '?'.

 

@Randomizer, I too felt that Physics is phun. You can generate a horrendously foul punstream with references to electrical measures. Care to try?

 

There is a reason this thread stands apart. It is intended to prevent pollution to the more serious discussions.

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Originally Posted By: Harehunter
Another good technique for polishing your pun-generator is working cross-word puzzles. You have to bend your mind into unusual contortions in order to link the clue to the answer.
I've been doing crosswords for years now, and am actually getting fairly good at spotting puns. Especially easy are the ones that include anagrams in the clues, or ones where the answer is a palindrome.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer
I don't think I have the brain wattage to keep current with the puns. It hertz my brain.
Watt happens when you ask your friends a question that's a pun? Do they give you a blank stare and say, "Ohm..." before replying?
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For a pun to really hertz, remember that the amplitude of its pungency is in direct negative proportion to the frequency of its modulation. Otherwise it gains a negative feedback, and that really hertz the ears.

 

Speaking of AC / DC, who do you like better: Bon Scott or Brian Johnson?

Personally, I think Scott really smoked them pipes. (Pun not intended ... OK, I'll use it anyway wink )

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Originally Posted By: Harehunter
For a pun to really hertz, remember that the amplitude of its pungency is in direct negative proportion to the frequency of its modulation. Otherwise it gains a negative feedback, and that really hertz the ears.
To make puns as electrifying as that, I suppose one needs to be grounded.
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I know this one is probably not original, but I don't believe I've heard it before;

 

Did you hear about the music major who was advised to change his major to computer science?

Click to reveal..
It turned out that his Bach was worse than his byte.

 

OK, that may be a little on the weak side.

 

@The Mystic; I do get grounded from time to thyme, which is why this thread was opened; so that I don't pollute more sirrus discussions with inane barking.

 

And this is why puns are considered the lowest form of humor.

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I've said it before, but it bears repeating: puns suffer unfairly from poor reputation. At their best, in the right context and the right moment, they're witty, go well with deadpan, and genuinely funny. But thrown out in a void, they're really on par with the knock-knock joke. Nothing is really very funny if it's unexpected and forced.

 

—Alorael, who supposes he's drawing a distinction between wordplay and spontaneous punning. The former can be very funny. The latter is often obnoxious, but often more for being a forced non-sequitur than for being a pun.

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You are absolutely correct about Context. Outside of context, puns fall flat. However, most of my witticism is of the spontaneous type. It makes its impact on peoples' funny bone, but in moments is forgotten. The 'Tom Swifties' just don't live beyond the context of the moment.

For a pun to be funny outside of a spontaneous instance, one must be able to quickly re-create the context of that instance, before the play on words can be delivered. This takes some careful crafting on the part of the pundit.

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Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba
Originally Posted By: Harehunter
You are absolutely correct about Context. Outside of context, puns fall flat. However, most of my witticism is HEY EVERYONE LOOK HOW WITTY AND CLEVER I AM! I'M THE FUNNIEST PERSON IN THE WORLD, AND SO HUMBLE ABOUT IT TOO!

Dikiyoba fixed your typo.


I didn't get that vibe from his post at all, and frankly there's really no need to be so rude about it, either.
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I think Tyranicus said everything I would ever want to say. Ever.

 

(Also Alorael, who seems to be saying similar things to Dikiyoba. The idea of having a thread for these things is a bit silly, since puns only really work (read: are only funny) in context (which is why some of the electrickery ones were okay in this thread); if you're just compiling a big list then you're sort of missing the point of being witty.)

 

And, on that note, before a mother knows the sex of her baby, it's a hidden agender.

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Unless you're very good at it, bringing a conversation around to where you can drop your pun is also forced. The pun has context, but the context itself can come across as an irritating non-sequitur, which dooms the pun.

 

—Alorael, who considers the highest form of punning to be accidental. There's really no substitute for the casualness of the accidentally dropped pun. And the look of incomprehension as everyone else laughs helps a lot, too.

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all comedy is violence. puns are violence against the audience

 

i've said that before but it's still true

 

i totally mean it btw. the culmination of the art of the pun is the shaggy dog story, where the joke is "i have wasted five minutes of your limited time on Earth and i expect you to laugh about it"

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