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Comment by jcoffland | Hacker News Reader

The pun is the lowest form of humor. There is a tendency, especially among educated males of a certain age, to start to feel themselves quite clever. These fellows, in order to demonstrate their cleverness to the world, being to subject their friends and family with an onslaught of puns. If you know such a punner, and you probably do, don't encourage them by saying things like, "I just love how your mind works" or "I never would have thought of that." Such encouragement can lead to years of future punning. These men need your help. I recommend a good hard slap.

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To quote a better man than me:

>The assumption that puns are per se contemptible, betrayed by the habit of describing every pun not as a pun, but as a bad pun or a feeble pun, is a sign at once of sheepish docility and desire to seem superior. Puns are good, bad, and indifferent, and only those who lack the wit to make them are unaware of the fact. [0]

[0] Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage, 2nd Edition

Those who possess the wit but refrain, are the most admirable.

Ha, who said that? Stating your opinion as aphorism doesn't make it true.

The application of wit seems to me to only be a positive. Humor brings joy. Adding wit to a conversation makes it strictly better.

Like good hammers, good wit can be used for evil. After it is how we mock people.

Voltaire, in spite of his other good attributes, was a villain in this regard. He could tell lies about opponents, but he would do it wittily so that the opponents couldn't set the record straight without it seeming that they can't take a joke.

Fowler stated his opinion in his book and you used that as an aphorism. Do you accept that as truth just because you know who said that, but don't even consider something that a pseudonymous user wrote? I have to say that you are a dumb sheep, even though I agree with you in the pun/humor matter.

First off, Fowler's lines aren't an aphorism. If they are, then all quotes are aphorisms. Was it an appeal to authority? Sure. Fowler was a genius. I'll more readily accept his authority than some pseudonymous user's.

Secondly, I did consider our grandparent's comment (see the second half of my reply). Should consideration be measured in word count or something? Should I have written him a paper?

I called him out on the comment because I see such pithy writing as fundamentally intellectually dishonest. Writing your (unsupported) conclusion with the trappings of a well-known adage misrepresents your (possibly personal) opinion as something already widely believed, staving off further argument.

> Adding wit to a conversation makes it strictly better.

Clearly there are many exceptions to the above assertion. The most common being when the main purpose of the wit is not to entertain but to showcase the punner's cleverness.

>The most common being when the main purpose of the wit is not to entertain but to showcase the punner's cleverness.

Not to get bogged down by minutiae, but I'd argue that wit and ostentation are two separate things, and that it's certainly possible to practice one without the other.

But sure, I'll concede that some puns are made pretentiously.

You seem bitter and boring, and I would not want to have conversations with someone who is so strict and boring and so set on their own supposed superiority that they shun the pun, to wit.

A witty saying proves nothing -Voltaire

Seems Fowler may be missing the point. Many derisive comments are in fact statements of relative approbation. As in: "that pun was not just bad (good), it was awful (great)"

For every foul pun, there is another still Fowler.

Yeah, I agree in part. But many do call all puns bad (bad). The emergence of bad (good) probably followed this.

I also think that the bad-awful spectrum is missing a category: the sublime/artful pun. See Shakespeare:

>Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this Son of York

>Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.

> There is a tendency, especially among educated males of a certain age, to start to feel themselves quite clever.

Once they learn a bit more, they start in with unintentionally ironic wordcraft on Hacker News.

Sorry, for us in the, um, third tier of humor evolution, that is one of the most cringeworthy sentences imaginable.

I seem to recall that young children of a certain age delight in puns, but eventually grow out of it as they find other parts of life and language more fascinating. Perhaps it would accordingly be apt to tell adult pun-slingers to find more age-appropriate humour, as one might point an adult devotee of nursery-rhymes toward more adult poetry.

Yes, they've surely never heard of other types of humor /s

Repetition is sometimes instructive.

This comment is actually more insightful then I would like to admit. Maybe we should be using forms of repetition more explicitly.

Lower even than the fart joke or the Hollywood classic kick to the crotch?

That's why the worst, most cringeworthy puns are the funniest. Still probably deserve a slap though.

> There is a tendency, especially among educated males of a certain age, to start to feel themselves quite clever.

This is clearly an emotive subject, and when reading this you should always remember to take a breath. Perhaps just before the words "quite clever".

There are different levels of humour? Please humour me.

Baa, Yewe are no fun.

Used in moderation prevents it from being too terrible.

Awesome!

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That's what she said.

Agreed in spades – consider the rapid and acute decline of Andy Zaltzman, at one time a colossus astride his profession, now alas a gibbering wreck.

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