(Appeared in the December 2016 edition of Arts & Opinion)
Wordplay:Arranged and Deranged Wit
Notwithstanding
the millions of dog and cat owners, like me, robotically scooping poop and
changing litter, some misguided souls regard our species as the dominant one on
the planet. I suppose this delusion is based on our ability to employ language
that allows us to communicate far more efficiently than other animals. We thus
control the planet, and perhaps will eventually destroy it. Language, however,
also performs a far less “serious” purpose.
I'm referring to the propensity of
homo sapiens for language play. Most people cavort with their mother tongues
and revel in the sounds. Language serves a recreational purpose and many people
also often “re-create” words for their amusement. The proclivity to pun is hardly an elitist
process. Walter Redfern, in his book Puns tells us that “Punning is a
free-for-all available to everyone... It is the stock-in-trade of the low
comedian and the most sophisticated wordsmith,” and Redfern informs us that it
appeals particularly to people of a “certain temperament.” It is my hypothesis
that the inability to play with language, in one form or another, may augur
some form of pathology, (or, at the very least, a proclivity to believe
students should be allowed to bear arms in schools).
Pronouncing
definitively on what constitutes true wit is a subjective endeavour.
Complicating matters even more is the fact that the commission
of language wit occurs not only wittingly, but also
unwittingly and sometimes even half-wittedly. When we manipulate language for
the purpose of wit, I designate this process arranged humour. At times,
however, humour comes from mistakes that one has made when it appears that we
are dealing more with a twit or a nitwit than with a wit. This form I designate
as deranged humour. Ergo, I am making the case
that what is not arranged is thus deranged.
The arrangement and “derangment” of
words in the English language is facilitated by the multiplicity of meanings
many words enjoy, and much wordplay treats homonyms as if they were synonyms.
The flexibility of English aids greatly in this process. For example. Over twenty per cent of verbs
started out their lives as nouns. If you take a gander at your body, for
example, you will find that virtually every part has been verbified so that,
from head to toe, you can head a committee, face the music, knuckle under, foot
the bill, and toe the line. Also, starting in the twelfth century, the English
language underwent a process that eliminated so many declensions, conjugations
and precise syntax that sometimes it seems that virtually any word can be
interpreted in many ways, and often lewdly. For example, the verbs,
“come,” “do,” “fix,” “have,” “know,” “make” and “put” are all replete with sexual innuendo.
These factors contribute to a greater propensity for puns in English than in
many other languages that are more highly inflected.
Schadenfreude
aside, even the kind-hearted enjoy hearing people mangle language; we even
revel when they pretend to commit some language screw-up. In fact, the
difference between a pun and a fabricated screw-up is not always apparent. Hence, the distinction between arranged and deranged is often murky. Sometimes one pretends that language has
been mangled when the reality is that the process of the “mistake” is rather
deliberate, and quite cleverly constructed.
Also, many a pun is without wit either because it has been used ad
nauseam or is not inherently funny, but here again subjectivity raises its ugly
head. There are some patterns as to which people like a particular joke, but to
a large extent the process is an individual one that transcends a host of
factors such as education, gender and class level.
.To pun or not to pun?
If you are a
reticent punster, steel your courage and silence not your tongue, for according
to linguist David Crystal in Language Play almost “two-thirds of the
jokes in a typical language collection rely on puns.” The humour in language is
often deliberate but many have posed this ludic question: To pun or not to
pun? Puns have been much maligned by a
host of commentators. Freud described puns as “cheap,” and Oliver Wendell
Holmes assailed them as “verbicide.” Many writers in seventeenth-and
eighteenth-century England, such as John Dryden, Daniel Defoe and Joseph
Addison believed that the English language approached perfection and that the
inherent ambiguity in puns created confusion and impoliteness. In an article in
the Tatler in 1710, however, Jonathan Swift mocked this “affectation of
politeness,” because he realized, as Shakespeare did, that individual words
possess multiple interpretative possibilities.
Puns have had other defenders. Three hundred years ago, Henry Erskine
countered the statement that “a pun is the lowest form of wit” by adding that
“it is therefore the foundation of all wit,” and Oscar Levant opined that it is
the “lowest form of humor – when you
didn't think of it first.”
Punning has
been a language fixture through the ages. In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus introduces himself to the Cyclops, as Outis,
which means “no man” in Greek. He then
attacks the giant, who calls for reinforcement from his fellow monsters with
the plea “No man is killing me!”
Naturally, no one rushes to his aid, proving that the pun is indeed,
mightier than the sword. Cicero was another habitual grave punster. When a man
plowed up the burial ground of his father, Cicero couldn't resist interjecting,
“This is truly to cultivate a father`s memory.”
In the Bible there are many puns on
names. In Hebrew, adamah means ground
and edom means red. The name Adam may
derive from the red earth whence he came. The name Jacob is derived from the
Hebrew word for heel (ah'kev), because he held onto the heel of his
older twin brother Esau at birth.
However, award Jesus the prize for best Biblical pun. We read in Matthew
16:18: “Thou art Peter ( Greek Petros), and upon this rock (Greek petra),
I will build my Church.” Pope Gregory, one-time guardian of the Rock,
punned when he stated that English slaves were Non Angli, sed angeli; “not Angles, but
angels.”
Shakespeare’s
Puns
'Tis said that in the art of punning,
Shakespeare was great shakes and without peer. Not everyone, however,
appreciated the bard’s puns. Lexicographer Samuel Johnson said that “a quibble
was to Shakespeare his fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world and was content
to do so.” In his A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), Johnson defines “quibble” as “a low
conceit depending on the sound of words; a pun” and “punster” is rendered as “a
low wit who endeavours at reputation by double meaning.” Hardly high praise.
Twentieth-century literary critic William Empson was even harsher. He felt Shakespeare’s punnery showed “lack of
decision and will power, a feminine pleasure in yielding to the mesmerism of
language, in getting one’s way, if at all, by deceit and flattery, for a poet
to be so fearfully susceptible to puns. Many of us could wish the Bard had been
more manly in his literary habits.” Empson was reiterating a point made by
eighteenth-century writer Joseph Addison who believed that puns had to be
strictly differentiated from the more “manly Strokes” of wit and satire. Samuel Coleridge, on the other hand, was much
more understanding of Shakespeare's penchant to pun and stated that “a pun, if
congruous with the feeling of a scene is not only allowable...but oftentimes
the most effective intensive of passions.”
One study uncovered 3000 puns in the
Bard's works, with an average of 78 puns per play. Many of these occur at
climactic moments. In Macbeth, after
Macbeth has killed the King, Lady Macbeth displays a lucid dispassion when she
avers, “I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal. For it must seem their
guilt.” At the beginning of Julius
Caesar, the cobbler says he is a “saver of lost soles,” and if they are in
danger, here-covers them.” In Romeo and
Juliet, the dying Mercutio exits stage left with this vaudevillian pun:
“Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man.” This is but one of the estimated 175 puns in Romeo and Juliet. Even the great Dane himself, Hamlet, doggedly
can't forgo expiring without the pun “the rest is silence,” proving the maxim
that “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.”
Nowadays, we look at puns as merely exercises in jocularity but we must
bear in mind that in Shakespeare’s era, there were few unsuitable moments for
puns. Even religious puns were acceptable. We find in Shakespeare's contemporary John Donne’s Hymn to God The Father the
line “The Son will shine as he shines now.”
Most of the witty wordplay in
Shakespeare is wanton and somewhat aggressive. The liveliest exchanges are
between lovers who fight their way to the altar where the wordplay is usually
both seductive and initially hostile. Shakespeare's puns can also be quite
lewd. Some of the bawdiness occurs in seemingly innocuous phrases like “too
much of a good thing,” spoken by Rosalind to Orlando in As You Like It. In Shakespeare's day, “thing” was a common
euphemism for genitalia.
Some scholars see sexual allusions
everywhere. Frankie Rubinstein in Dictionary
of Shakespeare's Sexual Puns and their
Significance claims that the following words all have sexual connotations:
“abhor,” “abominable,” “about,” “absolute,” “abuse,” “access,” “accommodate,”
“acorn,” “acquaint,” “adventure,” “advocate” and “affection” and we're not even
halfway through the letter A! Rubinstein
tells us that in Elizabethan vernacular, the word “surgeon” refers to the
treatment of venereal disease, and thus it was not shoes that were being
mended, but the bottoms of whores. In Cymbeline we have this line: “Will
force him think I have picked the lock, and taken the treasure of her honour.”
Here “pick the lock” refers to the act of deflowering. In Hamlet, the
Prince refers to Polonius as a “fishmonger,” and is angry because he believes
Polonius is responsible for Ophelia rejecting him. The term “fish” was used in
the sixteenth century as an off-colour allusion to a woman. Hence, Hamlet is
essentially calling Polonius a pimp.
Many
of Shakespeare’s puns would nowadays be considered groaners. On the other hand,
the fact that so many people enjoy bad puns shows that they serve a purpose and
even contribute to a sense of community, for they transcend class distinctions.
One should remember that Shakespeare is also employing them as a device to release
tension in an audience.
Puns by Other Literary Greats
Lewis Carroll was another inveterate
punster. In Through the Looking Glass
we have this passage: “Here the Red Queen began again. ‘Can you answer useful
questions?’ she said. ‘How is bread made?’ ‘I know THAT!’ Alice cried eagerly.
‘You take some flour— ' ‘Where do you pick the flower?’ the White Queen asked.
‘In a garden, or in the hedges?’ ‘Well,
it isn't PICKED at all,’ Alice explained: ‘it's GROUND—’ ‘How many acres of ground?’ said the White
Queen.‘You mustn't leave out so many things.’ ‘Fan her head.’ The Red Queen
anxiously interrupted, ‘She’ll be feverish after so much thinking.’ ”
The puns that Carroll uses are based on homophones and word ambiguities that
are likely to be understood by a sharp ten-year-old. For example, when Alice tells the Duchess, “The
earth takes twenty- four hours to turn around on its axis,” the Duchess
retorts: “talking of axes” - off with her head.” When the Mouse tells
Alice, “Mine is a long and sad tale,” Alice is confused and asks him why having
a long tail makes him sad.
Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest
is another great source for puns. Its
protagonist Jack Worthing pretends that he has a black sheep brother named
Ernest but only Jack is aware that he, in fact, is Ernest. In one passage Jack
says, “Aunt Augusta I've now realised for the first time in my life the
importance of Being Earnest.” Many of Wilde's puns serve the purpose of
highlighting the narrow-mindedness and hypocrisy of Victorian society. This is
the intent when Lady Bracknell asks, “Mr. Worthing, is Miss Cardew at all
connected with any of the large railway stations in London? ... Until yesterday
I had no idea that there were families of persons whose origins was a
Terminus.” As a member of the nobility, Lady Bracknell is mocking Jack's lack
of knowledge about his family to underscore their different social ranks. For
her, the marriage of Gwendolen Fairfax
to Jack would result in a dead end - or a terminus. For pure
comic content, however, my favourite pun in the play is this famous quip by
Lady Bracknell: “To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, is a misfortune; to lose
both looks like carelessness.” This pun plays on the dual senses of “lose” as
“misplace” and “have a loved one
die.”
Some commentators have found the plethora of puns found in
James Joyce's masterpieces Ulysses and Finnegans Wake to be
offputting, but Joyce was unapologetic on this matter. He countered, “After
all, the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church was built on a pun” referring to
the aforementioned quip by Jesus in Matthew 16:18: “Thou art Peter (Greek Petros), and upon this rock (Greek petra) I will build my Church.” When
asked whether many of the puns in Ulysses
and Finnegans Wake were in essence
trivial, nonplussed he retorted, “Yes some of them are trivial and some of them
are quadrivial.” In other words, they have at least four sources, not three.
(“trivial” literally means “three
roads”). The trivium represented the three parts of classical liberal arts that
included rhetoric, grammar, and logic.
Many of Joyce's puns were rather naughty and at times he
even “out-bawdied” Shakespeare. For example, in Ulysses we find this
little poem:
“If you see kay
Tell him he may
See you in tea
Tell him for me.”
The words of this ditty when spoken phonetically spell out
some rather crude swear words that are apparent to the trenchant reader.
Whether curmudgeons like it or not, more than half of
all jokes rely on language play, and the vast majority of these include punnery
in some form. But aside from the reality and large presence of puns, a pun
often symbolizes a universe of possibility. It reshapes the language we use to
describe the world and in that sense can be seen as a political gesture, even a
revolutionary one. Shared laughter aimed at a common enemy can be a catalyst to
audacity.
What constitutes a great pun is largely
subjective. Here are two of my favourites:
A timid husband is unable to buy his
wife's preferred anemones for her birthday and fearfully returns home bearing
some greenery. To his surprise she gushes “With fronds like these who needs
anemones? ”
A woman had twins and gave them up for
adoption. One of them went to an Egyptian family who named him Amal. The other
was adopted by a Spanish family who called him Juan. Years later, Juan sends a picture
of himself to his birth mother. She tells her husband that she would also like
to have a photograph of Amal. Her husband responds, “But they’re twins! If
you’ve seen Juan, you've seen Amal.”
Here's a brief
sampling of puns both sublime and ridiculous from some well-known and not so
well-known pundits:
PUNGENT PUNS BY GENTS & LADIES
Groucho Marx –
Time wounds all heels.
Edgar Bergen –
Show me where Stalin`s buried and I`ll show you a Communist plot.
Dorothy Parker (asked to give a sentence with the
word horticulture) – You can lead a
horticulture but you can`t make her think.
H.L. Mencken –
Television is like a steak: a medium rarely well done.
Peter De Vries – The things my wife buys at auctions
are keeping me baroque.
Political Puns
We also see much punnery in the political arena, invariably
with a vituperative thrust:
Lloyd
George could not see a belt without hitting below it. (Margot Asquith)
I only wish I knew {Bill Vander Zalm} before his
lobotomy. (Kim Campbell)
Clement Attlee is a modest man, who has a good deal to
be modest about. (Winston Churchill)
{Stafford Cripps} has all the virtues I dislike and
none of the vices I admire.
(Winston Churchill)
{William
Gladstone }is a sophisticated
rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his verbosity. (Benjamin
Disraeli)
His {Ronald Reagan}ignorance is
encyclopedic. (Abba Eban)
In a disastrous fire in President
Reagan’s library both books were burned. And the tragedy is he hadn’t finished
coloring one. (Jonathan Hunt)
{Gerald Ford } is so dumb he can’t fart and chew gum
at the same time. (Lyndon Baines Johnson)
He compresses the most words into the smallest idea of
any man I know. (Abraham Lincoln)
(Perhaps, Lincoln's target was his political opponent Stephen Douglas.)
When they
circumcized Herbert Samuel they threw away the wrong bit. (David Lloyd George)
Since in
politics, it takes at least two to tangle, we have the following verbal
sparring:
Labour MP Bessie Braddock: Winston, you’re
drunk.
Winston Churchill: Bessie, you’re ugly. But
tomorrow I shall be sober.
Nancy Astor:
If I were your wife I would put poison in your coffee.
Winston Churchill:
And if I were your husband I would drink it.
William Gladstone: You sir, shall either die of
hanging, or from a social disease.
Benjamin Disraeli: That all depends, sir, whether I
embrace your politics or your mistress.*
*Some sources
show that the participants in this exchange were the Earl of Sandwich and John
Wilkes.
Australian PM Paul Keating: John Hewson is simply a shiver looking for a spine
to run up.
Keating’s political foe John
Hewson: I decided the worst thing you can call Paul Keating, quite frankly,
is Paul Keating.
(Excerpted from Wordplay:Arranged
and Deranged Wit by Howard Richler, published in 2016 by Ronsdale Press.
The book is available at many bookstores and online at Amazon)
