I’ve developed a habit of taking every pun as a personal attack against my intelligence.
Puns are jokes. They focus on language and wordplay. They’re fun, and they’re thoughtful. Puns are also very easy to execute because the joke lies solely in the language. Relaying a pun doesn’t ask much of your comic timing or delivery, so puns are accessible. Puns are generally more clever than funny, but they encourage us to look through our vocabulary and make connections; as with all jokes, they’re brain-teasers. Puns are good.
I don’t like puns as much as you’d think. Within a work of art, puns are totally fine. If you’ve ever read the comic strip “Pearls Before Swine,” you understand just how much fun unraveling a pun can be. My problem with puns lie not in their structure or content, but rather with how they’re used in social situations.
I don’t like puns in casual conversation for this reason: They ask far too much of the audience. Intellectual stimulation is important, but when you relay a pun, you’re not doing it to enrich anyone’s life. All too often, you’re cracking a pun to draw attention to just how clever you are. In the guise of a joke, you’re showing off.
Now, all comedy is puzzle-solving. Every joke you share with someone is going to reflect your wit or your creative capability. That’s the nature of art.
Comedy in social situations is a double-edged sword, because even as you’re spreading joy and laughter to others, you’re engaging in this odd power play in which you splay your intelligence in front of everyone. That’s the nature of art. But the people who rattle off puns tend to focus on the latter: splaying that intelligence. This is fine, too. It can get a bit annoying when someone derails a conversation to draw attention to themselves, but it’s not necessarily toxic. What is toxic, ultimately, is when your jokes leave your audience vulnerable.
Comedy is puzzle-solving, and if the audience cannot solve the puzzle, then they won’t get the joke. Like metaphors and allusions in works of literature, jokes can fly right over people’s heads if they don’t have the proper information going in. That’s fine. An educated joke can be as potent as an allusion, and the audience that understands that joke may become that much wiser for it. However, outside the realms of art, jokes that require extensive knowledge do nothing but alienate their audiences.
When you make a pun directly to another person, you’re also saying, “I get this joke, do you?” You’re not relaying a pun to bring joy. You’re relaying a pun to splay your intelligence and undermine the audience’s. In the best-case scenario, the comedian and the audience are equally knowledgeable, but points go to the comedian for coming up with the pun. In the worst-case scenario, the audience doesn’t get the joke and the comedian looks that much more clever. This is pretty toxic. In this situation, the audience is incredibly vulnerable, and the comedian has nothing to lose. In this sense, puns are told at the expense of the audience, which is a very unhealthy way to perform comedy.
It’s one thing to have a joke exist in a work of art, and it’s another thing to ask someone to solve a puzzle on the spot. Imagine challenging everyone you meet to a game of Sudoku that you created. I’d be pretty salty.
It can be a puzzle in and of itself to understand why someone tells a joke. When they involve self-deprecating humor, are they looking for pity? When they perform
slapstick, are they looking for attention? When they relay a pun, are they looking for power? Comedy is a puzzle in more ways than one.
Michael Smith is a mechanical engineering junior. His column appears on Tuesdays.
