Depending on your sense of humor, puns are either the peak of witty wordplay or the low of cringe-worthy dad jokes that always come at the wrong place at the wrong time. At their core, these little jokes manipulate the different possible meanings of words or words that sound alike but have different meanings. But while hilarious puns are complex linguistic feats that deserve some respect, they aren’t necessarily in vogue right now.
To gain insight on the topic, we reached out to Caleb Warren, an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Arizona. Having done a TEDx Talk on 'What Makes Things Funny,' he was more than happy to share his thoughts about the nature of the pun and even offer some advice on how to elevate your comedy skills to another level.
Warren explained that when it comes to puns, people are often divided into several different categories — lovers, haters, or the in-betweeners. "Compared to many other forms of humor, puns are less likely to disgust, offend, or get someone fired," he told Bored Panda. "However, puns are divisive in that some people think they are hilarious and others think they are lame (and some think they are both hilarious and lame)."
Unfortunately, there isn’t any direct data that could tell us who exactly likes puns and why. But the professor pointed out that one reason why people fail to find puns funny is that they rely on a relatively mild violation.
All of this can be explained by the benign violation theory of humor. "The theory argues that a person experiences humor (laughter, amusement, the perception that something is funny) when something threatens their sense of how the world should be (i.e., a violation), but they are okay with the threat (i.e., the violation is benign)," Warren said.
"With puns, the violation is typically a language or logic violation," he continued. "Someone uses a word or phrase in a way that it is not supposed to be used (e.g., 'I relish the fact that you’ve mustard the strength to ketchup with me'), but there is an alternative meaning of the word or phrase that seems correct (i.e., benign). In this case, mustard, ketchup, and relish are all the correct ways to spell hot dog condiments."
Whether you like it or not, puns are ubiquitous — and dangerously easy to make. They're also bound to cause a reaction, regardless if it's a wince, a laugh, or both.
"I think most people don’t think puns are particularly funny because they don’t care enough about language to feel threatened when a word/phrase is used or spelled incorrectly. Along this line, one scholar argues that people who are amused by puns tend to be bookish and care more about language than those who groan," professor Warren added.
We also managed to get in touch with the team looking after the 'Puns' online group, and one moderator, Girl_Alien, was kind enough to have a chat about the community. When asked how the subreddit was created in the first place, she explained it’s impossible to answer this question, "since I don't think any member of the original moderation team is still here."
However, things seem to be going well for the community. At the time of writing, it has amassed over 642k pun-loving enthusiasts eagerly waiting for their daily dose of hilarity. "It is not really that hard to manage," Girl_Alien told us about the group. "From my experience with other subs, G-rated humor is among the easier type of sub to manage. Other genres of humor are much harder such as those related to offensive jokes due to the number of trolls and Reddit's standards."
Although the forum is well-loved by its punsters, moderators inevitably face some challenges. One common issue regards jokes that appear on products, as they can be mistaken for spam. "Not just that, but our visitors may see a funny t-shirt, cup, or bumper sticker and suggest where to buy one." As the team has no way to vet any commerce sites that visitors decide to link, they sometimes have to lock the post or must remove any hyperlinks.
"I don't really see any good solution," Girl_Alien added. "We don't want to lose the sub to Reddit over not enforcing sitewide rules. Yet, we may end up taking action against those acting in good faith (which we don't want to do) when someone wants to share where they have seen a pun. It is just unfortunate all around."
Turns out, another problem the moderators encounter quite often is handling spam. "Not only do we have spammers and possibly scammers who may try to hide behind puns on occasion, we occasionally get more interesting spammers," she told us. "One was spamming recipes. There was no commercial interest. They just liked recipes and shared them with any sub that they could."
One thing that would make looking after the sub easier, according to the mod, is if people would stop taking things too seriously. "I wish that others would be more tolerant of views they disagree with and not let their personal beliefs prevent them from enjoying a good joke or pun."
"It would be nice if more folks could learn to become more compartmentalized in their thinking and realize that things can be offensive and humorous at the same time without any disrespect being intended.”
