www.jasperfforde.com :: Nextian Chat :: This is all Dante's fault

This is all Dante's fault

Posted by: jon (---.abel.net.uk)

Date: July 09, 2003 03:09PM

[ .... she gave out a pun challenge, and I just had to take it up. Ahem: ]

First of all, before I get up on my perch and start to waffle and flounder, can I just say that these dace it's not often I get asked to accept such a sole-searching assignment. Normally I would tend to get a little tench about ths kind of thing, but I shan't carp; it is a mission that can only bring a ray of hope to punsters everywhere, making smiles bream from all their faces. I'll have a dab at it, anyway. I shall in the first plaice skate over the thin ice of the question of whether one should pun at all, but move straight on to the porpoise of this post. At the (as I think you'll see) bass of the problem is how to create a critical mass of puns, without setting off the trigger that would cause people to hake me more than they already do. I shall approach the matter incisively, like a sturgeon, and try not to shrimp from the consequences.

Being as I am a little hard of herring, I often hear puns where none exist, but if I pilchard enough I can usually work out what's going on; some puns are just too bad, though, and even I would reject them if they smelt enough. Punning is easy, but failing is the easiest kind of -ling there is, and if I'm not to look like a complete pollock I need to be on my gurnard the whole time. Now, as to this post; I could always fillet with sarcasm and other barbels, but that would be shellfish. I suppose I'm lucky in that while old enough to remember the '70's, I never had a mullet, but on the other hand I never had enough money to be a guppy, so it all balances trout in the end. Taste in these matters is always subjective, but perhaps the ideal solution would be to have some kind of tuna that could home in on people's sense of humour; this is, I realise, an impossible bream, but there's no need to be koi about what I'm trying to achieve. Who knows, some people might pike it. What makes it wrasse - the Achilles' eel of the whole project - is that some people just do not find puns funny. Hard to credit, I know, but perhaps we could reach even these if we just offered them the white bait. As the kipper of the flame of punning on this fforum, I feel it my duty to work constantly - to sweat rudd - to keep this form of wordplay alive, even if some would prefer I kept the cichlid on it. I intend to keep the flame alive, to shed light on the wonderful world of puns, for what other use has a lamp, pray? Sometimes you have to roe your own boat.

Salmon once said that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but this is, cod knows, not always par for the course. Fish puns are, and I'll scampi off quickly and clam up before you all get sharky with me. I just have to do these things once in a whale, but for now I'll leave you with the sound of Liza Minnowly singing 'Moray Makes the World Go Round' from the hit musical 'Craberet'. Feel free to dance the conger. I've been Mac Kerel, and it happened in manta ray.

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