Quotes: Puns, Part 1

(a form of word humor when people fiddle with words and laugh at the resultant loony tunes: Considered by some to be the lowest form of humus, earthy wit that we all dig and often respond to with groans and moans)

pun (s) (noun), puns (pl)

A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words; the word or phrase used in this way: A pun is the humorous use of a word or phrase so as to emphasize or suggest its different meanings or applications, or the use of words that are alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning.

"The pigs were a squeal" is a great pun!

A witticism that the listener groans at because he didn't think of it first.

—Evan Esar, Esar's Comic Dictionary

A pun is the lowest form of humor—when you don't think of it first.

—Oscar Levant

Quotations

A pun’s the lowest form of wit,
It does not tax the brain a bit;
One merely takes a word that’s plain
And picks one out that sounds the same.

—Anonymous

Of puns, it has been said that they who most dislike them are least able to utter them.

—Edgar Allen Poe

I love puns so much that my wife made a sign I hang over my desk: Caution! Incorrigible Punster. Please Don’t Incorrige.

—Bob Trowbridge

Following are just a few of the “signs of our times” with pun fun as expressed by various businesses:

On a diaper service truck: Rock a dry baby.
On an electric truck: Power to the people.
On a plumber’s truck: A flush is better than a full house.
In a beauty parlor: Curl up and dye.
In front of a church: Stop here for your holiday spirits.
In an ice cream and dairy store: You can’t beat our milk shakes, but you can whip our cream and lick our ice cream cones.
On a junkyard fence: Edifice wrecks.
In another junkyard: Rust in pieces.
On a motel sign: Dew Drop Inn.
By another motel: Come in and take a road off your mind.
In the window of a necktie emporium: Come in and tie one on.
Over an antique shop: Remains to be seen.
On another antique shop: Den of antiquity.
With a display of leftover Christmas decorations: All that glitters was not sold.
At a tire store: Time to re-tire.
At another tire store: We skid you not.
In a bookstore window: Curdle up with a good mystery.
In a music store window: Guitars for sale. Cheap. No strings attached.
On the door of another music store: Gone Chopin. Bach in a minuet.
In a brassiere shop: We fix flats.
On a market stall: Lovely glass paperweights. The only way to keep your household bills down.
Over a bargain basement counter: What you seize is what you get.
On a divorce lawyer’s wall: Satisfaction guaranteed or your honey back.
In a lumberyard: Come see, come saw.
At a swimming pool: Welcome to our ool. You notice there’s no P in it. Please keep it that way.
In a garden shop: We’re a growing concern.
In a restaurant window: Don’t stand outside and be miserable. Come inside and be fed up.
A sign inside a restaurant: Buy now. Pay waiter.
At a planetarium: Cast of thousands. Every one a star.
In a tailor shop: We’ll clean you. We’ll press you. We’ll even dye for you.
Outside an optician’s store: Site for sore eyes.
In the window of a watch repair shop: If it doesn’t tick, tock to us.
On the wall of a dentist’s office: Always be true to your teeth or they will be false to you.

—Source of information: Richard Lederer

As a physician, I am grateful for small fevers.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes

One man’s Mede is another man’s Persian.

—George S. Kaufman

The things my wife buys at auctions are keeping me baroque.

—Peter De Vries

Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns. He ought to be drawn and quoted.

—Fred Allen

There was a lot of talk about the Super Bowl XXXIII football championship game (2004) in which the half-time entertainment was a bust and a TV boob that was considered by many to be udder nonsense, played too close to the chest for comfort, a cover up apparently would have been more appropriate.

—John Rayoa

More Pun Fun

Two vultures boarded an airplane, each carried two dead raccoons. The stewardess looked at them and said, “I’m sorry, gentlemen, only one carrion allowed per passenger.”
Two fish swam into a concrete wall. The one turned to the other and said, “Dam!”
A woman had twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them went to a family in Egypt and was named “Ahmal.” The other twin went to a family in Spain, who named him “Juan.” Years later, Juan sent a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture she told her husband that she wished she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responded, “They’re twins! If you’ve seen Juan, you’ve seen Ahmal.”
And finally, there was the person who sent ten different puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.

—Author Unknown

Additional examples of puns may be seen at Quotes: Puns, Part 2.

Other Quotes, Quotation Units.

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