Making Puns of Fun With a Few Words

An Englishman accidentally poured his dessert of strawberries into the bowl that contained the last of his Caesar salad. He liked the resulting combination so much that from then on he always berried his last romaines.

Ah, the pun (and punster), usually written off as verbal dross in an age of visual dazzle, is in the midst of a mild revival in the United States. “You see puns used more and more these days in newspaper headlines, in magazines and advertising,” says Bob Aitchison, an editor of the quarterly American Pun Review and co-founder of the nonprofit Pun American Club based in Deerfield, Ill. He cites dozens of recent examples in publications from Time magazine to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

“We had to double the size of our postal box last year,” says John Crosbie of Toronto, Canada, the chairman of the bored of the International Save the Pun Foundation. He says members in the nonprofit organization now number in the “thousands,” and come from “every socioeconomic level.” He is the author of Crosbie’s Dictionary of Puns.

In ancient Rome when workers in a popular deli were told they could eat anything they wanted during lunch hour--anything, that is, except the expensive smoked salmon--they created the world’s first anti-lox breaks.

Each year on April 1, the International Save the Pun Foundation has a dinner in Chicago to name punster of the year and trade fast puns. More than 200 punsters have made reservations for this year. “Each year I go as Pun-Up Girl of the Year,” says Joyce Heitler, “and ask people if they want to see a comic strip.”

Crosbie, a retired advertising executive, says, “People who like word play are more playful and mentally agile (than non-punsters). We started the Save the Pun Foundation initially to encourage youngsters to have fun with words. Because TV seems to turn kids away from reading, we wanted to lure them back.”

Often people give gift memberships to the foundation ($20 a year) in the name of a school or a teacher. “Sometimes we get puns from entire classrooms,” says Crosbie, who has published a monthly newsletter, the Pundit, for 12 years.

“I think interest in punning is growing because the more puns you hear or read, the more you like them,” says Aitchison. “One of our members is a stress counselor, and she says creating puns is relaxing; if you pun successfully, you feel better.”

What’s the essence of a good pun?

“It has to be clever and witty,” says Aitchison, “and the best ones are spontaneous. It has to be something that can be laughed over with someone, not against someone.”

Heitler, who is a teacher by profession, says punsters are people “who like to humiliate their families.” The people who come to the annual dinner, she says, “tell me they just can’t wait to come and be with hundreds of people who don’t turn away.”