1 It's a Punderful Life

Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he?

Language is fun. Everyone who speaks and listens and reads and writes is involved with the natural playfulness of language. Much of that play takes the form of punning, as in this verse, which has fun with the two meanings of the word weather and its similarity in sound to whether:

Whether the weather is good,
Or whether the weather is not;
Whether the weather is cold,
Or whether the weather is hot;
We'll weather the weather,
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not!

You have been speaking, hearing, and reading puns most of your life. When you were very young, you probably chanted songs like

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he?

and

A sailor went to C-C-C,
To see what he could C-C-C,
But all that he could C-C-C
Was the bottom of a great blue C-C-C.

These verses are children's first attempts to put into memorable form their pleasure in discovering that the same sound can suggest two or three different meanings — Wuzzy and was he; C, sea, and see.

Words and sounds that spark forth two or more meanings are called puns. A pun has been defined as a play upon words, a play upun words, and a prey upon words.

Unless you were raised as a hermit (or, if you are a boy, a hismit), you probably recognize many of these traditional riddles:

What's black and white and red (read) all over?

A newspaper.

What did the letter say to the stamp?

Stick with me and we'll go places.

What kind of shoes are made from banana skins?

Slippers.

What kind of rooms have no walls?

Mushrooms.

How do you know when it's raining cats and dogs?

When you step in a poodle.

How do you know when it's raining cats and dogs?

When is a door not a door?

When it's ajar.

What happened to the boy who drank 8 Cokes?

He burped 7-Up.

Pun Fun

Here's a game riddled with punch lines. Guess the punch lines to these popular Silly Billy jokes. You'll find the answers to all questions in this book at the end of each chapter.

1. Why did Silly Billy throw the clock out the window?
He wanted to see time ______.
2. Why did Silly Billy throw the butter out the window?
He wanted to see butter ______.
3. Why did Silly Billy take a ladder to the ball park?
He wanted to see the ______ play.
4. Why did Silly Billy tiptoe past the medicine cabinet?
He didn't want to wake up the ______ pills.
5. Why did Silly Billy jump off the Empire State Building?
He wanted to make a ______ ______ on Broadway.

Now, without any clues, try to guess the answers to these elephant jokes:

6. Where do elephants store their clothes?
7. How do you make an elephant float?
8. What happens to a grape when an elephant steps on it?
9. How can you stop an elephant from charging?
10. Who are the two most famous elephant singers?

Here are fifteen posters and placards that have appeared around the world. They are all signs of our times, times in which we human beings love to fiddle with words and to laugh at the loony tunes that such fiddling produces:

At a tire store: Time to re-tire.
Over a display of batteries: Wanna start something?
In a music store window: Guitars for sale. Cheap. No strings attached.
In a pet store window: Merry Christmas and a Yappy New Year.
On a peanut stand: If our peanuts were any fresher, they'd be insulting.
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.
In a shoe store: Come in and have a fit.
In a real estate office: Get lots for little.
In a butcher shop window: Never a bum steer.
At a poultry farm: Better laid than ever.
On a southern street: No U-all turns.
Over a bargain basement counter: What you seize is what you get.
In a beauty parlor: Curl up and dye.
In a restaurant: Don't stand outside and be miserable. Come inside and be fed up.
In a delicatessen: Protect your bagels. Put lox on them.

Lighten up your garden. Plant ______.

Pun Fun

Here are ten more real signs. Supply the missing words.

11. On a diaper service truck: Rock a ______ baby.
12. At a planetarium: Cast of thousands. Every one a ______.
13. On the wall of a dentist's office: Always be true to your teeth, or they will be ______ to you.
14. Outside an optician's shop: ______ for sore eyes.
15. In the window of a watch repair shop: If it doesn't tick, ______ to us.
16. In a jewelry store: There's no present like the ______.
17. In a billiard parlor window: Try our indoor ______.
18. At a tire store: We ______ you not.
19. In a garden shop: Lighten up your garden. Plant ______.
20. In a reducing salon: Only 24 ______ days till Christmas.

Your Turn

Make up some punny signs for a laundry, a restaurant, a candy store, or any other place of business.

Answers to Riddles and Signs

Silly Billy jokes: 1. fly 2. fly 3. Giants 4. sleeping 5. smash hit

Elephant jokes: 6. In their trunks 7. Use a scoop of ice cream, some root beer, and an elephant. 8. It lets out a little whine. 9. Take away its credit card. 10. Harry Elephante and Elephant Gerald

Punny signs: 11. dry 12. star 13. false 14. Site 15. tock 16. time 17. pool 18. skid 19. bulbs 20. shaping

2 Homographs at Play

To a bowler, a _________ is knocking down all the pins.

After eating a meal at a restaurant, what did the duck say to the waiter?

"Put it on my bill."

What did Samson die of?

Fallen arches.

What is six feet long, green, and has two tongues?

The Jolly Green Giant's sneakers.

What is the favorite part of a road for a vampire?

The main artery.

Out on the ocean, a ship carrying red paint collided with another ship carrying blue paint. What happened to the crews?

They got marooned.

In each of these examples, the key words — bill, arches, tongues, artery, and marooned — spark forth two meanings:

In the...