Is Punning Respectable?

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVII, Issue 12, 22 September 1906, Page 42

Is Punning Respectable?

The status of the pun is one of those topics of desultory controversy which, like 'Mohammed’s coflin. continues to hang, unsolved, in the mid-air of popular dialectics. Its cousin, the conundrum, though nominally on a par with it. is actually below it in rank; for it has never been accorded oven the honours of discussion. There is nothing for that species of pleasantry but humbly to accept its dictionary characterisation, “a low jest.” Not but that the pun is also dubbed a low species of wit, but the verdict rests on a distinctly looser foundation, if we are to judge from its popularity, its obvious utility .and its never-ending recurrence. Indeed, to one bent on examining into the matter nothing is more interesting than to observe how this humble instrument of mirth, in spite of its nominal taboo, holds its own in the world of familiar talk, whether by tongue or pen. ■With what easy and nonchalant triumph it sweeps the corridors of the ages, trailing its gay drapery as unchallenged through the gilded salons of the rich and fashionable as in the huts of the poor and rustic! It is as much at home in the cabinet of the learned and fastidious as it is in the slums or in the pot-house. However far back we push our researches into the past, we find the pun blithely awaiting our arrival. Nor has profane history a monopoly of the charms which the pun presents. The Saviour of men Himself was pleased to dub His beloved disciples “fishers of men.” The mural inscriptions of Egypt, no less than the bricks of Babylon and Nineveh, testify to the delight which the earliest founders of civilisation took in tracing faint lines of resemblance between objects far asunder in essence.

The great difficulty lies in the superficial attention which has been bestowed upon the function of the pun and -upon (its various manifestations, depending upon the other elements with which it comes associated. A pun in itself —« bare unrelieved pun—deserves, let us hasten to admit, all the contempt that has

through the. ages been showered upo> it. .But— and here lies the grand; distinction—not all puns-are bare and unrelieved. A goodly proportion of them come to us arrayed in ample and most becoming drapery. They' come, above ali, as the vehicle_of something vastly, snore important than themselves. When they come in this guise they are worthy of being celebrated- as one of the perennial joys arid glories-of human speech. The comparison of one or two bare puns with appropriately clothed ones will amply illustrate the difference. When it was said, upon the death of Foote, the wit, that “Death took him off, who took off all the world,” an unrelieved pun was the result, though even in this case the mot was not altogether lacking in piquancy. A particularly flat specimen is that in which the sea is represented as angry because it has been crossed so often. In either case, we find nothing but the slender thread of connection to challenge our notice, and this can obviously afford only a meagre type of pleasure. On the other hand, look at this bit of pleasantry, and observe the superior quality of the delight it gives. Now, it takes only a superficial survey of the pleasantry in question to discover that, while the salient feature in it is indeed a pun, it is rich in various other elements which really constitute its choicest part, What are these elements t Why, it is plain that the statesman has used the pun only to convey his own sense of the situation as a problem for social solution. People may, indeed, so goes the Senator's thought, make fools of themselves; but as civilised and social beings our business is first to appreciate the scene of human folly in genial and good-natured fashion, and secondly to conceal one’s impression by making an amiable plea for the unconscious delinquent, and thirdly, if possible for one’s own amusement as well as for that of those present, to embody- in one’s tactful plea a little point of wit to give the situation due relief. That is to say, we have here genial appreciation of human folly, tact, and the nimble presence of mind which issues in the rapid perception of resemblances between widely different ideas. The pun is here used only to tip off the verbal feat and to give it point. The charm of this pleasantly is, then ,that while it embodies a pun, it makes it wholly subservient to the more important elements ,of witticism. Such a pun is a joy forever. Recall, if you please, the witticism of the friend of Bishop Butler, who had been hoping many years in vain for the promotion of that worthy churchman, and who improved the opportunity on one occasion of reminding Queen Caroline of- his existence. “Bishop Butler!” exclaimed Her Majesty. “Why, I thought he was dead.” “Not dead, your Majesty, but buried,” impressively retorted the faithful friend. Here, again, we have a pun, consisting of the taking the word buried in both its literal and its figurative senses. But what js at once manifest is that there is something vastly more interesting than the mere play of words. There is the tender concern and sorrow of the interlocutor for his neglected friend, the presence of mind by which he avails himself of the vantage presented by the occurrence of the word dead, which at once suggests the cognate one of buried as a handle by which gently but effectively to insinuate to the august patroness that she had overlooked an eminently deserving, man. In seeking to determine the status of the pun. it is well to remember that it is one of the most useful instruments in the armoury of wit. By itself one of the slightest of its weapons, it is yet capable of giving point to a pleasantry such as few other esthetic factors can do. and it reaches its highest pitch of effect in a graceful subserviency to higher and nobler elements of interest, which, by the magic of surprise it gathers together and brings to an effective climax.