Slightly Askew

A Punning Commentary

Thursday, July 10th, 2008

Everything in moderation. That’s what my Nan says.

I suppose everything must include puns then. I have a love / hate relationship with puns.

Shit ones infuriate me. Especially when they’re written by people that have a good heart and should know better. You know the type of people: do a lot of charity work, organise a fundraiser over Easter, design a poster with clipart and Comic Sans (die Comic Sans! Die!), and call it an Easter Eggstravaganza.

Mediocre puns are like eating a pack of Tangfastic Haribo. Short term high, long term guilt. Mediocre puns are great initially, then they make you feel a little queasy, then decay into something altogether more sinister. Exactly like Haribo then.

Great puns, however, are worth every hour of idle pen-chewing they take to write. The Sun sports sub-editor who dreamt up “Super Cali go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious” (after part-timers Inverness Caledonian Thistle dumped Celtic out of the Scottish Cup) deserves Her Majesty’s sword on his shoulder.

We also have the Sun to thank for the fractionally less subtle “I’m A Mind Bender” headline, after Derren Brown declared his preference for the fellas. (Thanks Louis.)

And I stumbled across a local gem the other day; a pun that any copywriter would be proud of. I’d stick it on my fridge if it didn’t lack magnetism because of the cupboard door that conceals it from guests (because it’s really embarrassing having a fridge in your kitchen isn’t it?)

Anyway, back to the pun. I’ll give you the background: Lesley Dolphin is a DJ on BBC Radio Suffolk. So how does the first paragraph of her biog start, on BBC Radio Suffolk’s website?

Be a Dolphin-friendly tuner…

Copywriter, take a bow.