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[slink]

and he made a pun out of it.

OK. Where was this pun?
I really don't get the American use of the word pun. It seems to have become as distorted as irony.
I mean, I've seen several shows and movies and things where what an American gives as a pun, is not a pun.

So, what do you think a pun is?

[Twelvebottoms]

Hehe, the Alanis Morrisette school of selective definitions.

[jough]

I think yanks tend to define a pun thusly:

A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.

However, some people tend to use words incorrectly, or misunderstand a word someone else uses, understanding the context but not the *meaning* of a word.

And I don't think that 'merkins are the only species susceptible to that.





And yes, I know that 'American' isn't a 'species.' I was making a joke.  BUT NOT A PUN.

[slink]

I think yanks tend to define a pun thusly:

A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.

Yes, but well. I've seen several instances of it not being used anythig like that  in American shows. And I'm not saying that Americans are the only ones to do this, but it's similar to the common American mis-usage of the word irony, as mentioned by twelve just now about Morissette.
I just don't see how "Ocular" or "Shenanigans" is a pun on anything to do with anything!?
I could just be missing it, and thus I just wanted to enquire.
And anyway, Jough, I don't think you're the American to ask about what you think a pun is, as most of the people on this board. You're all too smart for me to think you'd get it wrong.

Anyway, no one's to crucify me, it's just another day when I need a smoke really fuck*ng bad!

[Twelvebottoms]

it's just another day when I need a smoke really fuck*ng bad!

Good luck with that  :up: :up:

[AugustWest]

Anyway, no one's to crucify me, it's just another day when I need a smoke really fuck*ng bad!

Hang in there.  Stiff upper lip and all that, old crow...

[andalucia]

And I don't think that 'merkins are the only species susceptible to that.  

Merkins?

[Twelvebottoms]

Merkins!  Yanks! The Brave and Free!  Fat people with their rat-tailed kids!

[V-Adore]

The above use of "pun" appears to be defined by "joke involving esoteric knowledge or awareness" -- in other words, what a sane person would call an "in-joke." How you equate this with a pun is unknown to me.

That said, the Ocular Shenanigans bit is funny regardless of how much you know about Robert Johnson or his soul.

[slink]

Yes. Certainly that would fit with a show I once saw saying that "knows" was a pun for two people having sex.
I sat and thought about every position and type of foreplay I could think of for half an hour, and none of the names, or slang terms seemed to sound anything like knows.
I wish writers for shows were forced to sit down and learn about the language they fuck*ng well speak!

[andalucia]

Merkins! Yanks! The Brave and Free! Fat people with their rat-tailed kids!

Yeah, I know.  But in a conversation concerning double entendres, it was more than I could resist.

[AlohaDawg]

Yes. Certainly that would fit with a show I once saw saying that "knows" was a pun for two people having sex.
I sat and thought about every position and type of foreplay I could think of for half an hour, and none of the names, or slang terms seemed to sound anything like knows.
I wish writers for shows were forced to sit down and learn about the language they fuck*ng well speak!

"Know" as a term for having sex comes from the Bible "And x knew y and begat z". It's all over the first 5 books. This is why sometimes having sex is referred to as knowing someone "in the Biblical sense". Archaic usage, though, is not a pun per se.

Writers learning the language they speak...well, I would expect more than that. I suspect the problem is that they do write in the way that they speak...I think written language should be on a higher level.  The problem is we are bombarded with writing for television or the movies - writing for the masses. Our beloved language will be continue to be dumbed down to the lowest common element, and as we march inexorably toward globalization, I suspect that we will eventually lose languages and eventually there will be only a handful of spoken languages, all of which will be regional hybrids.

There is only one potential solution, and that is that more people read and complain when written language deteriorates.  I live in a state where the statewide nespaper has mispellings and grammar errors on the front page, once in a headline above the fold. It's inexcusable, but here people just shrug it off. And no one here uses English worth a damn as a result of the lax attitude toward education and standards.

That makes me sad.

[slink]

It just annoys me. Having done copy editing, and assistant editing on several publications now, I have become somewhat a stickler for correct grammar, punctuation and spelling.
I also can't help but think it a good thing to keep as a habit when trying to continue with a novel.
And it actually gets more annoying when reading a book, and finding one of the three mistypes (that is the limit for me and acceptability).

[St_Zartan]

Writers learning the language they speak...well, I would expect more than that. I suspect the problem is that they do write in the way that they speak...I think written language should be on a higher level.

I have a hard-on for the English language. I am from goddamned Texas and actually use words (more or less accidentally; I would rather speak to be understood) like "whom" and "whilst". But I don't know about any particular sanctity of the written language - look at Gravity's Rainbow or The Catcher in the Rye, just for example; they completely flaunted technical rules to express a particular and unique voice.

The problem is more with - and this is just off the top of my head:

(1) People with a lazy ear for dialect that only reproduce the most flagrant and incorrect variations in their writing, as though one or two linguistic quirks represent a particular culture or demographic.

(2) People who assume / believe that a slack attitude towards basic fuck*ng communication and comprehension is somehow selling out or an abdication of credibility. Okay, fuck you, people - I am not going to tell your fuck*ng posse if you use a complete fuck*ng sentence to ask for some Internet time.

Let me recommend the awesome Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language; you could get lost in that book for days.

[slink]

I have a hard-on for the English language.

I am similarly afflicted.
I have a collection of books, including the Chicago Print book, which is lots of fun, although I think I may have to track down a copy of the English Language Encyclopaedia, which sounds right up my street.

One of my all time favourite books, for instance, is The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson, in which his use of language is just pure beauty.
The others are all by Murakami and Mieville at the moment, both of which do much the same.