4 Pun and games Only punning Mosquitoes stinging for their supper A sleeping bag is a knapsack. He was really a salamander but nobody newt. A myth is a female moth. To be inhibited is to be tied up in nots. In a rowboat, the choice was either oar. Time flies. You can’t – they fly too fast. For most puns the spelling hardly matters. Relatively few depend on spelling to be funny. Sub-editors sometimes give the impression that punning headlines is what they are there for. They report a scarf-tying demonstration with THIS IS KNOT TOO DIFFICULT and headline zoomorphic football teams: SWANNING OUT and TIGERS FOR PUNISHMENT. Ben Jonson refused to pun on the subject of the king, because the king was not a subject. Shakespeare is the greatest punster of all time. His work, including the tragedies, has even been put in chronological order according to the number and type of puns and quibbles, with a total of ten hundred and sixty two. The Washington Post runs a Style Invitational annual competition for readers to take any word from the dictionary, change one letter, and make a new definition. This is creative punning in spelling, as in: Bozone: The substance surrounding stupid people, which stops bright ideas from penetrating. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high. Beelzebug: Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.--------------------------------------------There’s a spell in punning.
83