Punning is an art of harmonious jingling upon words, which, passing in at the ears, excites a titillary motion in those parts; and this, being conveyed by the animal spirits into the muscles of the face, raises the cockles of the heart.
Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.
The goodness of your true pun is in the direct ratio of its intolerability.
Of puns it has been said that those who most dislike them are those who are least able to utter them.
A pun is the lowest form of humor, unless you thought of it yourself.
Punning is a talent which no man affects to despise but he that is without it.
English language is the most universal language in history, way more than the Latin of Julius Caesar. Its the most punderful language because its vocabulary has a certain critical mass that makes a lingo good for punning.
There is no kind of false wit which has been so recommended by the practice of all ages, as that which consists in a jingle of words, and is comprehended under the general name of punning.
The copy of an ad is merely a punning gag to distract the critical faculties while the image of the product goes to work on the hypnotized viewer. Those who have spent their lives protesting about 'false and misleading ad copy' are godsends to advertisers, as teetotalers are to brewers, and moral censors are to books and films. The protesters are the best acclaimers and accelerators. Since the advent of pictures, the job of the ad copy is as incidental and latent as the 'meaning' of a poem is to a poem, or the words of a song are to a song.
A sense of humor is regarded as a sign of mental health - apart from excessive punning, which is another matter entirely.
We do not claim that punning is legitimate wit. Wit consists in combination of ideas, punning in combination of words only. We wonder at the one, but we laugh at the drollery of the other - as the world goes a pun is regarded as an imponderable commodity, all know the rank it holds in the order of pure intellect.
Our punning minds rejoin what logic has separated.
or simply:
