Are my brain cells dying?
There are times when I am listening to someone speak and they will interject a parenthetical "pardon the pun" and go on. For my part, sometimes I mentally smack my forehead when I realize I had not caught it. Ever now and then, I will be reading and there will be a real parenthetical "pardon the pun" and I will usually go on because there is no reason to stop reading. However, sometimes the phrase surprises me because I am not aware of a pun. I will go back and it I still don't get it, I will have to force myself to not linger forever trying to identify that pun.
Here's one in a recent blog post: Digital downloads cost $8.99 on Amazon (free from Limewire or a friend), CDs average $10.50, but vinyl LPs sell for a whopping $14.00 a pop (pardon the pun).
So, where is the pun? I don't get it. Is my mind a plodding one, wandering in a blogging world?
UPDATE: Okay, I've got it. After reading the comment below I thought some more about it and considered perhaps the pop referred to pop music - or maybe a paternal parent was forking over the cash. I went back to the post from which this came and in the paragraph above was a reference to a 15-year-old's remark that music on vinyl "sound(s) better on vinyl, even with the crackles and pops and hisses."On the pun scale, I give it a "hiss".
posted by Jody @ 8:36 AM
5 Comments:
If there is a pun in there, it is well hidden.
The bigger question might be, why do puns require an apology? If the pun is so bad that it requires forgiveness, perhaps it is best edited out. If the pun is clever, it should stand on its own merit. My 2 cents, pardon the pun (ha! find the pun in that!).
Oh, I don't know . . . maybe some people feel they have a punning syndrome and when they address someone who is not aware of it, they feel compelled to say, "Yes, I know it's bad." That would be similar to Tourette's when people curse/whatever because they can't help it.
It may be a compulsion to utter the pun, even though it is bad and should be omitted. They just have to say it or their mind will crash from stress.
Yes, I see you nosed around the problem and came up with two scents to investigate. You are just too sensible, Henry.
Now, don't be catty with me for leaving a doggedly determined argument for why people pun badly and apologize.
Of course, if the punner is with friends and family who are aware of his condition, I would think it would not be necessary to ask pardon.
Hmm. Compulsive punning. I hadn't thought of that. Very enlightening. On that topic, I read on CNN this morning about a couple in Utah who had been stranded in the snow for a couple of weeks after driving to photograph wild mustangs. They were found by a guy operating a snow plow. The story ended that they were "raring" to get back home. I don't think I'd ever seen "raring" ever spelled out before. That's the kind of expression I've only heard as an utterance.
I think the reporter meant "rearing to go"; I have seen that written.
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