A loaded pun can be deadly.
And now, in China, the State Administration for Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television is cracking down. “Radio and television authorities at all levels must tighten up their regulations and crack down on the irregular and inaccurate use of the Chinese language, especially the misuse of idioms,” it said in a press release.
First a one-child policy, and now you can only make single entendres. This wisecrack-down must not stand.
The path of history is paved with terrible puns, both real and apocryphal. Jesus makes lots of them in the Bible, even though they made people a little cross with him. “Now, you are fishermen,” he told a disciple. “But I will make you fishers OF men.”
“Not Angles, but angels! (Non angli, sed angeli),” punned Pope Gregory I, hilariously, on seeing a native Angle for the first time.
Puns can reinforce authority – “The peasants are revolting.” “Yes, aren’t they?” – or undermine it, as they’ve been doing in China lately, where, in a play on words, the benevolent era of “Daddy Xi” and “Mama Peng” has been transformed into the homophone “marijuana era.” . . .
This is not just for me. It’s on principle. Puns have groan so much. Without puns, language languishes. Life without puns is, like this sentence, a horrible sentence.
I believe that puns should be available to everyone, unrestricted. We should start a Pun Rights association. Everyone deserves tickets to the pun show. Here in America, our right to carry puns with us to school and work and wave them around openly in Starbucks is protected by the first Amendment.
We have to stand up to this. So don’t be pun shy.
Man the puns! Load your metaphors! Deploy your figures of speech! We must sink this censorship!
It’s not just pun and games.
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