Today I’m introducing you to another book, Cruel and Unusual Puns, by Don Hauptman, a book about transitional puns. Not sure what those are? You’ll catch on quickly. However, my favorite wordmeister, Richard Lederer, chimes in at the beginning of the book to tell us, “…Many of Hauptman’s clever reversals might be called forkerisms–spoonerisms with a point…” So grab your fork and spoon and dig in for some fun.
I’m going to quote from Chapter 5: Nothing to Choose but your Lanes, Improbable Definitions and Unlikely Quotes. “Nothing to Choose but your Lanes” should give you a hint as to the direction we’re headed. Just switch the L and C if you’re confused.
Alimony: (1) The ties of exes are upon you. (2) The bounty of mutiny
~(1) Howard Gossage; (2) Source Unknown
Research psychologists: Pulling habits out of rats
~George P. Schmidt, quoted in Saturday Review
Counterfeiters: They earn money the hard way–they make it.
~Elizabeth Critas, Cincinnati, Ohio, in The New York Magazine Competition
Champagne: Sips that passion the night.
~Source Unknown
Children sharing toys: The din of inequity
~The Complete Pun Book by Art. Moger
Race tracks: Where windows clean people.
~Mad Magazine (Try as I may, this will NOT indent!)
And now some from our author:
Unpopular baseball team: Mitts and Hisses
How trolley enthusiasts describe their passion: A Desire Named Streetcar
Euclid’s lost principle of squaring the circle: First sum, first curved
Postpartum depression: The Blues of the Birth
Country bumpkin who falls for TV pitches selling cheap Zirconium jewelry:Cubic’s rube
And a few transitional quotes: (You determine whether they’re real.) 🙂
Marcel Marceau, with characteristic humility: “It’s only a tatter of mime”
Henry Luce on the eve of the Chicago fire: “There’ll be a hot town in the old Time tonight.” (The Chicago Times was a newspaper.)
This, that and the other thing 