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I Used to be Good at Word Play, Once a Pun a Time

The Importance of Puns

Everyone loves a good pun. However, a pun is an amazing example of the humor theories and how one particular theory does not represent the essence of what makes society laugh. Laughter is a remedy and is a common occurence in everyone's day to day life. For example, the inherent and perceived incongruities theory is usually the most prominent out of all the theories, however comedy often has many layers and cannot be determined by one simple factor. This theory states that humor can often be caused by the social norms and societal influences behind the joke. Using puns as my example, it was not until recently that puns were a widespread phenomenon and everyone was thinking of these types of jokes to tell. I believe that this is based on social norms that impacted this type of humor to spread around the world. People became more "relaxed" and society began to shift into where were are today, which caused the shift in humor as well. Society's reaction to puns has been very postitive, however jokes pertaining to the incongruity, superiority or relief theories can sometimes be found not humurous to certain people. This case depends on the demographics of that individual including social class, sex, gender, age, and religious status.


Here are a few examples:









Comments

  1. I am in-pun-e to pun humor; it can't make me laugh at all.

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