People often ask me where I come up with puns and jokes that I use in class. For the most part I remember them, but I also read up on joke books and twitter jokes sometimes.
A recent purchase is from David R. Yale! His book Pun Enchanted Evenings: A Treasury of Wit, Wisdom, Chuckles and Belly Laughs for Language Lovers -- 746 Original Word Plays
has 746 funny puns!Not all of them are perfect for the classroom, but a lot of them are. Since Wednesday I presented on teaching pronunciation with humor I thought I'd pick out ten of his puns that show different types of connected speech.
The jokes in red show examples of connected speech where consantants and vowels connect to one another making parts of separate words sound like they are only one word:
What bodily function tells you to use the bathroom?
Urinate sense! (Your innate sense)
What do you call a hotel with a really bad fiddle player?
A vile inn (violin)
Why should you use a pencil to draw a level line?
If you use a pen you get an ink line. (incline)
Why can't you agree with everything your spouse says today?If you did that, it would make it, "Yes, dear! day." (Yesterday)
How is an honest ant like a student who misses class?
They are both true ant. (truant)
The blue puns show that when the same sound (or similar sounds) ends one word and starts the next, we tend to only pronounce the sound once.
What would you call a narcissistic sea creature?
Self Fish (Selfish)
What would you call a tan gotten on horseback at a high altitude?
A mount tan (mounatin)
The jokes in purple show us that since English is a stress based language often syllables become unstressed. For example, mother will become motha.
What would you call a lock that keeps a hacker in Tampa from accessing your records?
Tampa Proof (Tamper proof)
What would you call a machine that made fuel out of soda pop?
A coca coaler (coca cola) The unstressed shwa takes over the "er"
What is a gamblers version of heaven?
A para of dice (paradise)
To be honest I did not like all 746 puns, but at least 500 of them made me smile, and the vast majority were very unique. If you are looking for a solid pun book to dig up some treasures in class it is worth checking out less than $10 for the paperback and less than $4 for the e-book.
Alternatively you can add @bestpuns on Twitter where puns are shared for free!
Where do you usually find your jokes or puns?
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