PUNS ARE PUNISHABLE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 94, 10 April 1941, Page 47

PUNS ARE PUNISHABLE

To Young Listeners, UNS, some people think, are a very low form of wit. Puns in fact, are punishable. Now, you know what a pun is-an amusing way of using the same sound twice in one sentence. And no doubt you think puns are quite funny when you try to make them yourselves, but they are even funnier when they just happen, Mrs. Flower was always busy-but she liked being busy-it was fun, because she never bothered being busy over cooking or housework. She did both these things very well, of course, but what she liked being busy over was making her house look nice. No, not with polish and scrubbing, but with paint and dye and a little bit of carpentering sometimes. Her husband was always a little frightened when she asked him to bring some nails home and three tins of paint-waggon blue, terracotta and yellow. He seemed to like the result, though he didn’t say so, but he asked more and more friends to the house, which is a sign, don’t you think? Anyway, Mrs. Flower loved painting and hammering and sawing, and she never bothered going to furniture shops and buying moss shiny satin bedspreads and curtains. She couldn’t have afforded to, even if she had wanted to. She dyed her old linen curtains and cotton bedspreads, and liked them much better than the satin ones. But one day a dyer’s man called at her house, He said, "Good-morning, madam" as though he meant it. She said "Good-morning," too, very pleasantly. "T represent the firm of Smithson and Smithson, dyers and cleaners. No doubt you have several things you need dyed or cleaned," he said, not meaning to be rude. "No thank you, I haven’t anything." "But madam, surely some curtains that want freshening-a bedspread that your friends must think is dowdy, your husband’s hat, perhaps, or your little boy’s coat. You needn’t get him a new one if you have it dyed." "No thank you," she said, "I really haven’t." "But madam, you must have a frock you want dyed, or stockings or .. ." "As a matter of fact," said Mrs. Flower, "I da all my dyeing myself." "Oh, madam," he said reproachfully, "Live ahd let live, you know." "Well, dye and let dye," said Mrs. Flower, and shut the door, and realised that she had made a pun for the first time in her life. And she thought she was very clever, because usually she couldn’t answer back cleverly at all until it was in the middle of the night after, and too late. Over 100 years ago, Theodore Hook, who was full of nonsense like Lear, wrote telling you about puns, and warning you against them. He was clever about a dyer man, too. _ "The dyer, who by dying lives, a dire life maintains; The glazier, it is known receives his profi from his panes, By gardeners thyme is tied, ‘tis true, when Spring is in its prime. But time and tide won’t wait for you, if you are tied for time."

We'll miss out the next piece, because he calls you "my little dears,’ and you mightn’t like that. And then"In mirth and play no harm you'll know, when duty’s task is done. But parent’s ne’er should let you go unpunished for a pun," Private Someone has written saying that Myrtle isn’t a turtle at all-she’s a tortoise. When people write that kind of letter, will they please put "Private" on it? It’s a secret we’ve kept from Myrtle all her life. You know that she is always in trouble. Well, the reason she is always in trouble is that she doesn’t think enough of herself. The reason she doesn’t think enough of herself is that she’s so small compared with the others. Except for Pips the Parrot, of course. But then he has that remarkable but rather aggravating "something" which makes him feel enormous. Why, he’s so sure of his enormousness that if he sees a suit of clothes in a shop window that would fit Edwin the Elephant, he pulls out the feathers on his chest and flaps his aggravating wings and says, " By

Jove, I’ll get that suit one of these days-it’ll just do me-nice big check it’s got. I can stand big checks; of course there are some who can’t," and he looks at poor Myrtle insinuating. Now, perhaps you see why you must put "Private" on letters like that. We want Myrtle to make something of her life. We almost want her .to be famous, so we must protect her from her feeling of smallness. Even in the family it’s difficult enough with people like Pips about. Talking of Nonsense Do you know, The owl and the pussy-cat went to sea In a beautiful pea-green boat, They took some honey and plenty of money, Wrapped up in a five-pound note. The owl looked up to the stars above, And sang to a small guitar, "Oh, lovely Pussy! Oh, Pussy, my love, What a beautiful Pussy you are, You are, You are! What a beautiful Pussy you are!"