One of the oldest and most basic forms of humor is the human ability to play with words and make jokes. People especially seem fond of playing with words that sound alike, but have different meanings. This is the pun, a favorite form of humor for elementary school students, college students, their professors, late night comedians, and would-be comics who don't know when to stop the puns.
Childhood Puns
Jean Piaget was one of the first educational researchers to define the stages of child development in a biological and developmental way. According to Piaget's theory, children in the elementary schools are often at the age of moving into the stage of formal operations, where they can think about language, and by manipulating it through games, come to greater understanding and skill with language.
Eric Miller, in his research titled "Verbal Play and Language Learning" notes that playing with language helps children in their process to acquire language.
An example from the study includes a pun noted by J.D.A.Widdowson:
"Where did Napoleon keep his armies? Up his sleevies. "
Children’s Jokes Deal with Concrete Items:
One popular and well-known joke involves common items found in an elementary classroom: pencils and maps of the United States:
Q: What’s the biggest pencil in the world?
A: Pennsylvania
The children are using pencils, notice maps that include the state of Pennsylvania, and then create a joke due to the similar sound of these two different items.
Knock-Knock Jokes
Any knock-knock joke is usually a pun. According to Richard Pettinger, not only do children love to tell these types of jokes, but developmental psychologists use these jokes as a way to assess child language development.
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Banana.
Banana who?
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Banana.
Banana who?
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Banana.
Banana who?
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?
Children's Puns and "Potty" Humor
Children quickly learn that there are forbidden words, and thus find ways to use the words in a different context that might not get them into trouble. This is a common joke with a pun, often told in elementary school:
Q. If you are American before going to the bathroom, and American after going to the bathroom, what are you while you are in the bathroom?
A: European.
To "understand this joke, the children repeat the word "European," and then see that the word sounds like something that is done in the bathroom.
Children Graduate to More Sophisticated Puns in Early Teens
As children grow into pre-teens, they develop more an appreciation for more sophisticated forms of the pun. Here is a pun from the children’s show Jane and the Dragon:
Q: Do you want to save a damsel in distress?
A: No, I want to save a damsel in ‘dat dress.
Here the play on words is the word “this” dress, or pronounced ‘dis dress, contrasted with the word “that” dress, or pronounced ‘dat dress.
Excessive Puns Become Tiresome
While puns can be funny (or punny) eventually the device can become predictable, then boring, and even offensive. In Patrick Dennis' sequel to Auntie Mame, titled Around the World with Auntie Mame, the title character and her nephew Patrick are touring Europe. In Venice, they are stalked by a distant relation from the state of Georgia. Cousin Elmore fancies himself a comedian, and Patrick describes the cousin's sense of humor, or lack of one:
"The pun was Cousin Elmore's bluntest instrument of torture, and he never let any opportunity for injecting a sodden riposte elude him. During his seemingly endless stay in Venice, he was introduced three times to girls named Virginia and each time he said, 'Virgin foah short, but not foah long!'" (p. 100).
Clearly, a pun that exhibits bad taste on the first telling has now turned into an offensive non-joke, and Cousin Elmore doesn't understand that with a pun, especially the type he tells, once is often more than enough.
References
Dennis, Patrick. Around the World with Auntie Mame. New York: Signet Book, by Arrangement with Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc., 1958.
Miller, Eric. "Verbal Play and Language Learning."
Pettinger, Richard. "Funny Knock Knock Jokes."
Piaget, Jean. 1952. Play, Dreams, and Imitation in Childhood. NY: Norton
Teresa Knudsen - Teresa's writing appears in the British Library, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Online she has written for USA Today and E How.
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