When all is said and pun

“Of puns it has been said that those who most dislike them are those who are least able to utter them.” - Edgar Allen Poe

God bless the pun. There's something universally enjoyable about a play on words. Recently, I've been hearing my fair share as a result of a potential bee's nest we thought we had in the eaves of our roof at home.

In fact it wasn't a nest at all, and apparently the numerous bees we saw buzzing around were probably just part of a larger swarm located elsewhere. It hasn't stopped the punning though, oh no.

It's amazing how many bee related jokes have been passing my way from friends, work colleagues and even unknown followers on twitter! Make your own decisions on what those puns were.

To paraphrase the tag line for a well known 'red top' - we love them (puns that is). From newspaper headlines to idle tweets, people get an unmatched sense of achievement from twisting their tongues around a particularly erudite juxtaposition of words. Never can the smugness induced by a well delivered pun be equalled. I'm almost moved to say it's punderful. (C'mon. I was only going to resist for so long.)

The problem is, as Frank Skinner once wrote, punning is addictive and sometimes it can evolve into a mild form of tourettes. You just can't help yourself no matter how awful you know the pun will be. Baddiel and Skinner in their World Cup Podcasts took it one step further, talking in-depth about 'football tourettes' whereby certain players names mentioned in TV commentary led you instinctively to act.

My personal favourite was Frank's revelation that whenever the German striker Miroslav Klose's name was mentioned, he felt compelled, almost against his will, to move nearer the television. The genius of this being that it's not even a vocal wordplay but a physical one, no utterance required. It's not even particularly clever yet it makes me smile.

See therefore how dangerous the pun can become? It excuses the utterer and in many ways embraces unfunny. Sarcasm's apparently the lowest form of wit but perhaps it is in fact the humble pun.

Fine by me. The pun is the comic tool of the everyman - an entrance into the world of wit for those not blessed with it. As a result, I'm happy to harbour its evils for they are well worth suffering when greeted with an absolute corker. Long live the pun and all who pale in her.