Dad Punners’ Society
June 28, 2007
Filed under Distractions, Parenting & Family Posts
Ok, this post’s title is a really bad word-play on Dead Poets’ Society, but then that makes the point of this post nicely. Fathers have a really really bad habit of using puns to appear clever, squeeze a laugh from our kids, or bond with others.
Eventually, the puns begin to become embarrassingly bad (or tired) and yet we don’t seem to be able to let go of the blighters! It’s like we’re addicted or possessed by an evil pun-spirit or something. I mean all this pun-making is a funny thing (ok, play the sound).
Some men even push the Pun Wagon harder to force a laugh, as if repetition of the same old joke will make it funny. Puns seem like (and are) an appropriate level of humour, as well as a valuable intellectual-development tool for children around 5-9 years old … but when 
we’re still using them on our adolescent ‘children’, we’re never going to get more than a polite chuckle, and more likely a groan followed by eyes rolling upward in their teenage sockets.
We’ve already had a post recently where we shared Dad Jokes. Let’s now turn to Dad Puns.
How did YOUR Dad do this? What were his best/worst? And (shudder) are you now that Dad, perpetrating Pun Abuse upon YOUR children??
Here’s just 2 of my own Dad’s classics (remembered affectionately of course!):
- Every time we drove past a cemetary (and we passed one every Saturday), we’d hear “That’s the Dead Center of town”.
- When we’d ask for something he couldn’t afford that week (I know how that feels!), and we were silly enough to ask why we couldn’t have it, he invariably reply: “Like marriage, it’s a matrimony” (= matter-of-money).
I only remember 2 because the rest have been suppressed by Dissociative Amnesia.
Am I a perpetrator of this evil upon my children? Well, I must admit, that around my older son I’ve moved beyond the puns (but returned to clownish Monty-Python-like silliness- which is probably just as bad). But I still use them with Youngest Son.
MadCow has already contributed the following two in an earlier comment (and apparently her dad practised the “dead center” one without mercy for years):
- “How’s your chicken? Mine’s fowl!”
- “Who pea’d on the floor?” (when a pea rolls off the dinner plate onto the floor)
So. What were some of your father’s favourites? And which ones do you use on your kids?
[And if you're reading, Dad, keep 'em coming!]
The shop assistant asked whether I wanted it measured in Pounds or Kilos, so I just told him that either weigh would do.
And, Eat your fruit son, it’ll help you live to a ripe old age.
Okay, here’s the worst one. When I didn’t take care of my bike. Why isn’t your bike standing up? Is it two tired?
Three for three, Jonathan. You’ve scored a hattrick. These are … well … terribly good.
DH is a chef … we get a few …
We went out to a fancy restaurant (food snob here
) and he said “Don’t have the quail, it’s poultry (paltry)”
And, “Don’t have the venison, its dear (ie expensive)”
Needless to say, I spend the entire evening in stitches (or is that him needing stitches ….?)
For mine, all the best (worst?) puns end up being delivered by sub-editors. They’ve only a few words to grab your attention, and the pun always wins. It’s sad that you can professionally be a “bad dad punner”…
I can’t think of any that I Dad regaled me with, but I know there were many… maybe I’ve just had to shut them out, or bury them deep, deep down until one day I explode in a fury of bad puns…
…stand back…
hehehe
I just remembered another that my dad persistently comes out with – even though we now tell him to shut up becuase he’s not funny.
Although, technically, i don’t think its a pun …
My neice decided she wanted to be vegetarian, and he caught her eating teddy bear biscuits, so he says “I thought you were a vegetarian”
“I am”
“Well, you can’t eat teddy bear biscuits then. They’re animals”
(Yes, hilarious, I know *roll eyes*)
This is gold, people. Keep em coming.
And Molk, on the sub-editors: one of the things that annoys me (there are so many) about journalists, particularly talking heads, is not so much the puns as it is the way they deliver the pun-laden headline (usually not clever) and then look smug about it.
Totally with you, Pete. They are shockers…
I am ashamed to admit this, but I know this is a safe place to do so… I only just got the “Toilet Trees” gag…
You know what’s saddest? My father didn’t use these puns, but my husband does! That dead centre of town one is common… and then there are all the “As useful as…” ones like – “a hip pocket in a singlet”, “t*ts on a bull”, “a ham sandwich in a synagogue”… etc etc. Most of them aren’t even politically correct these days… Not sure if these are really puns, but they do get that eyeroll thing happening big time with our teens!
They’re definitely Dad Sayings if not Dad Jokes. If it’s funny the first time, annoying by the 23rd, then it qualifies.
When rubbing your eye
Dad: What’s up?”
Me: “There’s something in my eye”
Dad: “Yeah, it’s your finger”
Kelliemariee, I hear the cartoon trumpet playing “wuh wuh”! You have my sympathy.