The only reason I’m able to type this review is because of my brain (and my hands too, of course). Everything happens solely because of reactions in the brain. After all, depressing though the thought is, we only find things funny because of reactions in the brain. I’d never really thought before about the scientific aspects of punning and humor in general. Because of the book’s length, I raced throughout without really writing down any notes, but I did find it fascinating. The Pun Also Rises is a slim but clever exploration of the fascination that puns have for some of us, and the exasperation for others.
At once entertaining and educational, this engaging book answers fundamental questions: Just what is a pun, and why do people make them? How did punning impact the development of human language, and how did that drive creativity and progress? And why, after centuries of decline, does the pun still matter?” Skillfully weaving together stories and evidence from history, brain science, pop culture, literature, anthropology, and humor, The Pun Also Rises is an authoritative yet playful exploration of a practice that is common, in one form or another, to virtually every language on earth. In The Pun Also Rises, John Pollack-a former World Pun Champion and presiden tial speechwriter for Bill Clinton-explains why such wordplay is significant: It both revolutionized language and played a pivotal role in making the modern world possible. But such attitudes are relatively recent developments. “The pun is commonly dismissed as the lowest form of wit, and punsters are often unpopular for their obsessive wordplay. On a drizzling afternoon in old London, in an age when men of certain stature or pretension still carried swords about the city’s crowded streets, two scholars sat fireside at the Grecian Coffee-House on Devereux Court, arguing fiercely over the accent of a Greek word.
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