Puns. Some people love them, some people hate them.

But why do some people find puns so exasperating? And why do we make them anyway? What’s it like to be on the receiving end of a rapid-fire pun off?

Daniel and Kylie are going against the groan on this episode of Talk the Talk.


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Promo

Promo with Jane Hebiton, 2017-04-11: Puns

Our promo, ahead of the show.


Cutting Room Floor

Cutting Room Floor 283: Great Language Game + Puns

Kylie’s back from her travels, and full of stories of the Cosmic Shambles, a science comedy show that toured Australia. But why did the airport have a shop that sells NÖÖÖDLES?

Hedvig Skirgård relates even more stats from her research with the Great Language Game. And Janani Krishnan-Jha mentions Shakespeare in connection with the great puns of literature.

Daniel drops some more puns that don’t work in other varieties of English. And why couldn’t the Grammar Sign guy have simply written a discreet letter informing shop owners of their apostrophic breaches?

Also at https://www.patreon.com/posts/8820271


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Show notes

The Great Language Game
https://greatlanguagegame.com

Paper: Why are some languages confused for others? Investigating data from the Great Language Game
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0165934

The great language game: Confusing languages
http://www.replicatedtypo.com/the-great-language-game-confusing-languages/7926.html

Linguistic and cultural knowledge affect whether languages are identified correctly
https://phys.org/news/2017-04-linguistic-cultural-knowledge-affect-languages.html

Linquest
https://www.languageininteraction.nl/lingquest.html

College Humour: Puns Intended
https://www.facebook.com/CollegeHumor/videos/vb.6363207806/10154267590532807/?type=3&theater

O.Henry Pun-Off World Championships
http://punoff.com

Watch Janani in action at the O. Henry Pun-off!

2016 O.Henry Pun-Off World Championships semi-final round (Janani Krishna-Jha vs Jerzy Gwiazdowski

John Pollack: The Pun Also Rises
http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/307465/the-pun-also-rises-by-john-pollack/9781592406753/

Linguistic Anarchy! It’s All Pun And Games Until Somebody Loses a Sign
https://daily.jstor.org/linguistic-anarchy-pun-games-somebody-loses-sign/

What is a pun?
http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/whatisapun.htm

Goodreads: Quotes About Puns
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/puns

Monday Punday: A weekly game
http://mondaypunday.com/325

The Greatest Jokes Ever Told
http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a35136/greatest-jokes-ever-told/

Tearable Puns
http://www.tearablepuns.org

Why Do Puns Make People Groan?
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/why-do-puns-make-people-groan/398252/

Meet the ‘Grammar Vigilante’ of Bristol
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39459831

The ‘Apostrophiser’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08kys4c

Who do you think you’re apostrophising? The dark side of grammar pedantry
https://theconversation.com/who-do-you-think-youre-apostrophising-the-dark-side-of-grammar-pedantry-75793

Are you a friendly language police?
https://educationallinguist.wordpress.com/2016/02/03/are-you-a-friendly-language-police/


Image credit: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/2d/9d/e7/2d9de7137ef7bfedb28baf9faca3f751.jpg


Transcript

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