The Serious Guide to Joke Writing: How To Say Something Funny About Anything pdfdrive com

Redefining Phrases
My class have now all mastered the ability to pull apart any word I give them.
It’s time to move them on to phrases and sentences. I tell them some more pun-
based jokes:
Two fish are in a tank. One says to the other
‘Do you know how to drive this thing?’
Quoted in – Naked Jape by Jimmy Carr
Why are fish good at wars?
Because they live in tanks.
my adaptation
They are obviously both the same joke but the first one is clearly better than the
second. My class are giving me wry smiles. I read them some more:
So I was getting into my car, and this bloke says to me, ‘Can you give me a
lift?’ I said, ‘Sure, you look great, the world’s your oyster, go for it.’
Tim Vine
So I was getting into my car, and this bloke says to me, ‘Can you give me a
lift?’ I said, ‘Well I know a bloke who’s a lift engineer. He could build one in
your house for the right price.’
my adaptation
The class like the first one better. The difference between them is the difference
between wordplay and a simple pun. Tony Allen argues that the pun is a...
‘meaningless construction that unites two ideas or concepts that have
nothing in common other than the fact that they share or have been
allocated the same or similar sounding words...wordplay or witticism
however unites and often adds to the understanding of one or even both
words.’
iii
Take the word ‘Draw’. It has a number of meanings: drawing a sketch, drawing a
pension, drawing a knife, drawing water, drawing breath, drawing with a pencil,
drawing board.
I could write a pun-based joke using that idea:
Reporter: Do you have problems with teenagers in your art classes?

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Teacher: Yes they keep drawing knives.
Here’s a wordplay based cartoon (based on the same word).
It starts out as a pun but gets deeper because it references the fact that Da Vinci
envisioned such things as helicopters and was way beyond his time.
But, to write that joke, it had to start out as a pun and then be stretched further.
So  that’s  a  good  reason  not  to  abandon  your  puns  when  you  first  write  them.
Basically,  you  can  take  a  simple  phrase  or  saying  and  interpret  it  in  many
different ways. It’s a way of thinking that you can learn. The class for this week
is nearly over so I set them the next exercise for homework.

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