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

Chapter One (PRACTICAL)
Redefinitions & Puns (Warm up to
Word-Play)
Genius is 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration.
Thomas A. Edison
It’s a warm October day in Hastings. My new joke writing class sits in a circle.
We have just done the introductions.
‘Right,’ I say, ‘I’m going to start with puns.’
A few of them look disappointed.
‘Puns are crap, aren’t they?’ I say.
The  disappointed  ones  look  relieved,  but  a  couple  of  others  start  to  look
disappointed. I read them a pun
ii
:
My wife’s a treasure – people keep asking me where I dug her up.
‘Rubbish?’ I ask.
The class nod in unison. I read them another one:
Two hydrogen atoms are talking.
One says, ‘I think I’ve lost an electron.’
The other asks, ‘Are you sure?’
The first replies, ‘Yes, I’m positive.’
This gets a laugh. No-one thinks it’s rubbish. We agree that it’s still just a pun
but it’s about a clever subject, so it seems more sophisticated by association.
I am doing this because I want them to see that a joke is a joke is a joke, and we
mustn’t  judge  too  quickly,  because  we  are  about  to  start  writing  some.  If  they
won’t  write  down  a  bad  gag,  the  chances  of  them  writing  a  good  one  are  very
slim.
I read them some more, written by Tim Vine, Britain’s foremost pun master:
So  I  said  to  this  gym  instructor,  ‘Can  you  teach  me  to  do  the  splits?’  He
said, ‘How flexible are you?’ I said, ‘I can’t make Tuesdays.’’

---

So I said to this train driver, ‘I want to go to Paris.’ He said, ‘Eurostar?’ I
said, ‘I’ve been on telly but I’m no Dean Martin.’
I was at sea the other day and loads of meat floated past. It was a bit
choppy.
‘Good or bad?’ I ask.
This is a loaded question now because the class has giggled a bit. Some of them
nod, some shake their heads, some are unable to decide and let their heads loll
on their shoulders in a confused manner!
I explain to them that the ‘choppy’ and ‘flexible’ gags are straight forward puns
but the ‘Eurostar’ joke is slightly different.
Everyone knows that some words, like ‘treasure’, have two meanings; but take
the  word  ‘Eurostar’  as  in  ‘You’re  a  star.’  It’s  a  new  way  of  thinking  about  a
normal word, so it makes your brain take notice, and seems much more original.
Jokes like the above are what British radio comedy I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue
call a Redefinition and the American Washington Post calls Neologism. You take
a word or phrase apart, pun on one or both halves of it, and then redefine it. In
that way, it doesn’t seem as simple as a pun.
These are from I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, recorded at the London Palladium in
2005:
Randomise... a squint
Kingdom... royal contraceptive
Jugular... a busty vampire
Gondolier... something you catch from a boat man
Mish mash... late for mass due to drunkenness
Urethra... soul singer takes piss
Himalaya... transsexual rooster
Sometimes redefinitions are so good that they become jokes in their own right.
Try these.
Eric Von Hertz – a German – every time he went through a herd of cows he
would shout Ach Dung!
Les Dawson

---

Crun: This is Minnie Bannister, the world-famous poker player - give her a
good poker and she’ll play any tune you like.
Spike Milligan
When I was a kid I thought ‘racist’ meant someone who was good at
running. I’d go up to black kids and say, ‘You’re good at running. I bet
when you grow up you are going to be a great racist.’
Jason John Whitehead
I really love language, I used to think bumbling was jewellery for your arse.
Tiernan Dooyab

---