[lit-ideas] "No pun intended" -- whose copyright? -- and different 'implicatures'
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 05:43:11 EDT
J.Krueger quotes, and asks, 'What is a pun?' She quotes from:
<_http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/livescience/sc_livescience/storytext/emotio
nsrunamokinsleepdeprivedbrains/24915165/SIG=127c1sb4q/*http://www.livescience.
com/humanbiology/060323_sleep_deprivation.html_
(http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/livescience/sc_livescience/storytext/emotionsrunamokinsleepdeprivedbrains/
24915165/SIG=127c1sb4q/*http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060323_sleep_d
eprivation.html)
<<In modern life, people often deprive themselves of
sleep almost on a daily basis," Walker said.
"Alarm bells should be ringing about that behavior
-- no pun intended.">>
----
Personally, I don't think that Walker's wording was in good taste. These are
serious problems not to dealt with lightly.
I was always irritated by the expression 'no pun intended'. For Grice (or
Griceans), this is a pragmatic contradiction. Because, by pointing the
addressee's attention to the pun, it _is_ somehow intended; yet it is a sneaky
act of
communication. For, at the same time of directing the addresse's attention
to the pun ('the lowest form of a figure of speech", Alexander Pope said), the
'utterer' is _at the same time_ denying any communication responsibility in
the issue. So it's the very communicative analogue of those anti-moral acts,
of "having your cake and eating it" or "running with the hares and hunting
with the hounds".
I should check with the OED who first came up with the 'brilliant' idea.
Krueger's question may be addressed to the fact that pun is usually
something different, a play on the _sound_ of words, as in Alice in Wonderland:
Alice: The girls were _in_ the well?
Dormouse: Oh yes, _well_ in.
Here there is a pun on the expression 'well', which is a homograph, i.e. one
'well' is an adverb (OE _weal_) the other a noun (OE _wel_). So it would not
be perhaps a pun in Old English, although it might. I assume there are
different types of puns, but those based on homography or zeugma (where you
wouldn't have a homograph, but still two 'uses' which are _ilogically_ applied
to
an event) seem to me the most basic.
In Walker's case
<<In modern life, people often deprive themselves of
sleep almost on a daily basis," Walker said.
"Alarm bells should be ringing about that behavior
-- no pun intended.">
The 'pun' seems to be on the literal versus the figurative. In this case
between literal and figurative uses of:
"alarm bells should be ringing".
If literal, it's cruel, because the 'pun' (allegedly non-intended for it
being so cruel) is that it's these people, who deprive -- for one reason or
other -- of sleep for whom
"alarm bells should be ringing"
-- some even worse writer would have added, 'literally'. But that would have
been redundant, because people who deprive of sleep do NOT need alarm bells
ringing.
So the pun is between that literal plane and the figurative plane where
"alarm bells should be ringing"
is directed towards those dealing 'with that behaviour' -- The American
specialist, I assume. I think it's this figurative plane addressed at somebody
_other_ than the people who deprive of sleep that makes the thing a total
failure of a pun.
Walker is saying that scientists (paid ones making the service yet another
luxury for the consumer) should have alarm-bells ringing towards the behaviour
of sleep deprivation.
Walker is also going moralistic about things: it's like scientists who would
otherwise NOT need alarm bells, are concerned in things which Walker finds
superficial and it is towards Walker's target of focus that they should be
'awaken' into.
Cheers,
J. L. Speranza
Buenos Aires, Argentina
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