Many of you have clicked "like" or commented on my Facebook posts recently which have been puns. Puns - as defined by Wikipedia - are also called paronomasia, and are a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. Puns are used to create humor and sometimes require a large vocabulary to understand. Puns have long been used by comedy writers, such as William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, and George Carlin.
So, some of you have asked where I've gotten the puns I've used, or you've "groaned", or put "smh" (shaking my head). And now, the reasoning behind my posts... honestly, I did not set out with a specific agenda. I started posting them because I had received an email with a lot of puns within. And the postings continued because I realized that amidst all of the other posts on Facebook, and everything else going on, they provided a release. They provided a release from the daily stress and strain, from the horrible things going on that we see on the news every night, and from the things at work which caused stress. Some people put friendly comments, some bantered back with more puns, some asked about the source of the puns, but my hope was that everyone left with a little less worry in their life. I'm a pretty realistic person - I know we all have struggles that we deal with on a daily basis, and some of those struggles can be pretty intense. Humor can help lighten those loads, and my hope is that some of your burdens were lightened, even if just momentarily while you grimaced at a bad play on words. I could've said "God bless you", or "peace of Christ", but I know that many of you tire of the "preachiness" that we see on Facebook regularly; so my attempt at wishing you peace and trying to ease some of your burden was to share a pun, and make you forget about things for a bit.
So for now, I'm going to put down the puns for a bit - I think I've acccomplished what I set out to do. But I'm sure, like throwing a boomerang, they'll eventually come back to me... <insert rim shot here>
Grace & Peace,
- Martin
