A month ago, I invited you, my punderful readers, to submit your best original preys on words. Within hours, a punami of more than 50 original puns poured in, and by the deadline for submission, I swam in a torrent of more than 200. From start to finish, every day was Punday.
Such a response demonstrates that a good pun is its own reword. Here’s a sample of the top puns that appeared in the May 2 Union-Tribune. In the second half of this posting you’ll find a pun-thology of additional puns from U-T readers.
Let’s get right to wit:
- After my dinner date with Bo Derek, my cannibal co-workers at the electronics lab said, “You know, that was attenuate.” -Erik Hanson, South Park
- Letting those darned seals overpopulate down at the Children’s Pool really defeats the porpoise! –Todd Hoover, La Jolla
- What do you call a waffle at the beach? A Sandy Eggo. -Bryant Berk, Normal Heights
- The new movie with Harrison Ford about the love life of a misplaced garden tool is titled “Ardors of the Lost Rake.” –Michael Punaro, Encinitas
- After my dinner date with Bo Derek, my cannibal co-workers at the electronics lab said, “You know, that was attenuate.” -Erik Hanson, South Park
- Letting those darned seals overpopulate down at the Children’s Pool really defeats the porpoise! –Todd Hoover, La Jolla
- The new movie with Harrison Ford about the love life of a misplaced garden tool is titled “Ardors of the Lost Rake.” –Michael Punaro, Encinitas
- Sometime in the late 1980s, I was covering the Masters golf tournament for the Union, sports columnist Barry Lorge at my side. As we worked on our stories, Barry suddenly asked, “How do you spell cirrhosis?” I answered, possibly correctly, and added, “In these fast-paced, deadline-pressured circumstances, it can be helpful if you just stop to spell cirrhosis.” –Hank Wesch, La Mesa
- Did you hear about the boy scout who started a business fixing broken car horns? He called it Beep Repaired. –Patrick Elms, Carmel Valley
- A donut baker bemoaning his girth lamented, ” I can’t believe I ate the hole thing. I should cut down this roll around the middle.” -Linda Gross, Carlsbad
- A mycologist wanted to add to her mushroom collection, but due to spore planning, it was such a sporgasbord, there wasn’t mushroom for anything new. –Claudia Lopez, Oceanside
- A doctor insisted on stitching up his own wound. The nurse said, “Suture self.” –Christopher Boyle, Glendale, Ariz.
- What did one Neanderthal say to the other regarding a misunderstanding about the local flora? “Him peach meant.” –Dawne Adam, National City
- What’s the difference between me and garbage? Garbage gets taken out once a week. –Mary Jo Crowley, Escondido
- Did you hear about the swami who was in a fender bender? He was having an auto-body experience. –Tim Hart, Carlsbad
- Even though baseball players are on furlough, umpires are still working from home. -Doug Miller, La Jolla
- Why did the ghost win the pie-eating contest? Because he was the best at goblin it up. –Lara Hardin, Escondido
- Why didn’t my husband go outside when he got dizzy? Because he didn’t know vertigo. -Vee Weaver Roebuck, Kearny Mesa
- What do you call a one-of-a-kind trumpet? A unicorn (unique horn). –John Silcox
Serra Mesa - I bird-proofed my home. Now it’s impeccable. –Matt Strabone, North Park
- Hurrying to get to the airport on time, Giovanni backed his Alfa Romeo out of his garage and drove over his suitcase containing his clothes. Anguished, he shouted, “Mama mia! I have a flat attire!” –Howard Crabtree, Coronado
- All this social distancing has given me an inferiority complex. Staying at home used to be enough, but now I have to go hide in abasement! –Andy Tao, Los Alamitos
- I attempted to eat a clock the other day. It was really time consuming. –Carl P. Hennrich, Encinitas
- I’m a very skeptical person. The doctor recently told me that I needed a diet that was low in sodium. I took the advice with a grain of salt. –Abraham Perez, San Ysidro
- One man’s meat is another man’s poisson. –Judith Leggett, Escondido
- Why did the former Vice-President have to give up dancing? Because he couldn’t find his Al Gore rhythm. –Ren Halloran, Rancho Bernardo
More punderful wordplay from Union-Tribune readers 5/2/20
- A mighty feudal lord in northern Wales during the 8thcentury had a jester had failed to make him laugh for several days, so he decided to punish the jester by throwing him into the dungeon. As he slammed the door, he told the jester that he would be confined until he could make some fun out of his punishment. The jester, who had a slight lisp, immediately hollered back, “Opunish door!” –Erik Holtsmark, La Jolla
- Toilet paper is a really hot commode-ity right now, and some people are flush with it. Hoarders are judged, bidet don’t care. Those who are privy to a loaded supply just roll with every John and Loo who takes issue with the tissue. Instead of being bowelled over by the stool pigeons, they keep a lid on it and tell the party-poopers, “Urine over your heads.” -Jared Fraher, Escondido, and Jenny Moore, North Park
- Why was the iguana unable to reproduce? He had a reptile dysfunction. –Craig Pfifer, Carmel Mountain
- What did the daddy atom tell his Little League son? “Keep your ion the ball.” -Larry Settle, Grantville
- Why did the dog go to the bathroom against one of the trees that grew outside the drug store window? Because the sign on the drug store window said, “We have toiletries.” -Paul Stanley Hayes, El Cajon
- Sign at a gynecologist’s office: Doctors at your cervix. –Debbie Mitton, Lakeside
- The young intern decided to go into proctology. He heard that you only had to work on weak ends. –Richard Snow, Spring Valley
- What do you call a loon when it comes up to take a gander? A Peking duck. -George Dillard, Point Loma
- Man-eating tigers in colonial India were known to chomp at the Brit. – Mike Randolph, Mission Hills
- What do you get when you cross a lumberjack and a podiatrist? Paul Bunion. -Steve Lake, Carlsbad
- “If at first you don’t deceive, lie, lie again.” – Donald Trump’s motto –Neil Proffitt, Oceanside
- When the vet couldn’t diagnose his equine patient’s salivary trouble, the doctor had the animal admitted to the horse-spittle. –Ross Watkins, Ramona
- Why do nuns always go out in groups? It’s a force of habit. –Kevin Camperell, San Marcos
- I knocked down a building yesterday for no good reason and turned it into a documentary movie. It’s called “Rubble Without a Cause.” -Lewis D. Michaelson, San Diego
- What do you get from a disco duck? Boogie down. –Joe Yurkonis, Gaslamp District
- What did the feline purchase at the coffee shop? A cat-uccino. And, of course, the cat didn’t want a young cow in her brew, so she ordered it de-calf-inated! –Bryon Solberg, Scripps Ranch
- It is better to have loved a short girl than never to have loved a tall. – Don X Sanelli, Oceanside
- Years ago I replanted a volunteer palm tree and put it on a friend’s front porch with a note that said, “a frond in need is a frond indeed.” –Ed Mueller, Rancho Bernardo
- What is the opposite of indiscreet? “On the sidewalk.” –Jimmy Lennon, El Cajon
- Years ago, I visited a friend and his wife in Fresno. The wife was ranting on the thoughtless ways men took advantage of the fairer sex, doing all the work with little help. She said it was even true in the animal kingdom. For example, the male lion just sits and waits while the females hunt their prey. Then he eats his fill before they can eat! I said, “Well, he has his pride, you know.” She didn’t speak to me for an hour. -Jerry Stebbins, Tierrasanta
- When the Field Museum in Chicago paid a record $7 million to buy a complete T Rex skeleton, I said, “They sang about that in The Sound of Music: Fossil Lotta Dough.” –Dan Tackett, Clairemont
- A year or so ago, while driving past the camel farm between Ramona and Santa Ysabel, I thought of the following: What do you call a farm that sells camel milk? A drome-dairy. -David Irving, Lemon Grove
- The hospital’s intern with the German accent returned with a new supply of respirators, but the storeroom was so crowded he couldn’t find any place to lay der air.” –Phil Pryde, San Carlos
- I was hiking along a portion of the Pacific Crest Trail one late afternoon. The sun was setting and I decided to head back. Looking down at the trail, I saw mountain lion tracks on top of my boot tracks. It gave me pause. -Larry Hendrickson Julian
- Needles to say, to Fillmore space, different cities in California are Banning Whittier puns due to exposure to Corona and Weed. –Richie Strell, San Marcos
- Two cannibals are talking. One says, “I don’t feel very well,” The other tells him, “Must have been someone you ate.” –Nick Zizzo, Rancho San Diego
- “I’m going to smash your Stradivarius!” Tom said violently. –Seth Mallios, Allied Gardens
- Back in my college days, I managed to keep in touch with a buddy who was one of many thousands conscripted to serve in Viet Nam. One evening, as I began scribbling down some words for a letter to write him, an unexpected gust of cold wind blew through an open dorm window. Instinctively I pulled a day-old Budweiser down from my bookshelf. All I could think of was “This is a rough draft.” –Ed Chipp, Rancho Bernardo
- When I was in high school, the headmaster called an all-school assembly to address smoking in the bathrooms. He started his stern lecture with “I am sick and tired of finding ashes in the sinks and butts on the commodes.” Needless to say, no one heard another word of the lecture. -Joan Hewitt, Encinitas