Welcome to the website woven for wordaholics, logolepts, and verbivores. Carnivores eat meat; herbivores eat plants and vegetables; verbivores devour words. If you are heels over head (as well as head over heels) in love with words, tarry here a while to graze or, perhaps, feast on the English language. Ours is the only language in which you drive in a parkway and park in a driveway and your nose can run and your feet can smell.

Last week I featured in this space the top puns in my capacious collection and invited your submissions. Within a few days in poured more than 100 preys on words, proving that a pun is in truth the highest form of wit.

Reader Pamela Benham wrote me about the man who entered the local newspaper’s pun contest. He sent in 10 different puns, hoping that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did (“no pun intended”). Au contraire, my pun pals. All your submissions were winners, and I regret being able to share only about 5 percent of them. Here are a few that involve famous names:

James Strohn Copley, the longtime publisher of your predecessor newspaper, was a confirmed punster. This one was his favorites (with apologies to John Greenleaf Whittier):

There was a Chinese lumberman named Chan who realized someone was pilfering from his lumberyard after dark. Hoping to catch the culprit red handed, he hid himself there one night. After several hours he heard rustlings and spotted someone stealing lumber. But before confronting the thief, he noticed it wasn’t a person at all; it was a bear! Naturally he hesitated, but upon closer scrutiny, he saw the feet of a boy dressed in a bear costume, whereupon he leapt from his hiding place and shouted, “Stop, boy-foot bear with teak of Chan!” — Bill Black

Years ago, I picked up author and journalist I.F. Stone at Lindbergh Field. He’d come to San Diego to visit my father, Herbert York, first chancellor of UCSD. We were driving by Windansea Beach, where a dozen surfers were out on a glassy, calm sea. Mr. Stone had never seen surfers, and asked who they were and what were they doing.

“Surfers. They’re waiting for waves,” I explained.

“Ah,” he said, “they also surf who only stand and wait.” — Rachel York

This is a learned pun on British poet John Milton’s sonnet “On His Blindness,” which concludes with the line “They also serve who only stand and wait.” — RL

In the late 1950s, the incomparable wordsmith and “What’s My Line?” panelist Bennett Cerf once told what he said is the greatest pun in the English language:

Three brothers moved from New York to Arizona, where they bought a cattle ranch. But they couldn’t decide what to name their ranch. So they called their mother and asked her. She replied, “Name the cattle ranch ‘Focus’ because that’s where the sons raise meat.”

Cerf said that this is the only three consecutive word pun (“sun’s rays meet”/“sons raise meat”) he knew of in the English language, and he challenged the viewers of “What’s My Line?” to come up with another one. Apparently nobody ever did. I have tried for over half a century, with no success. It’s not the most amusing pun, but it is the greatest. Perhaps you would like to repeat Bennett Cerf’s challenge to your reading audience. — Howard Killion

In my view, the triple pun “a noise annoys an oyster” meets the criterion Cerf set forth. — RL

I heard my favorite delivered by Bennett Cerf on “What’s My Line?” Police examining the debris from the bakery explosion have reported finding a napoleon blown apart.” — Edwin Moore

Prompted by viewing the movie Les Misérables, we wish to point out that Hugh Jackman, nominated for Golden Globe Best Actor, is a “Huge Act-Man” and that Anne Hathaway, who dies half way through the film, could be called “Anne Half-the-Way.” — Dave and Janel Roti

And Anne Hathaway with Words. — RL

When Ike and Tina Turner broke up, their singers, the Ikettes, booked their own tour. Here’s the first song they sang: “Don’t cry for us, Ike and Tina. The truth is we never left you.” — Jerry Carson

Please send your questions and comments about language to richard.lederer@utsandiego.com verbivore.com