Freeper FreePun' Ping List PING!
Posted on 04/21/2005 6:48:15 PM PDT by LibertarianInExile
What: THE 28th ANNUAL O.HENRY PUN-OFF WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS When: MAY 14, 2005 - Noon - 5pm (SATURDAY!)
Where: Brush Square Park, downtown Austin, TX (5th at Neches)
Who: Friends of the O.Henry Museum / Austin Parks & Recreation Dept.
Why: Jest for a wordy cause!
Website: www.PunPunPun.com
This should give everyone concerned (and you should be) at least 56 days notice to either prepare or brace themselves for the event. As details develop, and they certainly will, everything will be posted on the ISTPF website.
Founded by the late John Crosbie in 1979, the International Save The Pun Foundation has become the world's largest and fastest-growing apocryphal society. Since one person in five in North America is a functional illiterate, and since everywhere the little red schoolhouse is full of too many little-read students, the Foundation exists to arouse a greater interest in reading by encouraging people to have fun with words.
In the pursuit of its fundamental goal to make reading fun, The International Save The Pun Foundation publishes a monthly newsletter, the pundit; organizes dinners for punsters; promotes and reviews books and tapes by paranomaniacs; organizes Punster-Of-The-Year awards; and generally enjoys itself.
The current chairman of the bored, Norman Gilbert, is a financial planner based in Toronto, Ontario. He first subscribed to the pundit in 1984, after hearing John Crosbie in a radio interview, and has never looked back. When John died in 1994, Norman acquired the rights to the Foundation from John's estate, the transaction taking place, appropriately, on April Fool's Day.
Under Norman's leadership, the Foundation's 1,600 members continue to stumble onward, spreading the good (and sometimes not-so-good) words, and scattering their gems of linguistic libertinism about them like Johnny Appleseed, although perhaps not always with the same level of appreciation. Hysterically screaming "Up the pun!", this unruly band of rebels may be found waving tattered copies of the pundit, and storming the barricades of grammatical rules and regulations around the world. From Australia to Zimbabwe, wherever they are erected by the steadily retreating phalanxes of pedants and self-appointed guardians of our language, the barriers are falling, and people are having fun with the language, thanks to the unceasing efforts of Norman and his plucky crew.
One of the top puns of 2003:
Did you hear about the veterinarian who was barred from performing any surgery because he suffered from bouts of epilepsy? The cops busted him for intentional malpractice, attempting to operate on a sick predatory bird during an epileptic fit, but the case was thrown out on a technicality. It was an ill-eagle surgeon seizure.
Freeper FreePun' Ping List PING!
Thanks for the word, Lib. Maybe we could field a Freeper team entry. Plenty of twisted minds around here up to the challenge.
What?
I've never herd of such a gathering of like-minded speakers!
On FR or in the world? Punsters tend not to get together very often--some people might lob a bomb into the area.
On FR, on the other hand, all you gotta do to join is ask me to add your name to the ping list. We don't mind if your puns are bad. Ours are, too. In fact, some of my puns were so bad they made it onto America's Most Wanted.. The cops shot `em clean through on sight.
But that was fine...I always considered my puns holy, anyway. [rimshot]
A good pun is its own reword.
In junior high I obsessively read virtually every O. Henry story and I don't remember puns being a major feature of them.
Your invitaion to continue pLaying with with words is an opun and shut case!
Yes, add me to the ping list.
Just as long as I'm not accused of being homophonic.
I will be attending a wedding that day, but will ping others.
For those who think puns are the lowest form of humor, remember that even Shakespeare played with them. In Antony and Cleopatra, when Antony asked if Cleo was true to him, she said, Omar Kayyem!
Homophones per se are not the problem -- we just want to avoid odd homonym attacks.
Ewwwwwe.
(Robt gets sheepish look.)
The rest are dysfunctional illiterates.
"The rest are dysfunctional illiterates."
Yes, it's my understanding that those are the folks who can't not spell properly and are often caught using proper grammar.
It must be hell going through life that way. Imagine, being trapped in a world where everything you see seems to say things in your language. Okay...maybe you don't have to imagine very hard.
You could be lambasted for a pun like that.
I understand. Blood is thicker than banter.
Great! Always glad to add someone to the list--being pinged is its own punishment.
one person in five in North America is a functional illiterate
The rest are dysfunctional illiterates.
Not that they would know from reading this thread.
Actually I'm not typing this myself, I've a dwarf ghost
writer who does it all for me, he's my Gnome d'Plume.
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