Swore off puns after one backfired at a family dinner, then my nephew changed my mind

I told a pun about a broken pencil at my sister's house last month and my brother-in-law got all quiet because he just got laid off from his art job. My 8-year-old nephew later showed me a pun book he wrote himself with drawings and it was actually clever and made everyone laugh. Has anyone else had a joke bomb bad but then seen a kid salvage the whole concept for you?

3 comments

3 Comments

tarag2819d ago

Oh, I gotta disagree a bit here. I think kids just laugh at anything, especially if a grown-up is trying to be funny (they love the effort, not the joke). My nephew once laughed hysterically at a pun about a pancake being "flat" after I tripped and dropped his whole breakfast on the floor. The joke wasn't clever, he just liked seeing me make a mess. So maybe the pun book was cute, but I wouldn't let a kid's giggles convince you puns are actually good.

margaret9919d ago

Maybe it's not that deep though... kids laugh at silly stuff all the time, nobody's handing out comedy awards based on a toddler's reaction. The real test is whether the pun book still makes you chuckle after the kid goes to bed.

alicew6810d ago

My nephew is 10 and he made a whole PowerPoint about puns last week, categorized them by "good bad" and "bad bad". Maybe the secret is that kids just naturally understand timing better than adults do lol, like your nephew's book probably had built-in pauses for effect that your brother-in-law didn't get.