Puns are very versatile and can be used to talk basically about anything. They can help students learn new words and phrases. Puns can be used in comedy, literature, advertising, and pop culture. There are even people called pun fans, also known as pun enthusiasts. Pun fans can be found in a variety of online communities, including social media pun groups, pun forums, and pun blogs.
Some even participate in pun-off championships and compete for a trophy. One such event is called O. Henry Pun-Off World Championship, a yearly spoken word competition held at the O. Henry Museum in Austin, Texas, in May.
Bored Panda got in touch with one of the winners to learn more about their story and the experience.
Erika Ettin is the latest winner of the category called ‘Punniest of Show’. To learn more about how she got into the punning world, we asked her to share how she discovered her talent for it.
“I wish I could pinpoint one thing, but I’ve always loved wordplay. When I was little, instead of playing with dolls, I would steal my mom’s 'puzzle books' to do all the word and math games. (I actually just shared this with her, and I must’ve been pretty stealthy because she never noticed.) Then, around maybe 2016, someone told me that there was going to be a pun competition in Washington DC. I had no idea such a thing existed. Once I found out, I went down the rabbit hole and got involved in competitions around the country. To me, puns are like math — you take something apart and put it back together again in a new way,” Erika shared.
Anyone can come up with puns. However, some have been practicing to become better at finding the right words for making it work. But what is a pun, exactly? According to the O. Henry Pun-Off World Championship description, a pun is “the humorous use of a word or words in such a way as to suggest different meanings or applications or words that have the same or nearly the same sound but different meanings.”
When asked, Erika shared her process of coming up with puns. “You have to think about what a word might sound like. There is a simple homophone (where two words sound the same), like 'That coin stinks! A real copper cent.' But then you have another where you can break up the syllable to re-create something. 'Forensics' can become 'four and six' or 'Tylenol' can become 'tile and all.' And some words just sound similar, like 'Belize' and 'bellies' or 'bullies.' I might try to make a subtle one in conversation, but when performing, the audience prefers the multisyllabic ones.”
Competing in any competition puts pressure on participating contestants, no matter how well-prepared they are. To perform her best, Erika shared what takes her edge off in such cases. “Bourbon? In all seriousness, the way my brain works, I am best with very little prep time and thinking on my toes. But I still get really nervous when I get a topic I may not know a lot about, like sci-fi or current celebrities.”
And sure, sometimes puns don’t get received well by the audience, but all you have to do is “just keep going and come up with another joke! Explaining it only makes it worse. Confidence will get you far,” shared Erika.
Our most precious memories are formed through experiencing a burst of emotions. Therefore, we certainly knew that Erika had a story on her favorite pun. She wrote: “Right before Covid, I won my first ever Punderdome competition in New York. The final topic was 'countries.' My competitor gave me a pun on Spain, which I was about to do, so I had to think of something else. I walked over to her, put my arm around her, and said 'I support you, gal' (Portugal). The audience erupted. People still tell me that that was their favorite. And what makes it even more special is that my competitor was someone I had idolized, so the fact that I got to do that for people is extremely humbling.”
And for all of you looking to improve your skills in the pun game, Erika advised: “watch some videos on YouTube!”
