I have trouble understanding how a person could hate puns. I mean, sure, some of them can be groan inducing and ridiculous – but on the whole, they’re harmless and encourage a nice sense of double-ness.
I wonder if that’s the issue. I mean, to enjoy a pun requires a holding of two concepts at once. In this case, it is both lying as in fibbing and lying as in reclining. You have to hold both ideas at once to find such a thing amusing. Or maybe it isn’t so much amusing as pleasurable – it rings a simultaneity bell.
But maybe that simultaneity chime sounds more like a school bell to those who do not enjoy a pun.
I’m curious.
The Hamlet Project 