"Demaund. How many straws go to a goose's nest?
"A. None, for lack of feet.
Besides the puns which may be made within a language itself, through the variety of meanings of words and the similarity of sound in different words, there is a certain class of hybrid puns and conundrums which is made by the interchange of languages. The following story illustrates this class: A newly appointed and bashful young curate was visiting a young ladies' school in his parish. The ordeal of facing so many blooming young misses was endured until, the class in Virgil having been found ill-prepared and the teacher having requested that the translation be made word for word, he was startled by the declaration made by a pretty young lady, "We kiss him in turn" (Vicissim, in turn), whereupon he ungallantly fled.
When Laud was Archbishop to Charles I, it is related that the Court Jester made the punning grace, "Great praise be to God and little Laud to the Devil," which resulted in his banishment by the Archbishop.
Shakespeare uses the conundrum with a masterly hand, ringing many changes upon it and producing many effects, both grave and gay. An example of the quizzical dialogue which has the wit of the conundrum as its basis, is found in "Twelfth Night," Act I., scene 5:
Clown. Good madonna, why mournest thou?
Olivia. Good fool, for my brother's death.
Clown. I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
Olivia. I know his soul is in heaven, fool.
Clown. The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in heaven.
While the conundrum ranks as the formal literary representative of the spontaneous pun, the literature of wit is alive with the naked pun in its original state. Pope, Hood, Lamb, and Holmes are the names of some whose punning arraignments of puns and punsters make them at once judges and prisoners at the bar.
Theodore Hook is accredited with the original pun which is the basis of a common conundrum. He bragged that he could make a pun on any subject, and immediately a friend suggested that he make one on the King. "The King is no subject," was the prompt rejoinder.
The poems of Thomas Hood, the "king of punsters," abound in puns, and the sort of wit, subtle or broad, which may be expressed in puns. He was primarily a poet, and manipulated words in a masterly fashion, not letting them deflect his thought. An example of the inevitableness of his punning is found in the poem on "Sally Brown": "They went and told the sexton, and the sexton toll'd the bell."
A friendly contest between Hook and Hood, as to which could make the best pun, resulted in a draw, the efforts of the two men being of equal merit, according to the friend who was called upon to decide.
Alexander Pope, although disapproving of the pun as a trifling form of wit, once challenged his hearers to suggest a word upon which he could not make a pun. The word "keelhauling," meaning to draw a man under a ship, was given by a woman present. "That, Madam," replied Pope, "is indeed putting a man under a hardship."