Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Rafee: It's called a pun, a play on words, wordplay. Euthanasia = youth in Asia.

I've heard that as a friend-of-a-friend story several times.   A student in a debate  class or club is asked to prepare to argue a position for or against euthanasia.   He comes prepared with statistics and stories about young people in Asia.

For example:

Jason Redd raised his children to love working the land, but due to various twists of fate most of them are in city office jobs now.   They've often talked about moving back to the country but have never gone beyond dreams and discussion.

Then one day Mark, one of his three boys, sees an ad for a cattle ranch that for some reason catches his eye.   He drives out to look at it, falls in love and comes back to talk to his brothers.   They look at it, talk over possible plans for a few weeks, and finally take the plunge.

On the porch of their shared mess hall they install some hanging prisms for decoration and wind chimes.   Their father spends a lot of time visiting and helping with some of the planning, and one day stops by those prisms, stares at them for a while, and then arranges them so the setting sun striking through them places all its lowest-frequency light on the wall at one spot, giving off an intense and beautiful glow.   "Boys", he then says, "I know what to name this ranch: The Burning Prism."

"That's got a poetic ring, Dad, but why?", asks Lonny.

"Because", says Jason, "it's where the Redd sons raise meat!"

<beat>

<another beat>

<half a third beat, sweating slightly>

Ah, thank you, thank you very much.   You're too kind...

That kind of joke almost has to be said aloud.   Even then...

Hey, don't undersell it; that was a quadruple pun, "Redd sons raise meat" / "red sun's rays meet".   I'm impressed with it (and no, I didn't make it up).

We should start a pun thread.