Passionately Promoting A More Perfect World

nostalgebraist:

Puns are the only form of word play I have ever heard among high energy physicists.  What is it about puns they find so satisfying and why are other kinds of word play so unrecognizable to them?  When I am doing fieldwork, physicists occasionally ask why I have no sense of humor:  they notice that my laughter at their puns is feigned. It is always a relief to return to anthropology territory and another kind of word play where I am reputed to have at least the normal amount of wit.  Reader, remember that puns bring together meanings which should be kept apart, a kind of verbal incest.  These acronymic couplings physicists make are clever only to those who think that speech and writing, like bodies and minds, ought to be kept apart, that appearances are false and hidden meanings are true.  These puns directly contradict what all science and engineering students know should be kept apart.

@lostpuntinentofalantis called out