What aspect of our lives is likely to be banned next? My theory is that it might be the use of the humble pun. We live in times of the ban galore, and our politicians might take the cue from China, who have banned the pun from public discourse. After all, our humourless leaders can take just so much ‘modification’ and ‘steak in India’ and ‘Pawar play’.
When I am dead, wrote Hillaire Belloc, I hope it may be said/ His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.
Had Belloc been living in China today, he might be on the banned Lizst of music and literature. For the media regulators, or State Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television has decreed that the pun be outlawed because it can result in “cultural linguistic chaos.” No longer can you warn people musically: If you can’t C-sharp, you will B-flat. It seems China is Peking too soon. Every hearty hello and every Shang Hai will be scrutinised for word play.
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The pun may be the lowest form of wit, just like the bun may be the lowest form of wheat, but, as any pundit will tell you, it deserves better than this. Shakespeare couldn’t resist it (“Now is the winter of our discontent/ Made glorious summer by the son of York”), neither could Salman Rushdie (“I insist on Uma’s insaanity” – a multi-cultural pun, since ‘insaan’ means human).
When Sir Charles Napier conquered Sind by deceit, he sent a one-word telegram to his superiors in London: Peccavi. That’s Latin for “I have sinned”, surely one of the most delicious puns in history. Likewise, when Sir Francis Drake defeated the Spanish Armada, he sent the Queen a one-word message: “Cantharides”. That’s an aphrodisiac known as “The Spanish Fly.”
The pun is mightier than the sword. You can out-sauce the tasteless ones, even curl up your eyebrows like groan men when someone beats you to one. But to ban it? You might as well ban the rhyming couplet or all words that end in –ing.
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What will headline-writers do if the ban goes international? No more ‘Lettuce now pick garden salads’ or ‘Bjorn again’ or the ‘Bouncing Czech’. Or even ‘Truck carrying fruit crashes, creates jam.’
Perhaps it is time we invented a new app. The IScream. To lodge our protest when things we love – like puns – are banished and those who use them are pun-ished.
On fecund thoughts, what the authorities need is the same goal as the man refusing pain killers during a root canal treatment: transcend dental medication. Or perhaps it is time for a Gandhi-like figure to arise and raise a protest. Surely such a one must exist. I recently read about someone who has walked barefoot for miles leading to callouses on his feet, and has fasted so much and so often that he is weak, and with breath that is dodgy because of the food he eats. In other words, a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.
Suresh Menon is Contributing Editor, The Hindu