Walter Redfern
English writer and academic
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
A pun is itself a second thought, overlaid on or coexisting with a first meaning. In terms of status, puns remain, as ever, in a kind of limbo, practiced everywhere by Tom, Dick, and Henrietta, but most often shamefacedly, whereas my unshakable conviction is that all puns, marvellous or godawful, should be intended — even subconsciously — and spoken with pride.
—Walter Redfern, English writer and academic, Puns, 1984
Posted on November 19, 1999 at 7:21 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
It is clearly important to play with language, in order to test its powers. We need to play before being, while being, or after being serious. As much as anything else, a pun is language on vacation.
—Walter Redfern, English writer and academic, Puns, 1984
Posted on February 5, 1999 at 8:33 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
My premise is that puns illuminate the nature of language in general. They are a latent resource of language, and certain temperaments simply will not resist trying to mine and exploit this rich ore, because (like Everest) it is there. The economy of puns makes them an inexpensive way of striking gold, albeit often of the fool's variety.
—Walter Redfern, English writer and academic, Puns, 1984
Posted on December 14, 1998 at 6:24 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
I would say that the dislike, the fear sometimes, of wordplay tells us a good deal, as do attitudes towards the human body, about puritanism. Of such sniffers at words, such misologists, we might say that their imaginations are nasty, British, and short.
—Walter Redfern, English writer and academic, Puns, 1984
Posted on January 4, 1999 at 7:41 AM
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