The assumption that puns are per se contemptible, betrayed by the habit of describing every pun not as a pun, but as a bad pun or a feeble pun, is a sign at once of sheepish docility and desire to seem superior. Puns are good, bad, and indifferent and only those who lack the wit to make them are unaware of the fact.
—H. W. Fowler, British lexicographer and schoolmaster, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, 1926