Many of us are fans of all kinds of comedy, from stand-up and improv to layered anecdotes and dad jokes. After all, who doesn’t love having a hearty laugh? But for us, there’s nothing like a good old pun to get us chuckling!
That’s where the 'Unappreciated Puns’ community comes in. It’s a super popular Facebook group whose members share some of the best puns they’ve found online or came up with themselves. We’ve collected some of our favorite ones to boost your mood, dear Pandas. It’s a wild ride, so hang on to your hats as you scroll down.
Pssst, we’re pretty sure your family, friends, and coworkers would love to have a laugh, too. Be sure to send them a few of your fave pics.
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Image credits: Jason Cox
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Image credits: Andy Banks
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Image credits: Nathan Boulton
Communications consultant John Pollack, the author of ‘The Pun Also Rises,’ told The Atlantic that puns are threatening because they reveal the arbitrariness of meaning. They also show how many layers of nuance “can be packed onto a single word.”
So, the folks who dislike puns tend to want a greater level of control in life. “If you have an approach to the world that is rules-based, driven by hierarchy and threatened by irreverence, then you’re not going to like puns,” Pollack said.
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Image credits: Nathan Boulton
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Image credits: Ana Sofia
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Image credits: James Bug
Meanwhile, Peter McGraw, the director of the University of Colorado, Boulder-based Humor Research Lab, notes that puns are benign communication violations. They subvert or threaten norms in non-harmful ways. They also require the audience to use their smarts to ‘get’ the joke.
“They can be a demonstration of wit, of cleverness. You’re relying on a person’s ability to parse language, to understand the nuances and complexities of words,” McGraw explains.
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Image credits: Victoria Villena
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Image credits: Natalie Lucas
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Image credits: Rich Thornton
Puns are a bit of a double-edged sword, not to mention a paradox. On the one hand, they can be brilliantly sophisticated, deep, and layered, created by the most intelligent philological minds we have here on Earth. On the other hand, they can be simple, crude, and incredibly on-the-nose. So much so that they make people groan and cringe, even as they laugh.
Whatever the case might be, they require someone to know the language and enjoy wordplay intimately. They need a dash of nuance and ambiguity to work; otherwise, puns wouldn’t be puns!
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Image credits: Nathan Boulton
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Image credits: Keith McConville
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Image credits: Derrick Carpenter
How the audience will react to your puns is going to depend on everyone’s personal taste in humor. You can’t control the outcome. All you can do is post your best content on a regular basis and hope for the best. If you’re consistently providing quality, you should get noticed sooner or later.
At the end of the day, though, what matters the most is that you enjoy the type of content you create instead of focusing just on views, clicks, comments, likes, and reactions.
Us personally? We can’t get enough of puns. Though, to be fair, we sometimes overuse puns in our day-to-day conversations. (Not everything needs to be turned into a joke. It’s okay to be serious from time to time.)
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Image credits: Michael R Nahas
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Image credits: Shyann Luster
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Image credits: Amy K Morello
The ‘Unappreciated Puns’ group was first established over 5 years ago, in mid-May of 2019. Over the course of half a decade, the community grew very rapidly. Now, it boasts 826.7k pun-lovers from all around the globe. Bored Panda has reached out to the team of administrators managing the group to learn more about it. We’ll update the article as soon as we hear back from them.
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Image credits: John Petersen
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Image credits: Jennifer Woodworth
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Image credits: Daniel R. Chapman
The founders of ‘Unappreciated Puns’ quip that, despite the name they came up with, puns are very much appreciated there. Before you go around posting a whole bunch of content, however, you should take a deep breath and slow down.
Take some time to browse the group. Look at the pics. Read the comments. Get familiar with the vibe of the place before you rush to be an eager part of it.
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Image credits: Peter Mburu
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Image credits: Lisa George
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Image credits: Kelsey Cairo Bullock
Once you get familiar with the atmosphere of ‘Unappreciated Puns,’ you will know the type of content that’s the most popular. That way, you’ll know what not to (re)post.
Great minds think alike. And it’s very likely that somebody also saw and already posted that punny pic you found scrolling on social media. Creating or finding fresh puns is way harder than reposting something for the umpteenth time. But it’s so worth it.
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Image credits: Chrissie Finch
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Image credits: Elisa Gabrielle
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Image credits: Lorde Chaz
The size of the group can’t be understated. The administrator and moderator team sometimes handle over a hundred posts and several thousand comments from community members every day. The team running the whole show asks everyone to focus on puns and puns alone while avoiding controversial topics, including politics.
In other words, the goal is comedy, not internet drama and opinion battles in the comments. That also means that edginess and trolling aren’t welcome.
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Image credits: Slim Abdulhameed Slim
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Image credits: Amy K Morello
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Image credits: Damian del Castillo
There’s also too much of a good thing. A lot of people, especially newcomers, might be eager to show off their puntastic sense of humor, sure. But you shouldn’t be spamming the group with your awesome posts. Be patient. Give everyone the chance to share their posts.
“Please do not block the queue up with lots of posts. Please space them out. This can be considered spam by FB. Violation can result in suspension or ban,” the admins and mods warn.
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Image credits: Jeff Miller
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Image credits: Kelly Strickland
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Image credits: Rich Thornton
Which of the jokes we’ve featured here did you love the most, dear Pandas? Which ones did your social circle enjoy? What’s your favorite pun of all time?
We can’t wait to hear what you have to say about the topic. So, if you have a spare moment, tell us all about it in the comments!
(And if you can work a pun or two into your comments, you’ll always have our appreciation.)
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Image credits: Alayna Nicole Dunn Patterson
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Image credits: Andy Banks
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Image credits: Jennifer Woodworth
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Image credits: Patti Shuler Haines
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Image credits: Rich Semegran
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Image credits: Sarah Trask
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Image credits: Mark Davies
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Image credits: Adrian Cimpoi
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Image credits: John Wissenberg
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Image credits: Shay Irwin
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Image credits: Joe Kerr
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Image credits: Chris Scott
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Image credits: Catherine Lee Rodriguez
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Image credits: Michael Card
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Image credits: Nathan Boulton
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Image credits: Alexandra Bedard
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Image credits: Rich Thornton
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Image credits: John Wissenberg
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Image credits: Gaymond Wong
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Image credits: Carrie Korte
