Whitman’s Department of Wordplay, primarily known for its bordering-on-hermitude reclusiveness and for stealing all the Scrabble tiles from residence hall game closets, has made a rare public announcement to confirm that the campus supply of puns has officially hit zero. Dismay and concern have ensued as students ponder the prospect of an indefinitely pun-free future.
“Many don’t realize that the pun supply is dependent not only on usage, but also on reception and comprehension,” explains DoW president Courtney Jessica Turbin. “Our leading theory is that some previously oblivious first-year finally said, ‘Oh, that’s why it’s called Styx,’ and that broke the bank.”
You may be wondering how an intangible method of arranging words and letters for humorous purposes can be in short supply. We at The Wire wonder this, too. Unfortunately, the only explanatory works on the subject have been written by very enthusiastic wordsmithing experts. As such, they are chock full of puns, and have been sealed under lock and key in an undisclosed corner of the Penrose archives, completely inaccessible for journalistic perusal.
According to Turbin, the supply will eventually replenish itself through ongoing subverbal undulations in the brainwaves of students and faculty. Until then, to ensure full restoration, a strict probation has been imposed on all other lexicological trickery, including but not limited to double entendres, oxymorons and idioms. Any student caught in the act of idiom usage will be punished through a Forced Literality Initiative (FLI), in which idiomizers will be made to engineer circumstances to make their idiom literal. In other words, if you want to say your professor is driving you up a wall, be ready to spring for a forklift.
Students have been encouraged to remain optimistic, but in this reporter’s opinion, hard times are ahead. I’m already underwater on my assignments, and I’m walking on eggshells trying not to break FLI’s rules. Even worse, I just used two idioms in that sentence, so now I have to jump in the pool with my notebook taped to my feet and go grocery shopping for eggs to step on. The future is bleak.
