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David K. Israel
The Best Pun IN THE WORLD!! Finalists
by David K. Israel - March 19, 2008 - 3:35 PM

We’ve narrowed down all the punny entries from last week’s Best Pun IN THE WORLD!! Competition and settled on the following 10. As with the caption contests, we’re letting YOU guys pick the winner. One vote per person, please, and may the best pun win!

The 10 finalists are…

A)  Two fishermen were in a boat by the lake, when one of them stood to catch a fish in a net. As he scooped up the carp, his wallet fell out of his back pocket. As the seemingly doomed billfold started to sink to the lake bottom, the carp slipped out of the net and swam after it, re-emerging with it on his nose.

However, instead of returning it, he tossed it to one of his fish buddies, who balanced it on his nose. More of more of fish-buddies emerged from the water, and all of them played this strange game of keep-away with the man’s billfold.

The first man watched, slackjawed. He said to the other “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

The second man answered “Sure I have. Haven’t you heard of carp-to-carp walleting?”
- Michael

B)  A thief attempted to steal paintings from the Louvre in Paris, but was caught 2 blocks away when his van ran out of gas. All the thief could say for himself was: “I had no MONET to buy DEGAS to make the VAN GOGH. But I tried for it anyway because I had nothing TOULOUSE!”
- kerensa

C)  “Did you see this story? Says here that a newspaper published a report about election fraud, and some goons from the ruling party went and attacked their offices.”
“What did they do?”
“Oh, toppled file cabinets, threw paper around, smashed monitors…”
“Any loss of life?”
“No, it looks like just a monitor-y loss.”
-        AG

D)  I’ve been reading something very interesting — Stephen Hawking’s latest book about anti-gravity.
I just can’t put it down.
- buddz

E)  Ancient humans, venturing across the ice bridge to North America, got lost quite often. They found it very hard to keep their Bering Strait….
-        ;im

F)  Kay Nein’s English Bulldog, Og, had just been awarded ‘Best in Show’ and she
felt a celebratory ice cream from Calabash’s Frozen Doggie Treats was in order; however, what she had intended to be a single scoop in a cup quickly evolved into a glop of every flavor available -leading Kay to comment, “It’s a mishmash, Calabash… give Og a cone!”
-        Amy

G)  Thanks to fossils, archaeologists have been able to determine that there once a genetic mutation millions of year ago, causing the creation of a five-legged dinosaur.
As far as we know, this is the first evidence we have ever seen of a reptile dysfunction.
-        Michael

H)  What do you get after playing the lute for 10 hours straight?
Minstrel cramps.
-        Denise
[Ed. Note: Feminine hygiene jokes are the lowest form of humor. Period.]

I)  I tried to come up with a pun about famous German philosophers, but I Kant.
- Dan

J)  Did you hear they found a narcissistic male lion whose females had turned on him?
No, really?
Yeah. Course it was his pride that did him in…
-        Justin

Comments (215)
  1. Oh, they’re all so good….but my vote goes to G. Too too funny.

  2. Oh god – I really have to say that it is a tie between B and G

  3. H is probably the punniest for me! :-D

  4. It was between G and H, but eventually H won me over. I tend to giggle slightly more for H.

  5. i vote for b, but they are all great

  6. I vote for G

  7. B
    Everyone knows when you are Baroque, you have no Monet.

  8. H for hysterical! ;)

  9. A, although G is close second.

  10. A truly great pun should have both sides of the homophone be meaningful to the setup. Thats why, for me, it comes down to E and H.

    E wins it because both words are punny

  11. I pick E.

  12. A, hands down!

  13. Have to go with G. I take issue with some of these not really being puns…but they were all pretty good!

  14. A definitely wins, but H is pretty clever…

  15. F!!!!

  16. Just like most of the others, it was between G & H for me; but, ultimately, it was G that made me laugh out loud the first time I read it.

  17. For some reason, D made me laugh the hardest. I also really like A.

  18. Definitely G. :)

  19. Wow! Hard. I go with B.

  20. H!

  21. My vote goes to G for the great reptile dysfunction pun!

  22. j definitely gets my vote

  23. H
    as well as the editors note!

  24. I vote for G.

    But as everyone knows, the shortest distance between two puns is a straightline…

  25. hmm…is A technically a spoonerism? I’m having flasbacks from ninth grade english class.

  26. if anything other than G wins it will be the greatest tragedy of the decade(except for maybe the whole, towers thing… and the war… oh and this recession. Actually, it won’t be that bad, but G was still clearly the best).

  27. G

  28. e

  29. Hmm, I’ve narrowed it down to two, E and G but since I can pick only one I choose…

    E

  30. D gets my vote!

  31. H is the best, but D isn’t a pun.

  32. G, but E is a close second. They picked up after D, no offense but those early ones could have been the most overused puns or worse puns depending on which one.

  33. J

  34. G!

  35. H

  36. G – i don’t get a and b, tough call between the rest

  37. B.

  38. Simplicity award- I
    Creativity- D

  39. G me

  40. D or G…all the other ones feel too contrived.

  41. G just made me laugh so much.

  42. B!!!!!!!

  43. definately G

  44. BY and large the greatest pun I ever read was:

    “I was reading this story about a Salvador Dali exhibit. Turns out, the whole thing was a fraud and none of the paintings were by Dali. You’d think someone would’ve noticed. Doesn’t surprise me, though. After all….NOBODY INSPECTS THE SPANISH EXPOSITION!”

  45. BY and large the greatest pun I ever read was:

    “I was reading this story about a Salvador Dali exhibit. Turns out, the whole thing was a fraud and none of the paintings were by Dali. You’d think someone would’ve noticed. Doesn’t surprise me, though. After all….NOBODY INSPECTS THE SPANISH EXPOSITION!”

  46. D

  47. H

  48. I vote A, the only one for which I laughed aloud. =D

  49. H.

  50. G for sure.

  51. F, boyeeeeeeeee!!!

  52. E.

    With D as a close second.

  53. H!

  54. D

  55. gotta be H, the only one that made me snort

  56. G is hilarious!!!!

  57. G

  58. i dont understand how G is funny?… im not trying to be offensive to any of your opinions >.> I just dont get it. SOmeone englighten me please?

  59. b is best!

  60. hard choice! But B is my pick.

  61. B is pretty funny and has the most depth, but G has the classic punchline to it. Gotta go with G. Alliteration FTW.

  62. E for sure

  63. Obviously B!!!

  64. B is the obvious choice!

  65. I like a few of them, but my vote has got to be for G. Very original!

  66. D for me

  67. G! with j as a close second

  68. B

  69. I think B, hands down

  70. G – all the way….reminds me of the joke:

    What did the lady say after riding on a dinosaur for 5 hours….?

    Vaginasaurus.

  71. B

  72. G for me!

    I feel silly for having to ask, but I don’t get the joke in A. Would someone mind explaining it to me?

  73. J

    Very nice!

  74. B!

    I don’t get the joke in A, either. What am I missing?

  75. A = “wall to wall carpeting”

  76. B!!!!!!!

  77. mental floss is overrun with 6th graders! ;)

    I liked D best, even if it wasn’t truly a pun.

  78. H made my coffee come out of my nose. That’s good stuff. :)

  79. H made my coffee come out of my nose. That’s good stuff. :)

  80. There is no contest here! D is by FAR the cleverest!

  81. G, definitely.

  82. H

  83. My vote goes for H

  84. G

    It’s the only that’s both funny and original.

  85. B!

  86. I is the only one I’ve never heard before, the rest are mostly from joke books or late night TV

  87. the best types of puns are the ones that don’t take too much time and make you role your eyes as your friend snickers at what he/she just said
    with that being said i say I is the best
    also wouldn’t make a bad t-shirt

  88. I vote B!

  89. Q: Where do crabs catch the train?

    A: At the crustacean!!!!!

    I win!!!! Hooray for me!!!!!

  90. I Kant think of a more deserving winner than theperson who wrote the Letter I pun.

  91. Voting B – it’s so PUNNY i forgot to laugh! :P
    ~no really, it’s very clever!

  92. H for the win!

  93. H

  94. I am going with E.
    G is pretty good, but has major issue. Archaeologists do not find dinosaur fossils. Archaeology deals with remains of humans and human culture. Paleontologists should be dealing with dinosaur fossils.

  95. I appreciated your punishing remark on “H”. I enjoyed “E” the best. The pun had something vague to do with history and/or reality.

  96. H is definitely the funniest.

  97. Haha, so funny!

    no-effort-money.blogspot.com

  98. E. Not too much build up, but delivers.

  99. B has been making the e-mail rounds for a long, long time so I’ll go with A.

  100. I can not believe this one was missed:

    “Derwood, you’re such a mortal loser.”
    “Don’t screw with me, Endora,” he shot back darrin-ly.

  101. B, love it. Try saying that with a french accent.

  102. Just wanted to add that G is wrong. Archaeologists don’t study Dinosaurs, we study the remnants of humans and their cultures. It ought to be Paleontologists, to make it more correct. Great puns

  103. I’m gonna vote G, but it would be better if it were “…the first recorded case of a reptile dysfunction.”

  104. I feel unfairly disadvantaged as I did not hear about this punny contest….

    So I belatedly offer:

    If a Komodo Dragon discovered particle physics and Jesus, would you then have a Christian Science Monitor Lizard?

    If you were a famous Roman emperor and your favorite effigial artwork burst into flames and you took up a collection for it’s replacement…

    Would you then have the Ignited Nero Collage Fund?

    -J

  105. I feel somewhat unfairly disadvantaged as I did not hear about this punny contest….

    So I belatedly offer:

    If a Komodo Dragon discovered particle physics and Jesus, would you then have a Christian Science Monitor Lizard?

    If you were a famous Roman emperor and your favorite effigial artwork burst into flames and you took up a collection for it’s replacement…

    Would you then have the Ignited Nero Collage Fund?

    -J

  106. J is the most punful. Most of the others are just homonyms or wordplay, not even close to pun.

  107. Sorry–best pun in the world:

    Q: “What did the fish say when it swam into the cement wall?”

    A: “Dam”

  108. You know, I was hoping out of this list of puns one would have really jumped out at me.

    But no pun in ten did.

  109. My vote is for H… ONLY IF the editor’s comments are included in the final pun.

    Otherwise I would say D.

  110. Two atoms bump into each other.

    Atom 1 : Are you OK?
    Atom 2 : I think I lost an electron.
    Atom 1 : Are you sure?
    Atom 2 : Yes. I’m positive.

  111. D gets my vote, so simple yet so gripping :P

  112. -A- by a million miles. Long, but so satisfying at the end.

  113. definitely B

  114. B without a doubt

  115. Most of them sucked. Too much setup to force a pun.

    Of that lot, D is the best. Not really saying much though.

  116. I want the last 3 minutes of my life back please.

  117. My vote’s for E

  118. Can we do preferential voting?

    D = 1
    J = 2
    E = 3

  119. It’s clearly d or e. Classic.

  120. I’m wavering between E and G, but I’m going to have to go with E. Short and well-played.

    My favorite pun, however, is as follows:
    Did you hear about the sailors on the ship carrying red and black paint?
    They were marooned.

  121. I vote for J

  122. it may be the lowest form of comedy, but H still made me giggle.

    G was a close second.

  123. Even though the works of those artists are housed in the Musee D’Orsay and not The Louvre I’ll go with B.

  124. E, though B, G, and H are all close.

  125. I showed these ten puns to my boss, as she is quite fond of them and I wanted to see if her favorite and mine were the same. When I asked which one of the ten stood out as clever, she replied “No pun in ten did.”

  126. These are meant to be the best in the world? D isn’t even a pun.

  127. I liked B the best. Simple and easy to understand, and also very funny.

  128. I have to vote for E, for the double pun. But G is a close second.

  129. B

  130. A

  131. There’s nothing like a good pun, and several of these entries were nothing like a good pun.

    G, however, wins the – er – five-legged race.

  132. B!!! Definitely the best out of bunch.

  133. E and J are the only good ones

  134. B!! Definitely the best one of the bunch

  135. D – Steven Hawking book on anti-gravity + can’t put it down. Amazing.

  136. A just made me confused.

    G is only one that made me laugh.

  137. 2 Things. the editors note makes H. and
    Who headbutts someone in the tits?

  138. There was a man who contended
    In a pun contest, but before it ended
    He submitted ten puns
    He thought they had won,
    But it turned out that no pun in ten did

  139. did you hear that theory about diarrhea?

    it runs in your jeans.

    :P

    E for the win! short and sweet!

  140. Archaeologists don’t dig up dinosaur fossils. : (

  141. H definitely

  142. If these are the best you could find, you need to look harder. Strictly speaking only a few of these are real puns. G isn’t even funny, much less a pun.

    But if I HAD to choose one of these…I guess it’d be H.

  143. G for sure!

  144. The funniest one was the one posted by Dax here in the comments. The only one close to being funny was the editors comment in H. -_-

  145. these are all lame and old – if you want some fresh and original puns go to pungents.com

  146. A – Best

  147. I vote for the death penalty for all finalists.

  148. H by far (the ed note isn’t funny tho)
    All the rest are too long or not funny…
    And I don’t think (A) is a pun because the regular pun would be “wall”-to-”wall” “carp”etting, but it’s switched. I think it’s a case of another literary device. Anyways…

    H!

  149. Mahatma Gandhi walked barefoot everywhere, to the point that the soles of his feet became quite thick and hard. He was also a spiritual person, and even when he was not on a hunger strike he did not eat much and thus he became quite thin and frail. Furthermore, due to his diet, he wound up with very bad breath. This explains why he became known as a “super calloused fragile mystic vexed with halitosis.”

  150. Most of these aren’t even worthy of being retold, let alone voted “best” anything.

    The only one that brought even a minor smirk was G (though I did groan at the editor’s period joke; truth be told, its probably the best of them all).

  151. If puns were luncheon meat, those would be the wurst.

  152. H is the only one that I found even remotely funny – despite the editorial comment. The other, as has already been stated, were much too long to be really punny. So H… Defintely!

  153. Definately H – the editorial note is hilarious. Period. ROTFL

  154. G is best.
    Though, E is good too.

    ========================

    {{[ Ed. Note: Feminine hygiene jokes are the lowest form of humor. Period.] }}

    Not if she is standing on her head

  155. I vote for G! Very funny.

  156. H – the editor’s note clinched it

  157. G. Definitely.

  158. Hear about the mathematician-turned-mermaid?

    She came sporting “algae-bras”…

  159. Boo to all, if you think these are good you need to come to my quadra-lingual family dinners.
    The beauty of puns is simplicity and subtlety.
    If any I vote I, because it’s the most pun like, rather than a long joke with the punch line being a short pun.
    There’s my sour grapes, and what my submission would have been.

    Pun (-)Intended.

    Simple, confusing and pointless.

  160. Going for G.

  161. I vote for G.

    I tried to vote for ‘I’, but I Kant either (and so I rekanted).

  162. b ftw

  163. B

  164. I vote for the editor’s comment

  165. D and E are the best I’ve heard in a LONG time.

  166. A – actually looks like it came form “Dark and Stormy Rides Again – The Best from the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest” page 14, written by William R. Appel.

  167. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a draw, since they’re all so good — in a week, you’ll have to announce that as for which one won, “no pun in ten did”.

  168. D is the only one where I actually LOL’d, instead of just typing it.

  169. H is a perfect “X”. Don’t ask “Y”.

  170. Laughed out loud to Clarence’s comment.

  171. G would be funny but… archaeologists do not study dinosaurs!!!

    Paleontologists study dinosaurs ya newb.

  172. J
    though E comes close with it’s simplicity

  173. I invite my friend to a local Greek restaurant for lunch. she said she wanted a Greek salad. I went to the counter to order. After I placed the order my friend shouted “No feta cheese please”. I replied “Sorry, fait accomplis”

  174. B

  175. True Story:

    I was at a Bowling Alley late one night. As they were threatening to close the place down, I found myself on the tenth (and final) frame.

    The manager was walking from lane to lane, basically kicking people out…

    I rolled my first ball, knocking down nine pins. Knowing that, in the final frame, picking up the tenth pin would mean an extra rack, I fretted over whether I’d be kicked out before I had a chance to finish my game.

    I looked at the time; I looked at the manager; I looked at the one remaining pin…

    Undaunted, I forged ahead, saying, “It looks like I have Time To Spare!”

    (True story. And the fact that that confluence of events isn’t likely to happen again makes it particularly sweet!)

  176. G all the way!

  177. H, but I is pretty good too.

  178. These really are some of the best puns in the world.

  179. OMG you yanks are a humourless bunch. There wasnt a single funny pun in that lot. How can you pick the best, from a group of the worst?

  180. WTF these are all crap! The best I’ve heard recently:

    A man walks into a bar and asks for a double entendre, so the bartender gives him one.

  181. D, D and only D

  182. G is the ONLY funny one.

  183. Oh god, the memory of spending the school holidays of two working parents at my grandparents house reading their readers digest has just resurfaced to haunt me again.

  184. B

  185. All had great buzz, but i liked bee… sorry! lol

  186. K!!!

  187. A is the only one that made me laugh.

  188. “I can make a pun about any subject.”
    “How about the king?”
    “I can’t. He’s not a subject.”

  189. A frog went to a bank to borrow some money. The teller, Ms. Patricia Whac requested some collateral. The frog gave her a small figurine and also related that he was the son of Mick Jagger. Flustered, Ms. Whac took the collateral to her manager, whereupon he told her
    “It’s a knick knack,
    Patti Whac.
    Give the frog a loan,
    His old man’s a rolling stone.”

  190. D for subtlety.

  191. LOL i submitted 10 puns for this, i figured @ least 1 of them would make the list.

    (Of course, no pun in ten did)

    …oh, and i vote D, Hawkings 1 was classic

  192. i submitted ten puns for this, in the hope that at least one of em would make the list…

    …no pun in ten did.

    (i vote for D, and G if we can have 2 votes)

  193. I once commented that it was so humid today we should stay inside in sultry confinement…

  194. “Puns are the lowest form of humor. Anyone who uses a pun should be DRAWN AND QUOTED.”

  195. It has popped up in the comments a few times so I’m not sure where it’s from originally, but I laughed out loud to the first No Pun In Ten Did line. If only more of the “finalists” had exhibited that kind of simple cleverness that makes a pun… a pun.

    I’m a firm believer that half the pun is in the “delivery” – the Kant one was good but the grammar was wrong and that threw me off. I liked the dino one too, but it was a bit long so I think I’ll vote for the Minstrel Cramps, along with the witty editor’s note.

    Oh and the super callous fragile comment had me rolling on the floor too – one of the few times when a long drawn-out set up was worth it for the payoff!

    Btw, if I’d known about the contest, I’d have put this one out there:

    What do you call the contents of the US Supreme Court Library?

    The Precedence of the United States of America.

  196. A friend of mine went camping for the first time. During the night, there was a big storm, overturning his tent.

    When he got up the next morning, we asked him how his first night camping was. He replied, “Man… Camping’s intense.”

  197. G fo sho. Maybe H if the editors note was part of the pun, but since its not… G!

  198. I would say B

  199. Gandhi was a very spiritual man known for being a vegetarian and stagging long hunger strikes. He often was left to the whims of the out of doors barefoot and without a toothbrush. Simply said you could say he was a super calloused fragile mystic with a case of halitosis.

  200. A
    H would be a close second

  201. Rene Descartes was sitting in a bar near closing time and the bartender looked over and asked him “Hey Rene’ you want another beer?”, Descartes responded “I think not”, and disappeared.

  202. B

  203. D!

    Although I do add this to H’s editor’s note: Wah wah waaaaaahh.

  204. G for me =)

  205. E because both words are pun-ish and it’s very easy to remember and repeat. I’ve heard the one about the french artists several times so it can’t be that new.

  206. Anyone who doesn’t vote for G or H should be Punished

  207. Can I vote for the Editor’s Note?? Hilarious!!

  208. My vote goes to J

  209. I Kant!!! Wahahahahaha!

  210. B all the way.

  211. Mahatma Gandhi walked barefoot everywhere, to the point that his feet
    became quite thick and hard. He also was quite a spiritual person.
    Even when he was not on a hunger strike, he did not eat much and
    became quite thin and frail. Due to this diet, he wound up with very
    bad breath. Therefore, he came to be known as a . . .

    Super calloused fragile mystic hexed with halitosis!

    This is the single best pun I’ve ever heard or read. But A is a close second.

  212. H is the best

  213. None of them were particularly funny, and D is quite clearly not a pun.

  214. E.

  215. I is between H and J.
    It’s THAT obvious!

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