Words, Words, Words. It’s No Mystery That Writers Love Wordplay

This time of year is wonderful with its warm gatherings of family and friends, but it can also be stressful. So today, I’m going to address the stress by attempting to make you laugh.

How will I make you laugh?

Well, with words, of course. After all, I’m a writer of mystery novels. Like most writers, I absolutely love words. I like learning new words and finding new meanings for words I already know.

I really like learning the history of words—where they came from and how the meanings have changed as time goes on. If you like this too, try reading The Glamour of Grammar by Roy Peter Clark. Fascinating!

A beautifully written sentence can thrill me for hours, and a badly written one can ruin my day. It’s all in how the writer puts the words together.

And like many readers and writers, I enjoy playing word games. I excel at crossword puzzles. I play Wordle (badly). I like cryptograms and secret codes. But most of all, I love word jokes.

Jokes have genres too

The authors here at Miss Demeanors each write in slightly different mystery genres. And like our mystery novels, puns have genres too. Like these:

General puns:

• I lost my mood ring, and I don’t know how to feel about it.
• When I die, I want to be cremated because it’s my last chance for a smokin’ hot body.
• Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Feel free to groan at will.

Here are a few math puns:

• A farmer counted 397 cows in his field, but when he rounded them up, he had 400.
• There are three kinds of people in this world. Those that can count and those that can’t.
• What’s the best way to flirt with a math teacher? Use acute angle

  

And my favorite of all genres—pirate grammar jokes:

• Where did the one-legged pirate go for breakfast? IHOP.
• What’s a pirate’s favorite type of exercise? A plank.
• How do pirates know they exist? They think, therefore they arrr.

And this one, which always makes me laugh:

A pirate goes to the doctor to have some spots on his arm looked at. The doctor looks and says. “They’re benign.” The pirate replies. “No, Doc. There be 11. I counted them meself before I came.”

Okay, so today’s blog wasn’t about mystery novels, but I hope you got at least one giggle out of it. Now go back to enjoying this wonderful time of the year. Happy Holidays.

About Sharon Ward

Sharon is a successful freelance writer specializing in technology, manufacturing, and supply chain—even before the supply chain became the topic of the year. Before that, she worked at some of the most successful tech companies in the world, including Microsoft and Oracle. Her real love, though, is diving. As a PADI-certified divemaster, Sharon helped local dive shops with their training classes and has hundreds of dives under her weight belt. Wanting to share the joy and wonder of the underwater world, she wrote In Deep, her debut novel  Sunken Death, Dark Tide and Killer Storm, are available. Hidden Depths is due in Spring 2023.