Why The Humanities Sometimes Freak Me Out A Little
Here's why . . . It's the puns. Puns are funny, right? But in the humanities, no one giggles at them. Like, in science, we make little puns and people groan and chuckle even if the puns are semi-serious. But I am always finding humanities puns funny and feeling like I am the only one chortling. For example, "pro-cure" and "procurement" in a discussion of medical research funding. I get it (I think). It works. It's also a play on words. Play on words = giggle, no? I must be so unsophisticated - or else too many po-mo slashes puncture one's sense of humor organ and the giggles just drain away . . .
Also, puns don't translate. Their meaning is embedded in their context, and you have to be familiar with the language to fully grasp the significance of them. Fingers wave, spinning concepts out of the aether. Which is cool, like poems are cool, and have lots of meanings. I like that. I'm not disparaging. I write poems. I love word play. But it can be very frustration-inducing to the science-minded person who expects working words to have singular meanings. Or no; rather, who expects concepts to be concrete and definable using particular words.
Words in Greek are good for this, as they tend to be words that don't get used in daily life. If you make a clever pun using Greek words, it's obviously funny! (Or, okay, "funny".) Maybe the humanities need more words in Greek. Or Finno-Ugric or something obscure.
Science wordplay can be serious, as well, of course. The gene sonic hedgehog springs to mind. Or how about SNAREs? I can't remember off to top of my head what all SNAREs stands for, but they are a family of proteins involved in membrane fusion which grab onto one another from apposing lipid bilayers and bring them into close contact in order to fuse. Get it? SNAREs. I wonder how long it took them to come up with that acronym and whether there was chortling and a bit of groaning.
I hope there was chortling, anyway. A little forehead smacking. Or at least a wry grin and a wee snort. I mean, there would be in my lab . . .
Was there groaning and grinning in the early days of words with slashes in them? Is it just not giggly anymore because everyone (but me) is so used to the clever puns? Or I am just weird for finding them so amusing?
Also, puns don't translate. Their meaning is embedded in their context, and you have to be familiar with the language to fully grasp the significance of them. Fingers wave, spinning concepts out of the aether. Which is cool, like poems are cool, and have lots of meanings. I like that. I'm not disparaging. I write poems. I love word play. But it can be very frustration-inducing to the science-minded person who expects working words to have singular meanings. Or no; rather, who expects concepts to be concrete and definable using particular words.
Words in Greek are good for this, as they tend to be words that don't get used in daily life. If you make a clever pun using Greek words, it's obviously funny! (Or, okay, "funny".) Maybe the humanities need more words in Greek. Or Finno-Ugric or something obscure.
Science wordplay can be serious, as well, of course. The gene sonic hedgehog springs to mind. Or how about SNAREs? I can't remember off to top of my head what all SNAREs stands for, but they are a family of proteins involved in membrane fusion which grab onto one another from apposing lipid bilayers and bring them into close contact in order to fuse. Get it? SNAREs. I wonder how long it took them to come up with that acronym and whether there was chortling and a bit of groaning.
I hope there was chortling, anyway. A little forehead smacking. Or at least a wry grin and a wee snort. I mean, there would be in my lab . . .
Was there groaning and grinning in the early days of words with slashes in them? Is it just not giggly anymore because everyone (but me) is so used to the clever puns? Or I am just weird for finding them so amusing?
posted by Joolya at
11:46 PM
2 Comments:
o-ho! fear the humorless humanities!!! bwa ha ha ha ha!
just kidding. i always think it's sad that no one giggles. one time i was at a talk about nuns in the middle ages who would, as one of their duties, "coax" the bad spirits out of overwrought women by, well, masturbating them. i was the only one who giggled!! how could that not get a giggle, for gawdsake?
Masturbation is a very serious business.
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