Of all the editorial board members of the Annals of Improbable Research, one stands above and below all others in his devotion to puns. Lou Lippman [pictured below] has now written a book distilling much of that devotion and love into readable form. The book is called Wince: A Pun on Thyme: Scientifically Crafted Tales.
Professor Lippman retired a few years ago after 42 years of teaching experimental psychology at Western Washington University. Wince shows what a person can do if he is permitted to spend all his time and thought writing such a book.
Dean Kahn profiled the book, in the Bellingham Herald:
Retired psychology professor Lou Lippman takes his humor seriously. So much so that he has done research into what makes puns most effective. That’s why the Bellingham author’s new collection of pun stories, “Wince: A Pun on Thyme,” is subtitled “Scientifically Crafted Tales.”
His insight, which he tested with his students and reported in serious publications, is that stories that end with puns are judged funnier and more clever if the tales provide fuller context for the punch line, without being too obscure or too obvious leading up to the finish. His book offers 176 such tales, most of them less than a page long…
Growing up in San Diego, Lippman was schooled early in humor by his grandfather, who was a fan of plastic vomit and plastic doggie doo.…
