Dictionary Haha is so punny!

Okay, bad pun.

There is something about puns that often don’t impress modern readers. This could be due to several reasons; firstly, like a lot of comedy, puns require a visceral, instinctive reaction. If a joke has to be explained, it loses a lot of its punch, and that’s doubly true of puns. They rely on a sudden link being shown between two ideas that have previously been completely separate. If those separate ideas haven’t been long established in the audience’s mind, seeing and appreciating the humor just won’t happen.

Puns are also regarded as a simple and unsophisticated form of humor in modern English. During the Renaissance, a good pun was a highly rated weapon in the poet’s armory. Much of the witty and religious poetry of the “metaphysical” school of poets, such as John Donne and George Herbert, relies upon conflating meanings within a pun. However, many puns of today seem almost too obvious, like the simple use of homonym exchanges to make you do a double take, then sigh at being so clever as to be unclever (funnily enough, this sentence is a polyptoton pun).

But a clever pun is clever, nonetheless, and a good play on words will always let loose a chuckle, or, if you’re lucky, a nice loud guffaw. Dictionary Haha by Utility Warrior claims itself as “the dictionary with amusing definitions,” and seemingly to prove its point, a laughing “hey hey hey!” is heard as you open the app (just in case you need convincing). The amusing definitions rely on the use of various pun types, most of them portmaneaus or within the class of homophonic pun, which is a play on words where one word sounds the same as another, but is spelled differently and conveys a different meaning. After some exhaustive research, I was able to distinguish between heterographic, homonymic, homophonic, homographic, heteronymic, and oronymic linguistic puns; phew, that in itself is quite the riddle on the tongue, and the brain.

You may browse definitions in categories ranging from Animals, Finance and Business, to Music, Nature, and Religion, with more in between, and each category contains more or less 20 words amusingly redefined. Should you just want a quick chuckle, then tap the Random tab for a surprise joke to pop up. An annoying sound accompanies each navigating tap your finger makes, but thankfully you can turn this off in the Settings tab. Believe me, the happy jingle does not make the jokes any funnier. Should you be inspired after reading all the puns and conjure a perfect pun of your own, then feel free to fill out the “Submit” tab to suggest your idea to Utility Warrior. Make sure you turn the iPhone sideways to type in the handy Landscape Mode that is usable throughout the entire app.

One joke in Definition Haha is that a terminal illness is “being ill at the airport.” Here the word terminal is used homographically, as terminal conveys two meanings, one for an airport structure, and another for medically being at the end of your tether, then combines the two in a sentence that plays off the two meanings. This is a most common type of pun, and is usually the type that makes people of a certain self-imposed intellectual status sigh and shake their head with an “I’m-so-above-this” groan. The wittier of the definitions in this app employ something termed “oronyms,” which are homophones of multiple words or phrases; in other words, saying one phrase will sound like another phrase, in the case of “euthanasia” sounding like “youth in asia.” In Dictionary Haha, “tolerance” is humorously defined as “the result of giving growth hormone to ants.” You see, “tolerance” sounds like “taller ants.” Get it? <insert laugh track here>

I’ll admit I am more partial to witty quips and repartees, and I recognize this is most likely a sign of my generation – a post-Snoopy, more Calvin and Hobbes-esque irreverence toward the trite and conventional -, but this doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a good pun when I see one. The definition of Archaeologist as a man whose career is in ruins definitely brought out a chuckle, and the word “adamant” being “ the first insect created by God,” actually had my boyfriend belly laugh with surprised gusto. Sometimes even the outright badness of some of Dictionary Haha’s definitions is enough to make you laugh, and make the app worthwhile.

If you enjoy rifling through books like Urban Dictionary, then maybe Dictionary Haha will have its appeal. To steal and bastardize a quote from Gertrude Stein, a joke is a joke is a joke. And if it’s merely a pun that makes you laugh, so be it.