The need to be right

As this is also a personality trait of mine I feel I need to outline the pro’s and con’s of this incessant need to always be right that many people have. First off I’ll explain how I came about this…

I was in my legal studies class. The tutor was just about to give an example of an interesting case to do with the use of the Fair Trading Act, and was warning the (because of past experience with opinionated and argumentitve) students (mainly myself) that this case was very sensitive to peoples personal morals (show me one that isn’t). So anyway he starts to write the case up on the board.

“A Real Estate Agent advertises a house with ‘Not a cent to send’” the tutor then goes on to say, “but what he really means is ‘Not a cent to spend‘ and that’s a pun – a play on words” CON: a person with the need to be right can often confuse the rest of the population when they insist that something they have said is correct when in fact it’s not.

What?

Excuse me???

There was uproar in the classroom (I had to bite my lip) CON: the inability to shut up and let it go “ummm is that a pun?” I ask.

Of course at this point in time that particular tutor then goes on to tell us that yes that is most definately a pun and that it is a PLAY on WORDS which is a PUN a PLAY on WORDS and that a PLAY on WORDS is a PUN.

We left that one there, happily listened to the rest of the case (in which whether or not the sentence was or was not a pun actually didn’t matter) and actually agreed with what he was saying about the case (very rare).

After the class though, I was not settled. PRO: the inability to let it go. A Pun? ummm I know that we’re not english literature graduates or anything like that, but isn’t this 5th form english stuff? So I decided to check out what the dictionary and the internet had to say about the definition of a pun:

My trusty Oxford Dictionary:

‘noun a joking use of a word sounding the same as another, e.g. ‘Deciding where to bury him was a grave decision’

Answers.com (had a few definitions):

dictionary = ‘n a play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words’

literary dictionary =

‘pun, an expression or emphasis of humour by contriving an ambiguity, two distinct meanings being suggested either by the same word or by two similar-sounding words.’

Grammar dictionary =

‘A humourus substitution of words that are alike in sound but different in meaning.’

This all being said, I fail to see how “Not a cent to send” is a pun. PRO: finding out that you may be right and may possibly save yourself and others from walking around with incorrect information. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong, all I ask is that you explain with more than “a PUN is a PLAY on WORDS” exactly why that sentence is a pun.