"Never write puns."

I was given this advice very early in my writing career.

It had the same effect on me that "don't go swimming for an hour after you've eaten" did when I was a kid. I just obeyed, without ever really knowing why it was such a bad idea. Swimming right after a meal was just something that you didn't do. And for a long while, it was the same with puns.

I mean, I saw puns. I saw them all over the place. Even Apple did them for god's sake.

But still, I was scared to write them. That voice in the back of my head was there every time I even thought about it: DO. NOT. WRITE. PUNS.

So I pushed puns so far back in my brain that I kind of forgot about them, until a couple of years ago, when a very brave student in one of my Miami Ad School classes said after I'd told the class never to write them: "Why not? I like puns. They make me smile."

Which made me smile.

Partly, because I loved that she had the stones to question the 11th Commandment, but also because it dredged up the same question that I had had so many years ago but didn't have the guts to ask. So I did some internet-ing, and someone had this to say about them:

"They're not wrong, they're just not the most persuasive form of communication."

Bingo. The thing about puns is that they are cute. Good ones do make you smile (and yeah, bad ones make you groan.) But even the best puns don't go any deeper than a smile. Cute gets your attention, but it doesn't convince. Puns don't make you think.

And the best writing makes you think.

Here's an example from a brand that has been built on puns: Rapala. They've literally done hundreds of billboards for their lures, mostly using very pun-ny headlines, like these two:

First off, major kudos for the look of these boards. Clean, clear, perfect use of white space. Minimalist to the max. They look beautiful and would (as a friend of mine from South Africa likes to say): "Stand out like a dog's balls".

And the headlines are cute. But then I saw this one.

I didn't smile at this one, I thought about it.

"The world record for world records?", I thought, "Holy shit. These lures must be the real deal." And in a state like Minnesota, where these boards run and where people take their angling very very seriously, the promise in this line is unmissable: if you want to catch a really big one, and win that sweet first prize $250,000 fishing boat with the twin Mercury 250s: buy this lure.

But here's the thing about puns: they will not get you onto the stage at Cannes.

They're not smart enough or insightful enough to warrant it. But comedies never win Best Picture at the Oscars either, but thank god that didn't keep the Farrelly Brothers from making Dumb and Dumber in the mid 90s. I've seen it eight times and laugh out loud every time. You know what movie I've only seen once? The English Patient. It won Best Picture in 1996, and Elaine Benes and I share similar feelings on it.

So what's the takeaway? Do you write them or not?

If you can write a good one, do it. Got a social post due in an hour? Pun away. Got some space you have to fill behind home plate during a Blue Jays broadcast? Throw some puns at it. Got a massive billboard in Piccadilly Circus that millions of Londoners will see? I wouldn't recommend it, but if you can pun like the Economist can, have at it:

But if you can write a line that goes deeper, go deeper. Like this one does:

And while I thought about ending this post with a pun, I'm not going to do it.

Because I couldn't think of a good one.