A former word pun champion's funny, erudite, and provocative exploration of puns, the people who make them, and this derided wordplay's remarkable impact on history. The pun is commonly dismissed as the lowest form of wit, and punsters are often unpopular for their obsessive wordplay. But such attitudes are relatively recent developments. In The Pun Also Rises, John Pollack-a former World Pun Champion and presidential speechwriter for Bill Clinton-explains why such wordplay is significant: It both revolutionized language and played a pivotal role in making the modern world possible. Skillfully weaving together stories and evidence from history, brain science, pop culture, literature, anthropology, and humor, The Pun Also Rises is an authoritative yet playful exploration of a practice that is common, in one form or another, to virtually every language on earth.

Pollock leads readers from the pyramids of ancient Egypt to the smoky coffeehouses of Newton's London to the high-tech labs of today's top neuroscientists. Along the way, he identifies what may be humanity's first known pun, recounts the deadly punning duels of Polynesian legend, details William Shakespeare's invention of the knock-knock joke, and discovers Thomas Jefferson's lost commentary on punning in America. Weaving a playful yet authoritative narrative, Pollack also explores how the brain processes humorous wordplay and suggest why-in evolutionary terms - punsters just might end up getting the last laugh.

At once entertaining and educational, this engaging book answers fundamental questions: Just what is a pun, and why do people make them? How did punning impact the development of human language, and how did that drive creativity and progress? And why, after centuries of decline, does the pun still matter?