What do William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and George Carlin have in common? A penchant for puns.

The inglorious pun – a form of word play suggesting two or more meanings for an intended humorous effect – has been called the “lowest and most groveling kind of wit” (John Dryden) and a “form of wit to which wise men stoop and fools aspire” (Ambrose Bierce).

But we all indulge in puns – either as innocent diversion or all-consuming passion. Who hasn’t enjoyed knock-knock jokes? Or laughed at lines like, “Energizer Bunny Arrested! Charged with battery?” Or jokes like, “Why do we still have troops in Germany? To keep the Russians in Czech.” Or Douglas Adams’s line: “You can tune a guitar, but you can’t tuna fish. Unless of course, you play bass.”

Old-fashioned as it may seem, paronomasia (the act of punning) is here to stay – something that everyone belittles and everyone attempts. Who can resist the temptation to produce groan-inducing wordplay?

Even though Fred Allen thought that punsters should be “drawn and quoted,” our popular culture is replete with word-winks – as evident in popular TV series like M.A.S.H. and the Simpsons.

Of course, many consider puns as the feeblest species of humor because they’re ephemeral. Whatever comic force they might possess never seems to outlast the split second it takes to resolve the semantic confusion.

Some consider puns offensive. Notorious punster Charles Lamb explained that the pun is “a pistol let off at the ear, not a feather to tickle the intellect.” Sometimes puns silence conversation before they animate it. And sometimes punsters are severely punished for their socially-unacceptable utterances. Roman emperor Caligula supposedly ordered an actor to be roasted alive for a bad pun. (Okay – so he was inclined to extremes.)

Some pun-lust-stricken souls sink so far that their minds are trained to lie in wait for words on which to produce their wickedness. According to New York Times Op-Ed contributor, Joseph Tartakovsky, puns are sometimes considered, “the scourge of dinner tables and the despised prolongers of office meetings, some letting fly as dogs bark and frogs croak.”

Yes, true punsters’ minds cycle through sound-alike words in search of a quip, the way small children delight in rhymes or experiment babblingly with language.

So what if some puns just make us groan? It’s just part of our DNA to play with words. After all, “time wounds all heels” (Groucho Marx). We simply can’t help ourselves.

We should enjoy plays on words like an innocently-garbled weather forecast – “mostly punny with a chance of blunder” or restaurant remarks like “This Danish is too sweetish to finish.”

So what can we punsters do to help restore puns as the “foundation” of all wit? I say – let’s celebrate the lowest form of wit by joining together to prove that the pun is mightier than the sword. Let’s strike while the irony is hot.

I’ve organized a Pun-Off to be held on March 6, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., at the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum. I’m inviting punsters to parade their prowess in the First (possibly Last) Peninsula Pun-Off. Twenty-four registered punslingers will present their 90-second plays on words to amuse or dismay their audience of veteran verbivores and naïve neophytes.

To lure punsters, Water Music Festival will provide trophies, a silent auction, and a bargain-book sale, plus abundant opportunities to giggle or groan.

All proceeds from the event (offered to the public for a measly $10 admission fee) will be donated to the Water Music Festival, dedicated to providing quality music programs and educational opportunities. Donated silent auction items will be cheerfully accepted.

For information concerning registration, rules and regulations, and contest specifics, visit watermusicfestival.com, e-mail oobear@ centurytel.net or call me at 665-2784.

As a final bit of bait to lure potential Pun-Off contestants and audience members, I offer this, so-bad-it’s-good’ pun contest winner: Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little – which made him rather frail – and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him (are you ready for this?)”A super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.”

As author John S. Crosbie said: “A day without puns is like a day without sunshine – there is gloom for improvement.”

Robert Brake is a teacher, punster and freelance writer from Ocean Park. Reach him at oobear@centurytel.net or 665-2784. See ad on page A11.