Only the pun remains. The pun, beloved of Shakespeare, children and tabloid headline-writers, is normally eschewed in the modern, sophisticated circles in which I move.

The pun exists in a social and political void, caring nothing for the issues of its day, content merely to display itself in its small cleverness.

As in biomedical science, pioneering industrial inventions have not been mothered by necessity. Rather, inventions for which there was no commercial use only later became the commercial airplanes, xerography and lasers on which modern society depends.

It was so quiet, you could hear a pun drop.

I'm an armchair kind of guy, especially when it's raining, which it always is and always will be.

Even in early adulthood, men can't be told what to wear; they can only be subtly moved by example, encouragement, and a generally sophisticated atmosphere.