St Andrews Seminary - Mapav Yearbook (Rochester, NY)

Page 86 text:

Our Alumni Twp mul, left to rlglzt l'1um'1s Buck-Incl. lloly lfalmllyg john 'lf fT41ll4ll1gm, lllllllllflllillkl cVlUIln's'lWllUllI Pzxtrick C, Comm-ll Ht Aly Romry: john B. Kleintjeh, St, fxlPl1Ul1SllSl, fxllbllfll, Second Tow, lvl! to righl' john D, Mullcy, St. ,AllgllSllI'l?,SI fllmrlvs Mrflarthy, lllllllilfllllllk' Convcption: 'lowph H M , . CNLill12lI'il, ht Mlulmuls, lVlUIlIL'Zlllllll1 l'ArvLlx'1'ick T, McVv1gh, Holy Rmary. Third ww, lcfz zo Vlglll Harold ll. Pl'cmlu1'g.lst, Sacrcnl Heart, KllALlIllIlUQl at Erie, Pcnruxylxulmm on the fvuft ol' thx A scenzylon Many IS, 19391 Riflmnul S Slzmlon, lllllllllfllllllk' Cfoucvptlong lvrzuwix 'lllylolp Holy Cro,-: Iolm S Vx'lmlcr1, lllwwnl Suumrllcrlt. Q No! HI IKIHYK :muw E. Mumh ', B11---vdSgmxlrnurmr.xxusordnlllsll m Rornr ut the North .'XlIIl'l'lfllll Collvgc on Def l N cember S, 1938: Utto Hodw. lfutlwr' l'w1'tmml. O. M. C.. ugh orllzulmcd on lone 3. 1939 m the Czltlmulml at -Xlb ll x ' any and wx xy hu tirft hlnw at hw home parifh. Om' Lady of Perperuul Help. lxoulmuxter. .Sf l,'S'l1IX ,S1X

Page 85 text:

1 9 Why Puns? You like chips, don't you? asked a classf mate of mine. l kept reaching into a dish and extracted another and another frcshlyffried po' tato chip and hegan crackling it hetween my teeth. Yes, l replied, 'Tm a regular chip monk. Now, how funny are cracks like thatf' I claim that even at hest, they are never very good. ln fact, at times they are somewhat harmful to the mind. Besides, a pun is only surface rumor. Real humor consists in seeing the incongruity hetween the fact and the imitation of the fact. A pun conf sists in seeing the incongruity hetween the true and the false in the matter of words. ln other words, humor consists in seeing the incongruity in idea. Puns are only pscudofhumor. The French have the right name for a pun. They call it a jeu de mots or a play on words. However, a pun, hesides heing a mere play on words, can sometimes carry a humorous overtone in idea for instance, calling Gilhert Chesterton a tank of paradoxygenf' But this punfness of statement might he taken away without def stroying the humor. Mr. Chesterton would he funny as a tank of anything, having once de' scrihed himself as a wellfmeaning hippopotaf musf' But the strict pun requires that there he only incongruity of words without any inconf gruity of idea. Sometimes, hecause of its extreme opposition to a situation, a pun can acquire an elegance which makes it relatively delightful. Une of the hest puns l can rememher was when someone said that he was setting up a new philosophical sysf tem hased on the following principle: 'il am, therefore I think. Uh! replied the second, isn't that putting Descartes lDe Cartel hefore the horsef' The trouhle with the inveterate punster is that he does not wait for puns to occur or he .losi3PH Lii.uiY, '41 neededg he goes ahout seeking them, lorcihly making them up. And this requires no talent hecause word resemhlances fwhich can he easily turned into ahsurditiesl are without limit: A-MTS' cellaneous the greatest man in Italy. Likewise a pun requires no art whatsoever in the telling. A pun is equally good in anyhody's mouth, with anyhody's gestures, and, once heard, one wants nothing more than never to hear it again. The most withering of all deprecations, 'kHe thinks he's funnyfl is applied most frequentf ly to whom7 The punster, of course. American radio comedians with their plethora of puns on ' ' since ceased to he enter incorrigihle punsters, ian Americans hecausc i their puns and, heing .it try to overproducc Liuntrymen. We would Vx ere L'xlI'lwls'lllee is i o 5 ein compete with visited America a few he interviewed hy the vake reporter captioned tding: Kings Canary 1 is a specimen of the o the English and turn 'hr 3 R351 'N h df 'z ' ' ' V l 1 might appear at any M ung that puns can he harmful to the mind. This is true hecause they teach the mind to hecome flaccid and lazy, lazy in a suhlime activity when it should he most alert: in laughter, that delightful paroxysm of hoth soul and hody, in which human nature ref joices in its own sanity in a way no ape has manifested since the world hegan, nor will until the end of the world. 1 '19 .-. -,-, 1 1 . .et Q .R CA-gy - a- . , To open the mind, to correct it, to refine it, to enahle it to know, and to digest, master, rule and use its knowledge, to give it power over its own faculties, application, flexihility, method, critical exactness, sagacity, resource, address, elof quent expression, is an ohject as intclligihle lfor here we are inquiring, not what the ohjcct of a Liheral Education is worth, nor what use the Church makes ol it, hut what it is in itselfj, l say, an ohject as intelligihle as thc cultivation of virtue, while at the same time, it is ahsolutely distinct from it. lt will not he denied that in order to do any good to the judgment fthat is, the cultivated mindj, the mind must he employed on such suh jects as come within the cognizance of that facf ulty and give some real exercise to its percepf tions .... Those which helong to the province ol' the judgment are religion fin its evidence and interpretationl, ethics, history, eloquence, poetry, theories of general speculation, the arts, and works of wit .... They are all quarried out of one and the same great subject, man's moral, social and feeling nature. fQuoted from Coplef ston. CARDINAL lXlliXX'lNl.-XN, Idea of a Uni'iver.si'ty. .se1'ei1ty'H1.'.?

Page 87 text:

Gm' Advertisers