There are a number of references to various forms of ‘compulsive punning’ in the psychological literature. One such name is that of 'Foerster’s syndrome'. This was coined by the Hungarian-British author and journalist Arthur Koestler (1905-1983) in a description of the compulsive punning first described by the German neurologist Otfrid Foerrter (1873-1941). Back in 1929, Dr Foerster was carrying out brain surgery on a fully conscious male patient who had a brain tumour. When Foerster began to manipulate the patient’s tumor, the patient began a manic outburst of telling one pun after another.

In 1929, a psychiatrist Dr. A.A. Brill reported what he believed were the first cases of Witzelsucht (“punning ”) in the International Journal of . The word ‘Witzelsucht’ comes from the German words ‘witzeln’ (to make jokes or wisecracks), and ‘sucht’ (a yearning or ). This rare condition is characterized as a set of neurological symptoms resulting in an uncontrollable tendency to tell puns, inappropriate jokes, and/or pointless or irrelevant stories at inappropriate times. The patient nevertheless finds these utterances intensely amusing. Brill described some of the cases he had come across including a 31-year man with a brain tumour who made puns “about anything and everything”.

This observation by Dr. Brill is not unsurprising as the condition is most commonly seen in those people that have damaged the brain’s orbitofrontal cortex (situated in the frontal lobes of the brain) and often caused by brain , stroke, or a tumour. It is this part of the brain that is most involved in the cognitive processing of . Old aged people are thought to be most prone to Witzelsucht because of the decreasing amount of grey matter. The condition is also listed in Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary, which defines Witzelsucht as “a mental condition characteristic of frontal lesions and marked by the making of poor jokes and puns…at which the patient himself is intensely amused”.

A case study published by Dr. Mario Mendez in a 2005 issue of the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical claimed that Witzselsucht can occur in those with frontotemporal (FTD). Over a period of two years and as dementia set in, a 57-year-old woman became the life and soul of parties, and would laugh, joke, and sing all the time. During medical examinations, she was highly talkative, animated, and disinhibited. Dr. Mendez reported that she was preoccupied with continuous silly , excitement and frequent childish jokes and puns (i.e., Witzelsucht). Magnetic resonance imaging revealed major atrophy in the anterior temporal lobes of the brain. Citing previous (mostly old German) literature, Mendez asserted that FTD is a disorder with a range of neuropsychiatric symptoms that can include Witzelsucht. This includes excessive and inappropriate facetiousness, jokes, and pranks. The woman was given a serotonin selective reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) and other psychoactive medications and her Witzelsucht subsided.

Like the case mentioned previously, he was also given an SSRI as part of his treatment. The use of produced a moderate reduction of the man’s aberrant behaviours. Although the physical consequences of the stroke improved, the man’s wife reported that his endless jokes were not only inappropriate in terms of context, but were often obscene. His was changed and he was given a noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor. Over the following two months, the inappropriate punning and hypersexual behaviors were rarely noticed.

Finally, (for no other reason than to leave you with a smile on your face), I thought I’d leave you with my top 10 favourite puns.

• A good pun is its own reword.

• A 's blood type is always b-negative.

• A slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother.

• A man needs a mistress just to break the .

• Is a book on a peeping tome?

• Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play.

• Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?

• A gossip is someone with a great sense of rumour.

• When you dream in colour it's a pigment of your imagination.

• When two egotists meet, it's an I for an I.

References and further reading

Brill, A.A. (1929). Unconscious insight: Some of its manifestations. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 10, 145-161.

Chen, Y-C., Tseng, C-Y. & Pai, M-C. (2005). Witzelsucht after right putaminal hemorrhage: A case report. Acta Neurol Taiwan, 14, 195-200.

Freud, S. (1960). Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconsciousness. New York: W.W. Norton.

Garfield, E. (1987). The of pun-ishment. Essays of an Information Scientist, 10, 174-178.

Griffiths, M.D. (1989). It's not funny: A case study of 'punning mania'. The Psychologist: Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 2, 272.

Koestler, A. (1964). The Act of Creation. New York: Penguin Books, New York.

Mendez, M.F. (2005). Moria and Witzelsucht from frontotemporal dementia. Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 17, 429-430.

Shammi, P. & Stuss, D.T. (1999). Humour appreciation: a role of the right frontal lobe. Brain, 122, 657-66.