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Oh, those nasty puns. You try scrubbing them out and soaking them out, and you can still come out ringed around by groans and hollers.
* You can push the envelope, but it'll still be stationery.
* When the dog gave birth, she was cited for littering.
* I tried to catch fog. I mist.
We ought to throw the book at people practicing punnery. Preferably, a dictionary. But instead of legislating the lexicon, the pundits are competing for word play championships.
At the 38th annual O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships May 9 in Austin, Texas, people will be rewarded for spouting such sigh-inciting phrases as, "Two silk worms had a race and ended up in a tie."
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom Pun Championship 2015 was decided last month in a rap-like throwdown at Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival in Leicester, about 100 miles northwest of London.
A punster named Leo Kearse from Penpoint -- who refers to himself as a Kearse on humanity -- took the title with gems like these:
* I was at the hospital last week. I asked the nurse if I could do my own stitches, she said "suture self."
* Marvin Gaye kept a sheep in my vineyard. He'd herd it through the grapevine.
* I used to have a job drilling holes for water. It was, well, boring.
* Someone hit me with a sweet smelling burning stick! I was incensed.
The plague of puns is more punishing than I thought.
According to Dictionary.com, a pun is using "a word or phrase so as to emphasize or suggest its different meanings or applications, or the use of words that are alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning; a play on words."
I considered puns annoyances, something akin to mosquitoes, inkless pens and sales tax. It turns out that instead of giving us the business, they're serious business.
On Jan. 1, the Bored of Governors of the International Save The Pun Foundation issued its annual list of the 10 Best-Stressed Puns of the year. Here's a sampling of the best of 2014:
* Shooting film inside a prison has negative con sequences.
* There was a burglar who would sneak into people's bedrooms to give them a pedicure as they slept. He was a clip toe maniac.
* What is the difference between a nicely dressed man on a tricycle and a poorly dressed man on a bicycle? A tire.
* When I saw the depressed mathematician, I asked, "What sum adder with you?"
I hate to keep stalking this corn, but before we exit, here are kernels from some of the guys who didn't win in Leicester:
* Darren Walsh of London: "Counterfeiters -- I just don't know how they make money."
* Tony Cowards of Swindon: "Just having a vote on whether Picasso was the best portrait artist of all time. So, eyes to the right, nose to the left."
* Richard Pulsford of Burntisland, Fife: "I bought an Impressionist painting, but my cat scratched it. So I'm now selling it on, as a clawed Monet."
That's it. I'm pooped out on puns.
— Send your best puns to Cole at burtseyeview@tribtoday.com or to the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook. We'll publish the best in the next puntastic column.