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I've been reading Tom Swifties on a website, and could not understand one of them:

"I won't let a flat tire get me down," Tom said, without despair.

Where is the pun in that?

CowperKettle
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2 Answers2

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"Despair" sounds like "the spare." Alas

"I won't let a flat tire get me down," Tom said, without "the spare".

The definition of spare at Oxford includes

A spare tire

Note: at first I thought it was a pun on "without the air", but realised it was "without the spare."

Alan Carmack
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  • Though that doesn't really make sense as having a spare would be more likely to be associated with a positive attitude to flats then being without one. Looks like he uses the same technique again a bit further down a bit more successfully IMO "I haven't caught a fish all day!" Tom said, without debate. – Martin Smith Aug 07 '16 at 14:30
  • It's good to note that the "d" and short "th" sound similar, but not the same. (Well, except in certain accents...) And, slightly less related, the "f" and long "th" sounds are not identical either. – wizzwizz4 Aug 07 '16 at 14:53
  • @wizzwizz4 /ð/ and /θ/ (International Phonetic Alphabet) are not "long" and "short", they are voiced and voiceless. They are exactly the same length. You can't be blamed for not knowing this; it's just another example of how the stupid orthography obfuscates the linguistic understanding of its speakers. – EMBLEM Aug 07 '16 at 16:18
  • @EMBLEM I know they're the same length; that was just the only name I knew for them. Thank you for enlightening us all with your IPA knowledge! :-) – wizzwizz4 Aug 07 '16 at 17:49
  • I wonder if it's really "without the spare": maybe "without a spare" is more grammatical. I mean, if it were not a pun but just a usual sentence. Articles always make me stop and wonder. – CowperKettle Aug 08 '16 at 03:43
  • @CowperKettle puns don't have to be grammatically correct or even make logical sense (even though it helps). You just need to be in the right ballpark. – John Dvorak Aug 08 '16 at 11:32
  • @JanDvorak - I fully agree, it's just that I heard "a" in this joke in my mind after Alan explained it. – CowperKettle Aug 08 '16 at 11:33
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    @CowperKettle - Definitely the spare, when talking about car tyres. It's not countable: every car has one and only one spare tyre. – AndyT Aug 08 '16 at 11:47
  • Definitely the spare, just like the steering wheel and the trunk, there's only one, so it illicits the use of the. (They are countable, but the count goes only to one.) I did not include in my answer that de is used to stand for the in many other contexts, mostly of a joking and/or slang nature. Although it could be part of a dialect also. Whatever, native speakers can readily interpret despair as the spare. – Alan Carmack Aug 08 '16 at 15:46
  • I guess I meant licits not illicits. If those are even verbs... :) – Alan Carmack Aug 08 '16 at 18:00
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I think it's a multifaceted pun.

  1. "Get me down" (as in, becoming sad) vs. "despair" (also as in sadness)
  2. "Flat" (as in, without emotion) compared to "without despair" (also as in the absence of emotion)
  3. "Despair" compared to "the spare"
  4. When you get a flat tire, your car drops down a little bit, right? Compare to "get me down"

This is really quite a clever compound pun, it seems to me.

Stephen G Tuggy
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