That may be twue, but misspelling isn’t punning. It’s just not funny! 🙂

My wife and I have a friend who spent years as a labor and delivery nurse (with a break for about 15 years to be a stay at home mom) and now teaches nursing. One night over a couple of glasses of wine she complained, “I’ve been reading a lot of research on parenting and I’m furious. Mothers do everything! We cook for our kids, clothe them, keep them safe! Dad comes home and barely interacts with the kids. Yet, all the studies show the greatest predictor of success for kids is if there is a Dad in the home!”

We all had an interesting discussion on why this is. I certainly agree my wife put in 100 X the effort I did regarding our children, including risking her very life to carry and birth them. My best guess is it’s sort of like a pride of lions or silver back gorillas. There’s a male present and he’s typically uninvolved, quietly away from the hub-bub. But, when the sh*t hits the f*n, the male jumps in and asserts dominance, restoring order.

Humans are “pack” animals and maybe we key off of alpha males? When none is present, no matter how strong a mother is, children suffer from that lack?

A culture that does not raise children among men will not survive long and men who will not raise their children are unfit to be fathers.

Is it a sign of a “twee sensibility” to use words such as “twee”?

Puns are not a sign of intelligence. They’re a sign of a twee sensibility.

Contrast, with America, where “high falutin’ words” is denigrated (“Listen to the Dictionary, over here…:-/ “)

Or they don’t like you for some other reason.

Batten down the hatches!

The good ship Lollipop bound for Liberia!

“4 — having kids out of wedlock, and, more critically, absentee fathers. ”

Charles Murray, in ‘Coming Apart’, makes this argument about white families as well. From memory, he showed stats on ‘good outcomes’* ranked thusly:

1] Married parents
2] Single father**
.
.
.
6] Divorced mother with live-in
7] Single mother

It might seem as if I’m being snarky (moi?), but the gap between 2 and ‘6’ was significant.

* Good outcomes were defined in the book, and I don’t have a copy to hand.
** Since the number of dads awarded custody in divorce is, um, small, the better results may just be the result of Dad being a super excellent parent (ie, *much* better than the default Mom).

OK, I cannot speak for the Chinese, here, but the Japanese posdef respect those who know their Kanji.

There is little reason to use Kanji, any longer, the Hiragana and Katakana alphabets can be used for any word. The typical Japanese, however, knows about 2000 Kanji. It is a mark of respect and distinction to know 3000-5000 Kanji, and to be “top notch”, people will know upwards to 10,000 Kanji. Kanji is not fading from Japanese culture, despite the lack of need for it and the issues with using it vs. a fixed phonetic alphabet

Contrast, with America, where “high falutin’ words” is denigrated (“Listen to the Dictionary, over here…:-/ “) and puns are derided.

I assert to you that puns are very very much a sign of intelligence in the same sense. Stupid people don’t make puns, intentionally. To make a pun requires a very quick mind (to produce one on the spot, less so to set one up ahead of time), a facile sense of words (you can manipulate the sounds from one form or spelling or meaning into another similar sound, spelling, or meaning readily) and a large vocabulary to apply as the sandbox.

Respect paranomasty. It’s a smart thing to do. 😛