Bad puns aside, there’s many theories in the scientific literature (from cognitive psychology, linguistics and AI) that describe the mechanisms of puns (and many other types of jokes, really), and they mostly talk about deviations from a script/subverting expectations and norms (Hanks’ theory of norms)/accessing a non-default interpretation that is different from the default one (Giora’s optimal innovation hypothesis).
Sorry, I laughed. I'm astounded by how much the British like puns as opposed to Americans. I've heard British audiences audibly gasp at the high quality of a pun, like it took their breaths away.
Reductively I'd say the prey is the audience in that case, for not being smart enough to see it coming. The best puns are heavily telegraphed yet somehow totally unpredictable. They're clever mirrorings of things everyone is already familiar with, but still didn't see coming.
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