I’ll concede in general alien puns are not ‘good’ by human standards, but that’s mainly a consequence of human beings being so bad a puns that we’ve made it the lowest form of comedy. In languages exceeding 100 million symbols puns can be high art.

Only freshmen xenoanthropology students call alien puns ‘bad’. A seasoned student of alien cultures recognizes a pun is a complex interface of language structures and content, and understanding them can lead to deep insights into the alien mind.

Take the RadFlies for example. A classic hive-mind species that utilizes hyper-chromatic, rhythmic, tonal, and chemical formats for communication. Their communication structures for ‘poo’ bears some resemblance to the structures for ‘travel’ and use the same chromatic and chemical ranges as actual excrement. In addition, some ‘pronunciations’ can approximate the sound that accompanies the bodily process.

To a novice, this seems trivially humorous, but a deeper analysis of the RadFlies cultural mythology reveals a rich tapestry of intersections between poo, travel, and an array of historically iconic and symbolic references to the linguistic structures for both. Their creation myths and philosophical foundations are deeply intertwined with both poop and travel, which to an insect hive-mind are as spiritually significant as love and compassion are to humans.

Focusing on understanding the basis for alien puns rather than dismissing them as weak humor revolutionized every field of xenocultural studies, and has even facilitated peace and understanding among seemingly incompatible alien minds. But- you can still laugh, because it can be pretty funny. Just be cool about it, that’s the key understanding alien cultures.