“The British are coming! OMG! Wake up the militia! Sound the church bells! Update your Facebook status!”

Amid the flutter over Twitter, it’s a reasonable question: What if people had been Tweeting for the past 300 years? How differently might we have experienced American history? What could be said about the American character in 140 characters?

“In case anyone was thinking of going for a little boat ride across the Delaware River, don’t! It is fu-reezing. Time to look stoic; someone’s trying to paint me.”

“Aaron Burr just challenged me to a duel, and I don’t even have my nice dueling pants on! I should have listened to my mom.”

“If anyone is on Twitter, looks like the entire Mexican army is attacking our fort. Also, Dan, you forgot to return my raccoon-tail hat.”

“Four score and seven years ago? What is that in Roman time or something? Weird D&D lingo? Never again will I Twitter someone’s speech.”

“Very funny, guys! Gen. Custer sez u can all take off the Indian costumes now. Man, there are a lot of you for a practical joke.”

“Can’t wait to get off this crowded boat! Heard streets are lined with honey! Organic honey! Back home I’d be working in a factory all day.”

“What’s with all the icebergs? Astor says they’re almost as big as the ship. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”

“Can you believe it? They had a bathtub full of gin but no tonic…”

“Wanted: tiny red sled that symbolizes my lost innocence and/or phonograph made entirely out of gold and unicorn hoofs.”

“One other thing I forgot to mention we should fear besides fear itself: guy w/handlebar moustache who keeps tying maidens to train tracks.”

“Also: clowns, rabid squirrels, shifty-eyed men with violin cases, zeppelins, Fatty Arbuckle, that crippling worldwide Depression thing.”

“Oh snap! Churchill was all ‘in the morning I’ll be sober while you’ll still be ugly.’ And she was all ‘why I never…’”

“Every platoon has an African-American, a country boy and a guy with a Brooklyn accent. Somebody should write a movie.”

“Quick survey: do you belong to the Communist Party? If you don’t drive on Saturdays and work in Hollywood I’ll just put down yes.”

“Happy b-day, Mr. Prez-i-dent…happy b-day 2 u…”

“So it looks like the Ruskies are shipping nuclear warheads to Cuba…oh, and Jackie and I had pancakes for breakfast. Yum!”

“I wanted to tell you all about this dream I had, but I totally forgot. Don’t you hate that? I think it involved children playing together.”

“I just took some acid. Everything is one and…that guy has lobster claws for hands…why is everyone staring at my soul?? I need toothpaste.”

“Did I Twitter how well things going in Vietnam? Because they are. Just great. Seriously. BTW, I won’t run 4 2nd term, won’t serve if elected.”

“Looked all day for that 18 mins of missing tape. How about a sleepy puppy YouTube video instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12PsUW-8ge4”

“It’s not a party until Truman Capote shows up. And you’re completely covered in polyester. And on roller skates. My nose itches.”

“OMG there is a girl wearing different colored Converse. Totally out of my league. Maybe I should challenge her in Ms. Pacman?”

“White Ford Bronco yours for ticket to Caymans, fake nose or submarine. Text address. Can be there within hour. Please don’t turn on TV. “

“Those geezers in black robes say the recount is over! Suck it, Gore! First order of business, instead of robes, ponchos. Waterproof ponchos.”

“Two more additions to the Axis of Evil: George Soros (he’s like the Kaiser Sose of the left), tarantulas.”

“Guess what, everyone, we are the ones we’ve been waiting for, which is great news because we can now finally order dinner.”

“Would you like to save cold cash on heating bills?”

“Dogs who drink bottled water prefer Scottish Perrier.”

“Nudist colonies are usually clothed until May.”

Yes, those puns were intended. Did you groan? If you had come up with them, would you have said, “No pun intended,” beforehand?

From jokes to literature to the nightly news to advertising, puns are everywhere. Often described as the lowest form of humor, puns provide double meanings to words, revealing hidden messages. “Puns are derailing the train of thought in a conversation,” says Gary Hallock. “Serious people dislike puns because they want to get on with the thought.”

The pun-loving Hallock is the organizer of the O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships in Austin, Texas. The annual contest takes place every May at the O. Henry Museum, honoring the American short-story writer renowned for his wry and playful use of words.

“O. Henry leads you down one pun, but to a twisted ending,” says Hallock. “He knew every word in the dictionary and coined his own words.”

Begun in 1977, the contest hosts 64 contestants in a punslinging competition of have-wits. Check out the latest contest at www.punpunpun.com

While some puns work fine, others deserve to be retired, Hallock says. Watching television news, he is annoyed with clichés about the “skinny on a new diet,” recommending instead, “You can lose weight, fast!”

A proud punster, Hallock sees no need to apologize for a pun. He argues that those who apologize are simply bad punsters who need to point out their puns by saying, “No pun intended,” or “Forgive the pun.”

“People who dislike puns are jealous that they don’t have verbal skills,” agrees Marvin Illman, 71, an English teacher at LaGuardia High School in Manhattan. “It takes a certain talent.”

For 41 years, Illman has been amusing his students with deep analyses of William Shakespeare and Nathaniel Hawthorne. “Hamlet has the most puns,” says Illman. “It begins with a pun, ‘a little more than kin, but less than kind.’” Illman then reels off a rapid succession of examples, capped by noting how Hamlet’s idea of suicide by cannon runs against God’s canon.

“It’s like solving the puzzle by putting the pieces together,” says Don Hauptman, 61, a New York advertising consultant who writes articles on puns for Word Ways, a self-described “Journal of Recreational Linguistics.”

At the same time, Hauptman advises against using punny ads. “It’s reminder advertising, a quick teaser,” he says. Paraphrasing award-winning adman John Caples, Hauptman adds, “Don’t use humor in advertising, because people don’t buy from clowns.”

Outside Hauptman’s Upper West Side home, however, posters mimicking the white-on-blue-on-brown logo of the Snickers candy bar offer an array of puns. The ads promote a trip to Feedzgypt, suggest taking a yellow-colored car called a snaxi and urge would-be students to take courses at a chewniversity. Nowhere is the name Snickers mentioned, but the message comes across.

“It’s a language that speaks at the right place at the right time,” says Mars spokesman Ryan Bowling. “You see a taxi, and with a second take, it’s a snaxi.”

Set to run until the end of the year, the nationwide campaign also has an interactive component; Snickers’ Facebook fans can provide their own snack-filled puns. Ads are placed on subway cars, billboards, racing cars and elsewhere, with location-appropriate puns. “The most fun part is coming up with the names,” says Bowling.

Language maven Richard Lederer, who makes his living partly from puns, writes, “Punnery challenges us to apply the greatest pressure per square syllable of language.”

“It is a rewording experience,” adds Lederer, 71, who uses puns in lectures, books and articles and on his weekly radio show, A Way With Words, which is broadcast on KPFS, a public station in San Diego.

At times, family members approach him for advice on the best puns, and Lederer enthusiastically shares his word wisdom.  For example, his nephew, a divorce attorney in Texas, needed a catchy slogan for his business.

“Let’s see, Jan,” Lederer said. “You’re a divorce attorney and you live in San Antonio. How about Remember the Alimony?” The pun became the official slogan of the firm.

Pun Resources:
•    Snacklish Campaign
•    Annual Pun-Off World Championships
•    Pun of the Day
•    Richard Lederer
•    Bad Puns
•    Puns Galore
•    Word Ways

Do you have a pun to share? Post it below, if you dare.

“My focus used to be 90 per cent love and relationships and 10 per cent economical,” Rivera said. “Now it’s about 20 per cent love and relationships and 80 per cent economical.”

Rivera’s fortuneteller Karin Marcello, 29, also from Long Island, says that this switch in interest from love to money is a growing trend among her eclectic clientele, which includes top managers, cashiers and lap dancers.

“People are paranoid,” she said. “They ask: Am I going to keep my job? Will I be able to afford to live in New York? Should I still invest? Will I be able to pay my mortgage? Will I have any luck selling my house?”

Traditionally, a fortuneteller only had to divine the future, but a survey of 12 New York fortunetellers and psychics suggests that as the economic crisis has deepened, clients are treating them more like cheap psychologists and sympathetic university counselors, who have to reassure more than predict.

“Before the crisis people felt they were in control of their lives,” said psychic Stacey Worlf. “Now we feel unsafe. I find that my clients want to know whether they will be OK, and when you tell them so, they feel a lot better.”
Angela Lucy, a Manhattan fortuneteller, shares her colleague Worlf’s point of view and describes what usually happens in her office once she spreads the tarot cards out on the table.

“You get knee-jerk reactions, they are panicking,” she said. “I tell them they are going to be fine and advise them to stop listening to the news.”

According to Dr. Bonnie Maslin, a psychologist who has worked as a psychotherapist in private practice for over twenty years, when life is out of control, as in the case of the economic crisis, some people, rather than dealing with their anxiety through traditional therapy, resort to magical thinking.

But people now want more than magical thinking and whimsical advice from their psychic readings. Entrepreneurs ask whether the bailout is going to work. Small business owners ask whether investing in real estate is still worthwhile. And even artists, usually concerned with inspiration, are now more worried about making their artwork profitable. In order to respond to their clients’ more specific and personal-finance-oriented questions, fortune tellers say they can’t just rely on tarot cards and crystal balls. These days, they’re consulting economic papers and Paul Krugman’s columns.

“I’ve always picked up on the news,” said astrologer Zoltana, “but now I buy Fortune and Forbes and look at financial articles more closely.”

Psychics say they are integrating their strong astrological backgrounds with newly acquired economic savvy to help their cards provide creative, slightly more practical solutions.

“This year Aquarius is in Jupiter, which means that money can be made in the Aquarius way: thinking outside of the box and believing in your genius,” says a fortuneteller who goes by the name Joshua the Psychic. “So, for instance, I advice clients that were in finance to try to get from that arena into more creative jobs like marketing.

When people hang out at Hudson Bar and Books in Manhattan, they’re not flipping pages—they’re flicking ashes. It’s a place where the non-smokers are milling around outside the front door as they decide if a face-full of tobacco smoke is worth a step inside a place where smokers rule.

“Is this legal?” a passerby yells from the street outside the front door of this Greenwich Village cigar bar on a recent Saturday evening.

Six years after Mayor Bloomberg’s statewide anti-smoking law took effect, the patrons of Hudson Bar and Books puff away in a perpetual haze of toxic smoke. It’s one of a handful of cigar bars left in Manhattan under a “grandfather” clause that protected cigar bars that opened before December 31, 2001.

No new indoor smoking bars have been permitted to open in the city since then. The mayor has proclaimed the law a public-health success, cutting down on the risks of second-hand smoke for employees, and even cutting down the number of smokers in New York City.

“We have to pay a yearly fee and we were given a special permit,” says bartender Eladio Hultzll, who doesn’t smoke.

Hultzll has manned the bar on Saturday nights for two years now and says the smoke doesn’t bother him. He opens the door, which is steps away from the bar, on a cold night every hour or so to catch a breath of fresh air.

“Not for me,” he says. “For you.”

In addition to the special permit, the bar also has to pass a yearly test of the humidifiers that filter the air. The menu is limited and it sells more tobacco and alcohol than food.

“We only offer light fare,” says Hultzll. “But you can smoke anything you want.”

Except for a small pizza or two and an order of steamed dumplings for the two women sitting at the corner table, there’s not much food to be seen. The vibe is celebratory because this is a place to drink some major whiskey and to smoke a Cuban like an aficionado. The bar-full of sophisticated adults and the highbrow furnishings are tamed a bit by all the smoke.

Steve Hertzberg, 48, of Manhattan is pleased that he picked this unofficial anniversary to throw back a glass of Ben Nevis and toke on a $15 La Aroma de Cuba Robusto. Hultzll delivered the cigar on a silver platter, with a votive candle, a small glass filled with wooden sticks, another small glass of water and a cigar cutter. Hertzberg lights the sticks with the candle and lights his Robusto before putting the flame out in the water.

“Class,” he says.

There’s no way around the aroma of nutmeg, allspice and the occasional whiff of cedar that emanate from the high-end cigars. Crystal ashtrays dot the copper-topped bar and everyone is lighting, dipping and smoking.

“Bloomberg destroyed this city by stopping people from smoking in bars,” says Hertzberg. “So to have a place where you can come and smoke—it’s a great night.”

The whole place is about the size of two subway cars. A dark leather sectional sofa backs up against a wall of leather-bound books in the back of the room. But the sofa is empty. The bar is the place to be. There’s sense of camaraderie that borders on naughtiness as smokers inhale the forbidden leaf.

Top-notch whiskeys, rums and vodkas line the whole back of the bar with the serious stuff displayed in beveled glass cabinetry. Ceiling fans alternate with chandeliers on a painted tin ceiling that work together to illuminate and lift up the smoke. More shelves of books pull it all together in chic style.

But the fraternity of smokers that flock to cigar bars are a dying breed.  More than a quarter-million fewer New Yorkers smoked in 2007 than in 2003, when the ban took effect, according to the city Health Department.

In the first year of the ban, the number of smokers fell by 13 percent—the steepest decline of anywhere in the country, the agency said.  The number is based on a telephone survey of adults, who smoked every day and at least 100 cigarettes a year.  But, statistics aside, the power of the puff can weaken the best of them.

“I only smoke when I come here,” said Julie Seyler, 53, an ex-smoker from Manhattan. “It’s such a nice atmosphere and it is nice to come to a bar and have a drink and a cigarette.”

She lit another cigarette before the first one went out in the ashtray.