“A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide.”

— Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

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Oliver Wendell Holmes135

Poet, essayist, physician 1809–1894

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