. . . muttered the ogre

There are scholars of slang who hunt for earliest documentable uses. Does anyone do the same for puns?

In 1971, Larry Niven and David Gerrold published a novel The Flying Sorcerors. Recently for the first time I found that pun made circa 1959 (but I’ve forgotten the context). And just now I heard an even earlier one: in “Broom-Stick Bunny”, 1956, Bugs says, “You’re not gonna believe this: I just saw a genie with light brown hair chasing a flying sorceress.”

I don’t know how many times this has happened. I’m on the phone with some chirpy Career Gal, she says something to which I say “Yes, fine,” and then she warbles “Okay??”, leaving me somewhat bewildered and impatient.

It has been observed (alas that I failed to blog it, else I could tell you by whom) that “language is a code used only by code-breakers.” So perhaps I have imperfectly cracked the tacit protocol of such exchanges. Am I expected to refrain from giving my consent until it’s explicitly asked, or has the “No Means No” campaign resulted in a presumption that Yes also means no unless repeated?