The unfortunate part with regard to your wish is that Dr. McBride is a professional punmaker who was poached by Strathclyde for his side hobby in theoretical computer science.
AFAICT, this (the punmaking, and language games in general) is actually a prime attribute of PL researchers, at least in several major PL subdisciplines. It's been awhile since I've cracked open the POPL proceedings or the like, but ... wow, just wow.
One of my favorites was a (peer-reviewed, published!) paper with this gem of a footnote in the first column: This work supported in part by cinder blocks.
I am not sure if this applies, but in my experience, presenting a dry, more or less theoretical subject matter in a humorous way makes it substantially easier for me to stay focused.
Also, as somebody else already said, if you are designing languages professionally, you probably get to appreciate puns on a whole new level.
What's wrong with puns? It's not in bad taste. And the rest of the stuff is pretty funny as well ("At this stage in its life cycle, it's unlikely to be particularly robust. You'll find that its error support is fantastic, if you need help making errors."). At the same time, the humour doesn't get too distracting. Much nicer to read than some four-letter-words punctuated piece full of hyperbole.
