Freak these tales

Thus is titled a musical testament to a rapper's first romantic conquests. It's also a 'rollicking good fun' pun. Oxford English won't get you through this one: in ebonics 'to freak' can signify both 'demonstrating expertise'... and sexual things I won't get into. The possible phonetic connotations of tale[tail] must, ones hopes, be obvious to the reader. Now that we get it, let's move on.

Puns, the most maligned form of humour[I love them]-often deemed 'not at all humourous'- share many similarities with sophistication. A pun hides an enigmatic message in a simple phrase, sophistication , likewise, transforms thought towards complexity, but attempts clarity of message. Where successful, they transcend superficial qualities, implicit mockery of the literalist in art or in life. Puns are a very roundabout way of getting straight to the point, implying away from the obvious. We should expect a sophisticate to draw a very different meaning from superficial implication, indicating capacity to infer away from the obvious.

Unfortunately, sophistication is more than listening to opera or having an extremely large vocabulary.[sad, very sad] If it weren't, the ranks of the sophisticated would be swollen and the attribute no more an indicator of exceptional acumen than going to the opera is an indicator of sophisticated taste. Of course, we could take the line that people who go to the opera are more likely to have lots of money, and are, therefore, likely more wordly when it comes to managing their finances.[or lucky] Or, we could presume that people who go to the opera are aware of the popular mythology that surrounds opera-goers, namely that they display higher, more rarified[INDEED] tastes, suggesting the practice might indicate a propensity to wilfully manipulate others' perceptions of one's self. Sociopaths can demonstrate some sophistication too! So, 'sophisticated taste' tests inconclusive, but 'social sophistication' likely tests positive.

It is when sophistication is regarded as an unadulterated[haha] good that we reach dangerous territory. It is not that a person can be 'too sophisticated', but that a person tries so hard to be sophisticated that he becomes anything but: "too clever by half", as the English would have it- those who are not particularly sophisticated when it comes to displaying appropriate levels of sophistication being more likely to be scorned than those who try to punch at their own weight.

Remember that simplicity can be your best friend, fool. I'll stick to displaying 50% more erudition than is required by the situation. As always, with consummate ease!