To paraphrase Mark Twain, “‘Tis a terrible death to be punned to death.”

Sadly, I came across a new lot of tearable — er, terrible — puns.

This is not a judgment call. It said so in bold letters right at the top of the page: “These puns are tearable.”

It was one of those sheets pinned to a public bulletin board that advertise a service on the top two-thirds of the page and has little rip-off tabs on the bottom like so much fringe imprinted with the name and telephone number.

But in this case, instead of a phone number, each tab contained a different pun, including:

“Acupuncture is a jab well done.”

“If you dream in color, it’s a pigment of your imagination.”

“When two egotists meet, it’s an I for an I.”

The whole punny mess was summed up by the tab declaring, “A good pun is its own reword.”

The rip-off of the rip-and-save ads is the brainchild of Brian Atkinson and his TearablePuns.org. The slogan: “Tearable Puns are so ripping good, you want to take them with you! Put a pun in your pocket!”

Not being a guy to let a good thing go — but mostly because another deadline had whizzed by, sticking out its tongue and taunting, “Neener, neener, neener, your column’s due and you have nothing, nothing, nothing!” — I cried, “Pun-doubtedly, yes I do.”

Allow me to share with you my research into scrambled words that I’ve ripped off from various tearable, er, terrible sites and joke books.

• The snail didn’t move. It was an escar-stay.

• I lost my mood ring. I don’t know how I feel about that.

• A clown held open the door for me. It was a nice jester.

• Pour coffee — it gets mugged every morning.

• Why do coffee cups avoid big cities? They’re afraid they’ll get mugged.

• Once he moved his pillow to the fireplace, Jason slept like a log.

• A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

• I’m taking steps to overcome my hiking addiction. I’m not out of the woods yet.

• To make a long story short, I became an editor.

• I went to the paint store to get thinner. It didn’t work.

• When the dentist married the manicurist, they fought tooth and nail.

• I have a black eye in karate.

• If you sweat while wearing a sweater, does that make you the sweater?

• I have no words to describe how I feel about losing my thesaurus.

• I have two or three Motown puns — Four Tops.

• 1 million aches equals one megahertz.

• The time between slipping on a banana peel and hitting the pavement is measured in bananoseconds.

• I made trail mix without raisins or M&Ms. It was just nuts.

• Someone ripped this month off my calendar. I’ve been disMayed.

• I called the florist, but he knew nothing about installing linoleum.

• Don’t give Elsa a balloon because she’d let it go, let it go.

• The belt was arrested because it held up a pair of pants.

• How did the horse named Barber win the Kentucky Derby? It knew a shortcut.

• Stairs are always up to something.

• Why can’t a nose be 12 inches long? Because then it would be a foot.

• I have a pencil with two erasers. It’s pointless.

• Why did Mozart kill his chickens? Because he asked them who was the world’s best composer and they all answered, “Bach, Bach, Bach.”

• The wedding was so emotional that even the cake was in tiers.

• The best time to go to the dentist is tooth-hurty.

• Why did the man get fired from the calendar factory? He took a day off.

And now, I believe I shall take the rest of the day off, too. I’ve had enough pun-ishment. After all, a good pun is its own reword. May the Fourth be with you.

Bombard Burt with puns at burton.w.cole@gmail.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.