 The point of a joke or metaphor is at once something more than a second meaning or import, assigned in the course of a second act of construal, and something less than this. It is something more, in that producing a joke or metaphor in the first place requires some kind and degree of artistic success: to produce a joke or metaphor at all is to bring something off. Getting (the point of) either kind of verbal contraption involves appreciating what the speaker has brought off in producing it. And no amount of intellectual understanding of the speaker’s ends, the speaker’s means, or the manner in which and extent to which the speaker’s means achieved the speaker’s ends suffices for appreciation. Appreciation involves a capacity and readiness to experience and value the finished contraption in ways called for by what its maker has brought off.