Embarrassed by my own humor?

I find it interesting when the English language becomes one of my favorite sources of humor. This picture, with a variety of different puns, is often posted to reddit.com (Warning: This website is addictive!) 

Some of the interesting tidbits include:

• The short fortuneteller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
• He often broke into song because he couldn't find the key.
• Local Area Network in Australia: The LAN down under.
• The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
• When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.
• A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
• In democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your count that votes.
• Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
• What's the definition of a will? (It's a dead giveaway)
• A bicycle can't stand on its own because it is two-tired.

Yes, they make people GROAN when they get the joke, but yet, they are still gloriously funny.

GLORIOUSLY FUNNY only because our language is very screwed up.  Why does English have so many words with multiple meanings? I attempted to research whether other languages are riddled with words with multiple meanings, but I did not find anything substantial to report. (I did find some interesting words which mean one thing in one language but something completely different-- and sometimes inappropriate-- in other languages. Quite amusing, but not what I was looking for.) I am under the assumption that this is an American English problem.

It is an American English problem which I embrace. After all, a backwards poet always writes inverse.