A pun (or paronomasia) is a phrase that deliberately exploits confusion between similar-sounding words for humorous or rhetorical effect. In Grammar, a phrase is a group of Words that functions as a single unit in the Syntax of a sentence. A word is a unit of Language that carries meaning and consists of one or more Morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together and has a Phonetic Humour or humor (see spelling differences) is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke Laughter and provide Amusement Rhetoric has had many definitions no simple definition can do it justice

A pun may also cause confusion between two senses of the same written or spoken word, due to homophony, homography, homonymy, polysemy, or metaphorical usage. A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning A homograph is one of a group of words that share the same spelling but have different meanings In linguistics a homonym is one of a group of words that share the same pronunciation but have different meanings and are usually spelled differently Polysemy ( or) (from the Greek πολυσημεία = "multiple meaning" is the capacity for a sign (e Metaphor (from the Greek: μεταφορά - metaphora, meaning "transfer" is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects Walter Redfern has said: "To pun is to treat homonyms as synonyms". This article deals with the general meaning of the term "synonym" ^[1] For example, in the phrase, "There is nothing punny about bad puns", the pun takes place in the deliberate confusion of the implied word "funny" by the substitution of the word "punny", a heterophone of "funny". By definition, puns must be deliberate; an involuntary substitution of similar words is called a malapropism. A malapropism (also called a Dogberryism) is the substitution of an incorrect word for a word with a similar sound usually to comic effect

Puns are a form of word play, and occur in all languages. Word play is a Literary technique in which the nature of the words that are used become the main subject of the work A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them

Etymology

The word pun itself is thought to be originally a contraction of the (now archaic) pundigrion. This Latin term is thought to have originated from punctilious, which itself derived from the Italian puntiglio (originally meaning "a fine point"), diminutive of punto, "point", from the Latin punctus, past participle of pungere, "to prick. Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. " These etymological sources are reported in the Oxford English Dictionary, which labels them "conjecture. The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED) published by the Oxford University Press (OUP is a comprehensive Dictionary of the English "

Usage

Comedy and jokes

Puns are a common source of humor in jokes and comedy shows. Humour or humor (see spelling differences) is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke Laughter and provide Amusement See also Mathematics of humor A joke is a short story or ironic depiction of a situation communicated with the intent of being humorous. Comedy (from the Greek κωμωδίαkomodia has a popular meaning (any discourse generally intended to amuse especially in Television, Film, and They are often used in the punchline of a joke, where they typically give a humorous meaning to a rather perplexing story. These are also known as feghoots. A Feghoot is a humorous short story or vignette ending in an atrocious Pun. The following example comes from the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (though the punchline is at least five decades older):

Captain Aubrey: "Do you see those two weevils, Doctor?. Master and Commander The Far Side of the World is a 2003 Film directed by Peter Weir and starring Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey, with A weevil is any Beetle from the Curculionoidea Superfamily. They are usually small less than 6  mm (¼  Inch) and herbivorous . . Which would you choose?"

Dr. Maturin: "Neither. There's not a scrap of difference between them. They're the same species of Curculio. "

Captain Aubrey: "If you had to choose. If you were forced to make a choice. If there were no other option. "

Dr. Maturin: "Well, then, if you're going to push me. I would choose the right-hand weevil. It has significant advantage in both length and breadth. "

Captain Aubrey: "There, I have you!. . . Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils?"

The last line uses a pun on the stock phrase "the lesser of two evils".

Puns are particularly admired in Britain, and form a core element of the British cult comedy show I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue and in times past My Word. I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, sometimes abbreviated to "ISIHAC" or simply "Clue", is a BBC My Word! was a long-running Radio Panel game broadcast by the BBC on the Home Service (1956-67 and Radio 4 (1967-90 The late Richard Whiteley was famed for his endearingly clumsy use of puns as host of the UK words and numbers game show Countdown. John Richard Whiteley, OBE DL ( 28 December 1943 – 26 June 2005) usually known as Richard Whiteley, was Countdown is a British Game show presented by Des O'Connor and Carol Vorderman, with regular lexicographer Susie Dent British stand up comedian Tim Vine's act is characterised by rapid delivery of unrelated pun-based jokes. Stand-up comedy is a style of comedy where the performer speaks directly to the audience with the absence of the theatrical " Fourth wall " Tim Vine (born March 4, 1967 in Cheam, Surrey) is an English Actor and stand-up comedian and is the brother British comedian Dance Drier is also known for his extensive and often many layered puns woven into his stories. A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience primarily by making them laugh In his own words, "A pun is its own reword. "

Gag names based on puns (such as calling a character who is always almost late Justin Thyme) can be found in Piers Anthony's Xanth novels, The Eyre Affair, Asterix, Hamlet, The Simpsons, the Carmen Sandiego computer games, and many works of Spider Robinson, including the Callahan's Crosstime Saloon series. A gag name is a false name used to elicit humor through its simultaneous resemblance to a real name on the one hand and to a term or phrase that is funny strange or vulgar on the other Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob (born August 6, 1934 in Oxford England) is an English American writer in the Science fiction Xanth is a Fantasy world created by author Piers Anthony for a series of novels The Eyre Affair, published in 2001, is the first novel published by Jasper Fforde. The Adventures of Asterix ( French: Astérix or Astérix le Gaulois) is a series of French Hamlet is a Tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601 Carmen Sandiego refers to a media franchise of educational computer & video games television programs books and other media featuring Carmen Sandiego a thieving villainess A personal computer Game (also known as a computer game or simply PC game) is a Video game played on a Personal computer, rather Spider Robinson (born November 24, 1948) is an American-born Canadian Hugo and Nebula award winning Science fiction In the fictional universe of Spider Robinson, Callahan's Place is a bar with strongly community-minded and empathic clientele

Formats for punning

There are numerous pun formats:

• Bilingual pun
• Daffynition
• Feghoot
• Knock-knock joke
• Malapropism
• Shaggy dog story
• Spoonerism
• Tom Swifty
• Transpositional pun

Science

The term punning is sometimes used to describe either unintentional muddled thinking or intentional deception where the same word (such as a homographic pun) is used with two subtly different meanings. A bilingual pun is a Pun in which a word in one language is similar to a word in another language A daffynition ( Portmanteau of daffy and Definition) is a Pun format involving the reinterpretation of an existing word A Feghoot is a humorous short story or vignette ending in an atrocious Pun. The knock-knock joke is a type of Joke, probably the best-known format of the Pun, and is a time-honoured "call and answer" exercise A malapropism (also called a Dogberryism) is the substitution of an incorrect word for a word with a similar sound usually to comic effect In its original sense a shaggy dog story is an extremely long-winded tale featuring extensive narration of typically irrelevant incidents usually resulting in a pointless or absurd punchline A spoonerism is an error in speech or deliberate play on words in which corresponding Consonants Vowels or Morphemes are switched (see A Tom Swifty (or Tom Swiftie) is a Phrase in which a quoted sentence is linked by a Pun to the manner in which it is attributed A transpositional pun is a complicated Pun format with two aspects For example, in statistics the word significant is usually assumed to be a shortened form of "statistically significant", with the associated precisely defined meaning. In Statistics, a result is called statistically significant if it is unlikely to have occurred by Chance. It is punning to use significant with the meaning "of practical significance" in contexts where "statistically significant" would be plausible interpretation.

Computer science

Main article: Type punning

A programming technique that subverts or circumvents the type system of a programming language in order to achieve an effect that would be difficult or impossible to achieve within the bounds of the formal language is commonly known as "type punning" in computer science. __FORCETOC__In Computer science, type punning is a common term for any programming technique that subverts or circumvents the Type system of a Programming language In Computer science, a type system defines how a Programming language classifies values and expressions into '''types''', how it can A programming language is an Artificial language that can be used to write programs which control the behavior of a machine particularly a Computer. Computer science (or computing science) is the study and the Science of the theoretical foundations of Information and Computation and their

Punny quotations

• "A pun is its own reword. " — Dance Drier, British comedian
• "A pun is the lowest form of humor, unless you thought of it yourself. A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience primarily by making them laugh " — Doug Larson
• "A pun is the shortest distance between two straight lines. " — original source unknown
• "As different as York from Leeds" — James Joyce in Finnegans Wake, a play on "As different as chalk from cheese". Finnegans Wake is a fictional work by James Joyce, published in 1939
• "Blunt and I made atrocious puns. I believe, indeed, that Miss Blunt herself made a little punkin, as I called it" —Henry James
• "Congratulations you have one, it's a year's subscription of bad puns" — Kurt Cobain, "Opinion"
• "Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted. Henry James, OM ( –) son of theologian Henry James Sr, brother of the philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20 1967 – c April 5 1994 was an American musician who served as lead singer, Guitarist, and songwriter for the Seattle " — Fred Allen
• "Heralds don't pun; they cant. Fred Allen (born John Florence Sullivan May 31 1894 - March 17, 1956) was an American Comedian whose absurdist " SCA heralds' expression
• "If puns are the lowest form of humor, are buns the lowest form of bread?" — Piers Anthony, Author
• "Immanuel doesn't pun; he Kant. Society for Creative Anachronism (usually shortened to SCA) is a historical re-creation and Living history group founded in 1966 which An author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created " — Oscar Wilde
• "In the beginning was the pun. Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900 was an Irish Playwright, Novelist, poet and Author of " — Samuel Beckett, Murphy
• "Paris of Troy was so named because his mother had a considerable amount of gaul and married a Frenchman. Samuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989 was an Irish Writer, Dramatist and poet The Novel Murphy (1938 was Samuel Beckett 's third work of Prose Fiction. " — Original Source Unknown.
• "Pun (n. ): the lowest form of humour" —Samuel Johnson, lexicographer
• "Puns are the last refuge of the witless. A lexicographer is a person devoted to the study of Lexicography, especially an author of a Dictionary. " —another way of stating the above
• "The goodness of the true pun is in the direct ratio of its intolerability. " — Edgar Allan Poe, Marginalia, 1849
• "'The man', says Johnson, 'that would make / A pun, would pick a pocket!'" . Edgar Allan Poe (January 19 1809 – October 7 1849 was an American poet, short-story Writer, editor and Literary critic, Marginalia ( plurale tantum) is the general term for Notes scribbles and editorial comments made in the margin of a book Year 1849 ( MDCCCXLIX) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common " — Lewis Carroll, "Phantasmagoria", 1869
• "The pun is mightier than the word. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (ˈdɒdsən (27 January 1832 &ndash 14 January 1898 better known by the Pen name Lewis Carroll (/ˈkærəl/ was an English Year 1869 ( MDCCCLXIX) is a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year " — original source unknown
• "You can tune a guitar, but you can't tuna fish. Unless of course, you play bass. " —Douglas Adams
• Baloo (a bear): "look for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities. Douglas Noël Adams (11 March 1952 &ndash 11 May 2001 was an English author comic Radio dramatist . . . ". —The Jungle Book (1967 film)
• Explorer: Then one afternoon I bagged six tigers. The Jungle Book is a 1967 animated Feature Film, released on October 18 1967. Six of the biggest tigers I ever saw.
  Hostess: You captured six tigers?
  Explorer: I bagged them. I bagged them and bagged them to go away, but they hung around all afternoon. They were the most persistent tigers I ever saw. —Groucho Marx and Margaret Dumont, Animal Crackers
• Max: I like your nurse's uniform, Guy. Margaret Dumont ( October 20, 1882 &ndash March 6, 1965) was an American comedic actress Animal Crackers is a 1930 Comedy film, in which mayhem and zaniness ensue when a valuable painting goes missing during a party in honor of famed African explorer Captain
  Peter: Actually these are O. R. scrubs.
  Max: Oh, are they? —Rushmore
• Scholar 1 [to scholar 2];"Have you read Marx?"
  Scholar 2;" Indeed I have my good sir, I believe they are from these cane chairs. Rushmore is a 1998 Comedy-drama film directed by Wes Anderson about an eccentric teenager named Max Fischer ( Jason Schwartzman) and "

More puns

• Two pretzels were walking down the street. One was assaulted.
• A backward poet writes inverse.
• A bicycle can't stand on its own because it is two tired.
• A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.
• A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
• A dyslexic man walks into a bra.
• A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother.
• A gossip is someone with a great sense of rumour.
• A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
• A lot of money is tainted - It taint yours and it taint mine.
• A man drowned in a bowl of muesli. A strong currant pulled him in.
• A man entered a pun contest. Hoping to win, he sent in ten puns. However, no pun in ten did.
• A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy.
• A man's home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.
• A pessimist's blood type is always b-negative
• A plateau is a high form of flattery.
• A successful diet is the triumph of mind over platter.
• Acupuncture is a jab well done.
• Alarms: What an octopus is.
• An invisible man marries an invisible woman. The kids were nothing to look at either.
• Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.
• Condoms should be used on every conceivable occasion.
• Corduroy pillows are making headlines.
• Crick: The sound that a Japanese camera makes
• Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play.
• Dijon vu - the same mustard as before.
• Do you want some cheese to go with your whine?
• Dockyard: A physician's garden.
• Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
• Energizer Bunny arrested: charged with battery.
• Every calendar's days are numbered.
• He drove his expensive car into a tree and found out how the Mercedes bends.
• He had a photographic memory that was never developed.
• He often broke into song because he couldn't find the key.
• I used to work in a blanket factory, but it folded.
• I went to a seafood disco last week. . . and pulled a muscle.
• I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn't find any.
• If you don't pay your exorcist, you get repossessed.
• In democracy your vote counts. In feudalism your count votes.
• Incongruous: Where bills are passed.
• Khakis: What you need to start the car in Boston.
• Local Area Network in Australia: the LAN down under.
• Once you've seen one shopping center, you've seen a mall.
• Pasteurize: Too far to see.
• Practice safe eating - always use condiments.
• Reading while sunbathing makes you well red.
• Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.
• Sea captains don't like crew cuts.
• She was engaged to a boyfriend with a wooden leg but broke it off!
• Shotgun wedding: A case of wife or death.
• The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
• Those who jump off a bridge in Paris are in Seine.
• Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
• Two peanuts walk into a bar, and one was a salted.
• What do you call a fish with no eyes?. . . A fsh.
• What happened to the butcher who backed into his meat grinder? He got a little behind in his work.
• What's the definition of a will? (It's a dead giveaway. )
• When a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds.
• When two egotists meet, it's an I for an I.
• When you dream in colour, it's a pigment of your imagination.
• Why are ellipses romantic? Because a kiss is a lip tickle.
• With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.
• Without geometry, life is pointless.
• You feel stuck with your debt if you can't budge it

See also

• Albur
• Alliteration
• Antanaclasis
• Auto-antonym
• dajare (puns in Japanese)
• Double entendre
• Feghoot
• Forster's Syndrome
• Humor
• Insult
• Jokes
• Letter game
• Mondegreen
• Neologism
• Polyptoton
• Witzelsucht

References

Sources

• Hempelmann, Christian F. In Mexico, an albur is a Pun or a Double entendre in which one of the possible meanings carries sexual undertones Alliteration is the repetition of the first Consonant sound in a phrase In Rhetoric, antanaclasis (from Greek antanáklasis meaning reflection echo is the stylistic trope of repeating a single word but with a different meaning An auto-antonym (or more properly autantonym) or contronym (sometimes misspelled contranym) is a word with a Homograph that is also an is a kind of comic Japanese Wordplay, similar in spirit to an English Pun relying on similarities in the pronunciation of words to create a simple Not to be confused with Puns which employ multiple phrases A double entendre is a Figure of speech similar to the Pun, in A Feghoot is a humorous short story or vignette ending in an atrocious Pun. In his book The Act of Creation (1964 Arthur Koestler reported on the phenomenon of compulsive punning known as Forster’s syndrome, after the German Humour or humor (see spelling differences) is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke Laughter and provide Amusement An insult (also called putdown) is an expression statement or behavior that is considered degrading See also Mathematics of humor A joke is a short story or ironic depiction of a situation communicated with the intent of being humorous. A letter game involves the exchange of written letters or E-mails between two or more participants A mondegreen is the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase typically a standardized phrase such as a line in a poem or a lyric in a song due to near homophony. A neologism (from Greek neo = "new" + logos = "word" is a word that although devised relatively recently in a specific time period has been Polyptoton is the stylistic scheme in which words derived from the same root are repeated (e Witzelsucht, from the German witzel ( ei) meaning pun or joke and sucht meaning addiction or yearning ( sucht derives from the same roots as Year 1984 ( MCMLXXXIV) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link displays the 1984 Gregorian calendar) (September 2004). "Script opposition and logical mechanism in punning". HUMOR - Journal of the International Association for Humor Studies 17 (4): 381–392. doi:10.1515/humr.2004.17.4.381. A digital object identifier ( DOI) is a permanent identifier given to an Electronic document.   (Access to the full text may be restricted. )

• Smyth, Herbert Weir (1920). Greek Grammar. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, p. 681. ISBN 0-674-36250-0.  

External links

• alphaDictionary's Punny Pages
• On the relative (un)translatability of puns
• An exhaustive pun site