Pun
Encyclopedia
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play
which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetoric
al effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic
, homograph
ic, metonymic
, or metaphor
ical language. A pun differs from a malapropism
in that a malapropism uses an incorrect expression that alludes to another (usually correct) expression, but a pun uses a correct expression that alludes to another (sometimes correct but more often absurdly humorous) expression. Henri Bergson
defined a pun as a sentence or utterance in which "two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are confronted with only one series of words". Puns may be regarded as in-jokes or idiomatic constructions, given that their usage and meaning are entirely local to a particular language and its culture.
For example, camping is intense (in tents).
Puns are used to create humor and sometimes require a large vocabulary to understand. Puns have long been used by comedy writers, such as William Shakespeare
, Oscar Wilde
, and George Carlin
. The Roman playwright Plautus
is famous for his tendency to make up and change the meaning of words to create puns in Latin
.
The homophonic pun, a common type, uses word pairs which sound alike (homophones) but are not synonymous. Walter Redfern exemplified this type with his statement "To pun is to treat homonyms as synonyms". For example, in George Carlin
's phrase "Atheism is a non-prophet institution", the word "prophet
" is put in place of its homophone "profit
", altering the common phrase "non-profit institution
". Similarly, the joke "Question: Why do we still have troops in Germany? Answer: To keep the Russians in Czech
" relies on the aural ambiguity of the homophones "check
" and "Czech
". Often, puns are not strictly homophonic, but play on words of similar, not identical, sound as in the example from the "Pinky and the Brain" cartoon film series: "I think so, Brain, but if we give peas a chance, won't the lima beans feel left out?" which plays with the similar - but not identical - sound of "peas" and "peace"..
A homographic pun exploits words which are spelled the same (homographs) but possess different meanings and sounds. Because of their nature, they rely on sight more than hearing, contrary to homophonic puns. They are also known as heteronymic puns. Examples in which the punned words typically exist in two different parts of speech often rely on unusual sentence construction, as in the anecdote: "When asked to explain his large number of children, the pig answered simply: 'The wild oats of my sow gave us many piglets.' " An example which combines homophonic and homographic punning is Douglas Adams
's line "You can tune a guitar, but you can't tuna
fish. Unless of course, you play bass." The phrase uses the homophonic qualities of "tune a" and "tuna
", as well as the homographic pun on "bass", in which ambiguity is reached through the identical spellings of ˈbeɪs (a string instrument
), and ˈbæs (a kind of fish
).
Homonymic puns, another common type, arise from the exploitation of words which are both homographs and homophones. The statement "Being in politics
is just like playing golf
: you are trapped in one bad lie after another" puns on the two meanings of the word lie as "a deliberate untruth" and as "the position in which something rests". An adaptation of a joke repeated by Isaac Asimov
gives us "Did you hear about the little moron who strained himself while running into the screen door?", playing on 'strained' as "to give much effort" and "to filter". A homonymic pun may also be polysemic, in which the words must be homonymic and also possess related meanings, a condition which is often subjective. However, lexicographers define polysemes as listed under a single dictionary lemma (a unique numbered meaning) while homonyms are treated in separate lemmata.
A compound pun is a statement that contains two or more puns. For example, a complex statement by Richard Whately
includes four puns: "Why can a man never starve in the Great Desert
? Because he can eat the sand which is there. But what brought the sandwiches there? Why, Noah
sent Ham, and his descendants mustered and bred." This pun uses "sand which is there/sandwiches there, "Ham/ham", "mustered/mustard", and "bred/bread". Compound puns may also combine two phrases that share a word. For example, "Where do mathematician
s go on weekends? To a Möbius strip club!" puns on Möbius strip
and strip club
.
A recursive pun is one in which the second aspect of a pun relies on the understanding of an element in the first. For example the statement "π is only half a pie." (π radians is 180 degrees
, or half a circle, and a pie
is a complete circle
). Another example is "Infinity
is not in finity," which means infinity is not in finite range. Another example is "A Freudian slip
is when you say one thing but mean your mother
." Finally, we are given "Immanuel
doesn't pun, he Kant" by Oscar Wilde
.
Visual pun
s are used in many logos, emblems, insignia, and other graphic symbols, in which one or more of the pun aspects are replaced by a picture. In European heraldry
, this technique is called canting arms
. Visual and other puns and word games are also common in Dutch gable stone
s as well as in some cartoon
s, such as Lost Consonants
and The Far Side
.
Another type of visual pun exists in languages which use non-phonetic writing. For example, in Chinese, a pun may be based on a similarity in shape of the written character, despite a complete lack of phonetic similarity in the words punned upon. Mark Elvin
describes how this "peculiarly Chinese form of visual punning involved comparing written characters to objects."
Richard J. Alexander notes two additional forms which puns may take: graphological puns, such as concrete poetry
; and morphological
puns, such as portmanteaus.
in joke
s and comedy shows
. They are often used in the punch line
of a joke, where they typically give a humorous meaning to a rather perplexing story. These are also known as feghoot
s. Another practitioner of this art is René Goscinny
, co-creator of Asterix
. The following example comes from the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
, though the punchline stems from far older Vaudeville
roots. The final line puns on the stock phrase "the lesser of two evils
".
Puns often are used in the titles of comedic parodies
. A parody of a popular song, movie, etc., may be given a title that hints at the title of the work being parodied, substituting some of the words with ones that sound or look similar. Such a title can immediately communicate both that what follows is a parody and also which work is about to be parodied, making any further "setup" (introductory explanation) unnecessary.
literature. Puns and other forms of word play have been used by many famous writers, such as Alexander Pope
, James Joyce
, Vladimir Nabokov
, Robert Bloch
, Lewis Carroll
, John Donne
, and William Shakespeare
, who is estimated to have used over 3,000 puns in his plays
.
Here is an example from Shakespeare's Richard III
:
Shakespeare was also noted for his frequent play with less serious puns, the "quibbles" of the sort that made Samuel Johnson
complain, "A quibble is to Shakespeare what luminous vapours are to the traveller! He follows it to all adventures; it is sure to lead him out of his way, sure to engulf him in the mire. It has some malignant power over his mind, and its fascinations are irresistible." Elsewhere, Johnson disparagingly referred to punning as "the lowest form of humour".
In the poem A Hymn to God the Father, John Donne
, married to Anne More, reportedly puns repeatedly: "Son/sun" in the second quoted line, and two compound puns on "Donne/done" and "More/more". All three are homophonic, with the puns on "more" being both homographic and capitonym
ic. The ambiguities serve to introduce several possible meanings into the verses.
Many restaurant and shop names use puns: Cane & Able
mobility healthcare, Tiecoon tie shop, Planet of the Grapes
wine and spirits, as do books, such as Pies and Prejudice, comics (YU+ME: dream) and films (Good Will Hunting
). The Japan
ese anime
Speed Racer
's original title, Mach GoGoGo! refers to the English word itself, the Japanese word for five (the Mach 5's car number), and the name of the show's main character, Go Mifune.
Names of characters also often carry puns, such as Ash Ketchum
and Goku ("kakarot"), the protagonists of the anime series Pokémon
and Dragonball, respectively, both franchises which are known for including second meanings in the names of many of their characters. A recurring motif in the Austin Powers
films repeatedly puns on names which suggest male genitalia. In the science fiction
television series Star Trek
, "B-4" is used as the name of one of four androids models constructed "before" the android Data
, a main character.
The parallel sequel The Lion King 1½
advertised with the phrase "You haven't seen the 1/2 of it!". Wyborowa Vodka
employed the slogan "Enjoyed for centuries straight", while Northern Telecom used "Technology the world calls on."
. While puns are often simple wordplay for comedic or rhetorical effect, a double entendre alludes to a second meaning which is not contained within the statement or phrase itself, often one which purposefully disguises the second meaning. As both exploit the use of intentional double meanings, puns can sometimes be double entendres, and vice versa. Puns also bear similarities with paraprosdokian
, syllepsis and eggcorn
s. In addition, homographic puns are sometimes compared to the stylistic device
antanaclasis
, and homophonic puns to polyptoton
.
puns rely on the contrast between precise technical and imprecise informal definitions of the same word. In statistical
contexts, for example, the word significant is usually assumed to mean "statistically significant", which has a precisely defined technical meaning. Using significant with the layperson meaning "of practical significance" in such contexts would qualify as punning, such as the webcomic
xkcd
's double pun "statistically significant other
".
In formal linguistics
, puns can often be found embedded within the etymological meaning or usage of words, which in turn may be buried over time and unknown to native speakers. Puns may also be found in syntax
, where morphological
constructions have derived from what may have originally been humorous word play, slang, or otherwise idiosyncratic word usage.
In computing
, esoteric programming languages (EPLs) are based in or contain what may be regarded as conceptual puns, as they typically misuse common programming concepts in ways which are absurd, or functionally useless. Some EPL puns may be obvious, such as in the usage of text images, while other puns are highly conceptual and understandable to experts only.
In computer science
, the term type punning
refers to a programming technique that subverts or circumvents the type system
of a programming language
, by allowing a value of a certain type to be manipulated as a value of a different type.
In China, Shen Tao (ca. 300 BC) used "shih", meaning "power", and "shih", meaning "position" to say that a king has power because of his position as king.
In ancient Iraq, about 2500 BC, punning was used by scribes to represent words in cuneiform
.
The Maya are known for having using puns in their hieroglyphic writing, and for using them in their modern languages.
In Japan, "graphomania" was one type of pun.
Word play
Word play or wordplay is a literary technique in which the words that are used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement...
which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetoric
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
al effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic
Homophone
A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too. Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms...
, homograph
Homograph
A homograph is a word or a group of words that share the same written form but have different meanings. When spoken, the meanings may be distinguished by different pronunciations, in which case the words are also heteronyms. Words with the same writing and pronunciation A homograph (from the ,...
ic, metonymic
Metonymy
Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept...
, or metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
ical language. A pun differs from a malapropism
Malapropism
A malapropism is an act of misusing or the habitual misuse of similar sounding words, especially with humorous results. An example is Yogi Berra's statement: "Texas has a lot of electrical votes," rather than "electoral votes".-Etymology:...
in that a malapropism uses an incorrect expression that alludes to another (usually correct) expression, but a pun uses a correct expression that alludes to another (sometimes correct but more often absurdly humorous) expression. Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize...
defined a pun as a sentence or utterance in which "two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are confronted with only one series of words". Puns may be regarded as in-jokes or idiomatic constructions, given that their usage and meaning are entirely local to a particular language and its culture.
For example, camping is intense (in tents).
Puns are used to create humor and sometimes require a large vocabulary to understand. Puns have long been used by comedy writers, such as William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, and George Carlin
George Carlin
George Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums....
. The Roman playwright Plautus
Plautus
Titus Maccius Plautus , commonly known as "Plautus", was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus...
is famous for his tendency to make up and change the meaning of words to create puns in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
.
Typology
Puns can be classified in various ways:The homophonic pun, a common type, uses word pairs which sound alike (homophones) but are not synonymous. Walter Redfern exemplified this type with his statement "To pun is to treat homonyms as synonyms". For example, in George Carlin
George Carlin
George Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums....
's phrase "Atheism is a non-prophet institution", the word "prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
" is put in place of its homophone "profit
Profit (disambiguation)
Profit may refer to:* Profit , the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market* Profit , has two related but distinct meanings: Normal profit and Economic profit...
", altering the common phrase "non-profit institution
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
". Similarly, the joke "Question: Why do we still have troops in Germany? Answer: To keep the Russians in Czech
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
" relies on the aural ambiguity of the homophones "check
Check
Check may refer to* A small crack in the glass, also known as a check, in the glass container industry* Cheque , an order for transfer of money* Check box, a type of widget in computing...
" and "Czech
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
". Often, puns are not strictly homophonic, but play on words of similar, not identical, sound as in the example from the "Pinky and the Brain" cartoon film series: "I think so, Brain, but if we give peas a chance, won't the lima beans feel left out?" which plays with the similar - but not identical - sound of "peas" and "peace"..
A homographic pun exploits words which are spelled the same (homographs) but possess different meanings and sounds. Because of their nature, they rely on sight more than hearing, contrary to homophonic puns. They are also known as heteronymic puns. Examples in which the punned words typically exist in two different parts of speech often rely on unusual sentence construction, as in the anecdote: "When asked to explain his large number of children, the pig answered simply: 'The wild oats of my sow gave us many piglets.' " An example which combines homophonic and homographic punning is Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
's line "You can tune a guitar, but you can't tuna
Tuna
Tuna is a salt water fish from the family Scombridae, mostly in the genus Thunnus. Tuna are fast swimmers, and some species are capable of speeds of . Unlike most fish, which have white flesh, the muscle tissue of tuna ranges from pink to dark red. The red coloration derives from myoglobin, an...
fish. Unless of course, you play bass." The phrase uses the homophonic qualities of "tune a" and "tuna
Tuna
Tuna is a salt water fish from the family Scombridae, mostly in the genus Thunnus. Tuna are fast swimmers, and some species are capable of speeds of . Unlike most fish, which have white flesh, the muscle tissue of tuna ranges from pink to dark red. The red coloration derives from myoglobin, an...
", as well as the homographic pun on "bass", in which ambiguity is reached through the identical spellings of ˈbeɪs (a string instrument
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
), and ˈbæs (a kind of fish
Bass (fish)
Bass is a name shared by many different species of popular gamefish. The term encompasses both freshwater and marine species. All belong to the large order Perciformes, or perch-like fishes, and in fact the word bass comes from Middle English bars, meaning "perch."-Types of basses:*The temperate...
).
Homonymic puns, another common type, arise from the exploitation of words which are both homographs and homophones. The statement "Being in politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
is just like playing golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
: you are trapped in one bad lie after another" puns on the two meanings of the word lie as "a deliberate untruth" and as "the position in which something rests". An adaptation of a joke repeated by Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
gives us "Did you hear about the little moron who strained himself while running into the screen door?", playing on 'strained' as "to give much effort" and "to filter". A homonymic pun may also be polysemic, in which the words must be homonymic and also possess related meanings, a condition which is often subjective. However, lexicographers define polysemes as listed under a single dictionary lemma (a unique numbered meaning) while homonyms are treated in separate lemmata.
A compound pun is a statement that contains two or more puns. For example, a complex statement by Richard Whately
Richard Whately
Richard Whately was an English rhetorician, logician, economist, and theologian who also served as the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin.-Life and times:...
includes four puns: "Why can a man never starve in the Great Desert
Sahara
The Sahara is the world's second largest desert, after Antarctica. At over , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as Europe or the United States. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean...
? Because he can eat the sand which is there. But what brought the sandwiches there? Why, Noah
Noah
Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...
sent Ham, and his descendants mustered and bred." This pun uses "sand which is there/sandwiches there, "Ham/ham", "mustered/mustard", and "bred/bread". Compound puns may also combine two phrases that share a word. For example, "Where do mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
s go on weekends? To a Möbius strip club!" puns on Möbius strip
Möbius strip
The Möbius strip or Möbius band is a surface with only one side and only one boundary component. The Möbius strip has the mathematical property of being non-orientable. It can be realized as a ruled surface...
and strip club
Strip club
A strip club is an adult entertainment venue in which striptease or other erotic or exotic dance is regularly performed. Strip clubs typically adopt a nightclub or bar style, but can also adopt a theatre or cabaret-style....
.
A recursive pun is one in which the second aspect of a pun relies on the understanding of an element in the first. For example the statement "π is only half a pie." (π radians is 180 degrees
Degree (angle)
A degree , usually denoted by ° , is a measurement of plane angle, representing 1⁄360 of a full rotation; one degree is equivalent to π/180 radians...
, or half a circle, and a pie
Pie
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....
is a complete circle
Circle
A circle is a simple shape of Euclidean geometry consisting of those points in a plane that are a given distance from a given point, the centre. The distance between any of the points and the centre is called the radius....
). Another example is "Infinity
Infinity
Infinity is a concept in many fields, most predominantly mathematics and physics, that refers to a quantity without bound or end. People have developed various ideas throughout history about the nature of infinity...
is not in finity," which means infinity is not in finite range. Another example is "A Freudian slip
Freudian slip
A Freudian slip, also called parapraxis, is an error in speech, memory, or physical action that is interpreted as occurring due to the interference of some unconscious , subdued, wish, conflict, or train of thought...
is when you say one thing but mean your mother
Oedipus complex
In psychoanalytic theory, the term Oedipus complex denotes the emotions and ideas that the mind keeps in the unconscious, via dynamic repression, that concentrate upon a boy’s desire to sexually possess his mother, and kill his father...
." Finally, we are given "Immanuel
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
doesn't pun, he Kant" by Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
.
Visual pun
Visual pun
A visual pun is a pun involving an image or images .Visual puns in which the image is at odds with the inscription are common in Dutch gable stones as well as in cartoons such as Lost Consonants or The Far Side...
s are used in many logos, emblems, insignia, and other graphic symbols, in which one or more of the pun aspects are replaced by a picture. In European heraldry
Heraldry
Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...
, this technique is called canting arms
Canting arms
Canting arms are heraldic bearings that represent the bearer's name in a visual pun or rebus. The term cant came into the English language from Anglo-Norman cant, meaning song or singing, from Latin cantāre, and English cognates include canticle, chant, accent, incantation and recant.Canting arms –...
. Visual and other puns and word games are also common in Dutch gable stone
Gable stone
Gable stones are carved and often colourfully painted stone tablets, which are set into the walls of buildings, usually at about 4 metres from the ground. They serve both to identify and embellish the building...
s as well as in some cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
s, such as Lost Consonants
Lost Consonants
Lost Consonants is a comic collage series made by Faculty of Arts lecturer Graham Rawle , appearing in Britain's Guardian and Observer newspapers, where a single consonant is missing from a normal sentence, creating a humorous effect.For example, the proverb "A bird in the hand is worth two in the...
and The Far Side
The Far Side
The Far Side is a popular single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate, which ran from January 1, 1980, to January 1, 1995. Its surrealistic humor is often based on uncomfortable social situations, improbable events, an anthropomorphic view of the world,...
.
Another type of visual pun exists in languages which use non-phonetic writing. For example, in Chinese, a pun may be based on a similarity in shape of the written character, despite a complete lack of phonetic similarity in the words punned upon. Mark Elvin
Mark Elvin
Mark Elvin is a professor emeritus of Chinese history at Australian National University, specializing in the late imperial period.He is famous for his high level equilibrium trap theory to explain why an industrial revolution happened in Europe but not in China, despite the fact that the state of...
describes how this "peculiarly Chinese form of visual punning involved comparing written characters to objects."
Richard J. Alexander notes two additional forms which puns may take: graphological puns, such as concrete poetry
Concrete poetry
Concrete poetry or shape poetry is poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on....
; and morphological
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
puns, such as portmanteaus.
Comedy and jokes
Puns are a common source of humourHumour
Humour or humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement...
in joke
Joke
A joke is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices...
s and comedy shows
Stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...
. They are often used in the punch line
Punch line
A punch line is the final part of a joke, comedy sketch, or profound statement, usually the word, sentence or exchange of sentences which is intended to be funny or to provoke laughter or thought from listeners...
of a joke, where they typically give a humorous meaning to a rather perplexing story. These are also known as feghoot
Feghoot
A story pun is a humorous short story or vignette ending in an atrocious pun where the story contains sufficient context to recognize the punning humor...
s. Another practitioner of this art is René Goscinny
René Goscinny
René Goscinny was a French comics editor and writer, who is best known for the comic book Astérix, which he created with illustrator Albert Uderzo, and for his work on the comic series Lucky Luke with Morris and Iznogoud with Jean Tabary.-Early life:Goscinny was born in Paris in 1926, to a family...
, co-creator of Asterix
Asterix
Asterix or The Adventures of Asterix is a series of French comic books written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo . The series first appeared in French in the magazine Pilote on October 29, 1959...
. The following example comes from the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is a 2003 film directed by Peter Weir, starring Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey, with Paul Bettany as Stephen Maturin and released by 20th Century Fox, Miramax Films and Universal Studios...
, though the punchline stems from far older Vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
roots. The final line puns on the stock phrase "the lesser of two evils
Lesser of two evils principle
The lesser evil or lesser of two evils principle is the idea in politics and political science that of two bad choices, one isn't as bad as the other, and should be chosen over the one that is a greater threat....
".
-
- Captain Aubrey: "Do you see those two weevilWeevilA weevil is any beetle from the Curculionoidea superfamily. They are usually small, less than , and herbivorous. There are over 60,000 species in several families, mostly in the family Curculionidae...
s, Doctor?...Which would you choose?" - Dr. Maturin: "Neither. There's not a scrap of difference between them. They're the same species of CurculioCurculioCurculio is a genus of weevils belonging the family Curculionidae and subfamily Curculioninae, including about 30 species worldwide. It includes nut weevils that infest the seeds of trees such as oaks and hickories. The adult female weevil bores a tiny hole in the immature nut to lay her eggs,...
." - 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 ServiceRoyal NavyThe Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
, one must always choose the lesser of two weevils?"
- Captain Aubrey: "Do you see those two weevil
Puns often are used in the titles of comedic parodies
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
. A parody of a popular song, movie, etc., may be given a title that hints at the title of the work being parodied, substituting some of the words with ones that sound or look similar. Such a title can immediately communicate both that what follows is a parody and also which work is about to be parodied, making any further "setup" (introductory explanation) unnecessary.
Literature
Non-humorous puns were and are a standard rhetorical and poetic device in EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
literature. Puns and other forms of word play have been used by many famous writers, such as Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
, James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
, Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
, Robert Bloch
Robert Bloch
Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock...
, Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
, John Donne
John Donne
John Donne 31 March 1631), English poet, satirist, lawyer, and priest, is now considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are notable for their strong and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs,...
, and William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, who is estimated to have used over 3,000 puns in his plays
Shakespeare's plays
William Shakespeare's plays have the reputation of being among the greatest in the English language and in Western literature. Traditionally, the 37 plays are divided into the genres of tragedy, history, and comedy; they have been translated into every major living language, in addition to being...
.
Here is an example from Shakespeare's Richard III
Richard III (play)
Richard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591. It depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of Richard III of England. The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified...
:
-
- "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York" (Son/sun)
Shakespeare was also noted for his frequent play with less serious puns, the "quibbles" of the sort that made Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
complain, "A quibble is to Shakespeare what luminous vapours are to the traveller! He follows it to all adventures; it is sure to lead him out of his way, sure to engulf him in the mire. It has some malignant power over his mind, and its fascinations are irresistible." Elsewhere, Johnson disparagingly referred to punning as "the lowest form of humour".
In the poem A Hymn to God the Father, John Donne
John Donne
John Donne 31 March 1631), English poet, satirist, lawyer, and priest, is now considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are notable for their strong and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs,...
, married to Anne More, reportedly puns repeatedly: "Son/sun" in the second quoted line, and two compound puns on "Donne/done" and "More/more". All three are homophonic, with the puns on "more" being both homographic and capitonym
Capitonym
A capitonym is a word that changes its meaning when it is capitalized, and usually applies to capitalization due to proper nouns or eponyms. It is a portmanteau of the word capital with the suffix -onym. A capitonym is a form of homograph and – when the two forms are pronounced differently – also...
ic. The ambiguities serve to introduce several possible meanings into the verses.
-
- "When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done / For I have more.
- that at my death Thy Son / Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore
- And having done that, Thou hast done; / I fear no more."
Designation
Like other forms of wordplay, paronomasia is occasionally used for its attention-getting or mnemonic qualities, making it common in titles and the names of places, characters, and organizations, and in advertising and slogans.Many restaurant and shop names use puns: Cane & Able
Cain and Abel
In the Hebrew Bible, Cain and Abel are two sons of Adam and Eve. The Qur'an mentions the story, calling them the two sons of Adam only....
mobility healthcare, Tiecoon tie shop, Planet of the Grapes
Planet of the Apes
La Planète des singes, known in English as Monkey Planet or Planet of the Apes, is a French 1963 science fiction novel by Pierre Boulle...
wine and spirits, as do books, such as Pies and Prejudice, comics (YU+ME: dream) and films (Good Will Hunting
Good Will Hunting
Good Will Hunting is a 1997 drama film directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Ben Affleck, Minnie Driver, and Stellan Skarsgård...
). The Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
Speed Racer
Speed Racer
Speed Racer is an English adaptation name of the Japanese manga and anime, which centered on automobile racing. Mach GoGoGo was originally serialized in print form in Shueisha's 1958 Shōnen Book, and was released in tankōbon book form by Sun Wide Comics, re-released in Japan by Fusosha...
's original title, Mach GoGoGo! refers to the English word itself, the Japanese word for five (the Mach 5's car number), and the name of the show's main character, Go Mifune.
Names of characters also often carry puns, such as Ash Ketchum
Ash Ketchum
Ash Ketchum, known as for all appearances in Japan, is a fictional character in the Pokémon franchise owned by Nintendo. He was created by, and named after, Satoshi Tajiri as the protagonist of the anime and manga series, as well as on various merchandise related to the franchise...
and Goku ("kakarot"), the protagonists of the anime series Pokémon
Pokémon
is a media franchise published and owned by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video...
and Dragonball, respectively, both franchises which are known for including second meanings in the names of many of their characters. A recurring motif in the Austin Powers
Austin Powers (film series)
The Austin Powers series is a series of action-comedy films written by and starring Mike Myers as the title character, directed by Jay Roach and distributed by New Line Cinema...
films repeatedly puns on names which suggest male genitalia. In the science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
television series Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
, "B-4" is used as the name of one of four androids models constructed "before" the android Data
Data (Star Trek)
Lieutenant Commander Data is a character in the fictional Star Trek universe portrayed by actor Brent Spiner. He appears in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and the feature films Star Trek Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek...
, a main character.
The parallel sequel The Lion King 1½
The Lion King 1½
The Lion King 1½ is a 2004 American direct-to-video animated film released by Buena Vista Home Entertainment on February 10, 2004. The film is the third installment in the Lion King series. The DVD went to the Disney Vault in January 2005...
advertised with the phrase "You haven't seen the 1/2 of it!". Wyborowa Vodka
Wyborowa
Wyborowa or Wódka Wyborowa is a brand of Polish vodka. Its production started in 1823 in a distillery owned by Jewish businessman Hartwig Kantorowicz in Poznań, then in Prussia...
employed the slogan "Enjoyed for centuries straight", while Northern Telecom used "Technology the world calls on."
Confusion and alternate uses
There exist subtle differences between paronomasia and other literary techniques, such as the double entendreDouble entendre
A double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic....
. While puns are often simple wordplay for comedic or rhetorical effect, a double entendre alludes to a second meaning which is not contained within the statement or phrase itself, often one which purposefully disguises the second meaning. As both exploit the use of intentional double meanings, puns can sometimes be double entendres, and vice versa. Puns also bear similarities with paraprosdokian
Paraprosdokian
A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax...
, syllepsis and eggcorn
Eggcorn
In linguistics, an eggcorn is an idiosyncratic substitution of a word or phrase for a word or words that sound similar or identical in the speaker's dialect. The new phrase introduces a meaning that is different from the original, but plausible in the same context, such as "old-timers' disease" for...
s. In addition, homographic puns are sometimes compared to the stylistic device
Stylistic device
In literature and writing, Stylistic Elements are the use of any of a variety of techniques to give an auxiliary meaning, idea, or feeling to the literal or written.- Figurative language :...
antanaclasis
Antanaclasis
In rhetoric, antanaclasis is the stylistic trope of repeating a single word, but with a different meaning each time. Antanaclasis is a common type of pun, and like other kinds of pun, it is often found in slogans.-Examples:...
, and homophonic puns to polyptoton
Polyptoton
Polyptoton is the stylistic scheme in which words derived from the same root are repeated . A related stylistic device is antanaclasis, in which the same word is repeated, but each time with a different sense....
.
Science and computing
ScientificScience
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
puns rely on the contrast between precise technical and imprecise informal definitions of the same word. In statistical
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
contexts, for example, the word significant is usually assumed to mean "statistically significant", which has a precisely defined technical meaning. Using significant with the layperson meaning "of practical significance" in such contexts would qualify as punning, such as the webcomic
Webcomic
Webcomics, online comics, or Internet comics are comics published on a website. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers or often in self-published books....
xkcd
Xkcd
xkcd is a webcomic created by Randall Munroe. The comic's tagline describes it as "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language." It has been recognized in such mainstream media as The Guardian and The New York Times....
's double pun "statistically significant other
Significant other
Significant other is colloquially used as a gender-blind term for a person's partner in an intimate relationship without disclosing or presuming anything about marital status, relationship status, or sexual orientation, as it is vague enough to avoid offense by using a term that an individual...
".
In formal linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, puns can often be found embedded within the etymological meaning or usage of words, which in turn may be buried over time and unknown to native speakers. Puns may also be found in syntax
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
, where morphological
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
constructions have derived from what may have originally been humorous word play, slang, or otherwise idiosyncratic word usage.
In computing
Computing
Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and improving computer hardware and software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology...
, esoteric programming languages (EPLs) are based in or contain what may be regarded as conceptual puns, as they typically misuse common programming concepts in ways which are absurd, or functionally useless. Some EPL puns may be obvious, such as in the usage of text images, while other puns are highly conceptual and understandable to experts only.
In computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
, the term type punning
Type punning
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 order to achieve an effect that would be difficult or impossible to achieve within the bounds of the formal language.In C and C++, constructs...
refers to a programming technique that subverts or circumvents the type system
Type system
A type system associates a type with each computed value. By examining the flow of these values, a type system attempts to ensure or prove that no type errors can occur...
of a programming language
Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
, by allowing a value of a certain type to be manipulated as a value of a different type.
History
Puns were found in ancient Egypt, where they were heavily used in development of myths and interpretation of dreams.In China, Shen Tao (ca. 300 BC) used "shih", meaning "power", and "shih", meaning "position" to say that a king has power because of his position as king.
In ancient Iraq, about 2500 BC, punning was used by scribes to represent words in cuneiform
Cuneiform
Cuneiform can refer to:*Cuneiform script, an ancient writing system originating in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC*Cuneiform , three bones in the human foot*Cuneiform Records, a music record label...
.
The Maya are known for having using puns in their hieroglyphic writing, and for using them in their modern languages.
In Japan, "graphomania" was one type of pun.
See also
- AlburAlburIn Mexico, an albur is a pun or a double entendre in which one of the possible meanings usually carries sexual undertones. It is very common among groups of predominately male friends; however, its use is considered rude or distasteful when not amongst friends, especially when in the presence of...
- AlliterationAlliterationIn language, alliteration refers to the repetition of a particular sound in the first syllables of Three or more words or phrases. Alliteration has historically developed largely through poetry, in which it more narrowly refers to the repetition of a consonant in any syllables that, according to...
- AntanaclasisAntanaclasisIn rhetoric, antanaclasis is the stylistic trope of repeating a single word, but with a different meaning each time. Antanaclasis is a common type of pun, and like other kinds of pun, it is often found in slogans.-Examples:...
- Auto-antonymAuto-antonymAn auto-antonym , or contranym , is a word with a homograph that is also an antonym...
- DajareDajareis a kind of comic Japanese word play, similar in spirit to pun relying on similarities in the pronunciation of words to create a simple joke.Dajare are popular in advertising...
- Double entendreDouble entendreA double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic....
- EggcornEggcornIn linguistics, an eggcorn is an idiosyncratic substitution of a word or phrase for a word or words that sound similar or identical in the speaker's dialect. The new phrase introduces a meaning that is different from the original, but plausible in the same context, such as "old-timers' disease" for...
- FeghootFeghootA story pun is a humorous short story or vignette ending in an atrocious pun where the story contains sufficient context to recognize the punning humor...
- MalapropismMalapropismA malapropism is an act of misusing or the habitual misuse of similar sounding words, especially with humorous results. An example is Yogi Berra's statement: "Texas has a lot of electrical votes," rather than "electoral votes".-Etymology:...
- MondegreenMondegreenA mondegreen is the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase as a result of near homophony, in a way that gives it a new meaning. It most commonly is applied to a line in a poem or a lyric in a song...
- ParaprosdokianParaprosdokianA paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax...
- PolyptotonPolyptotonPolyptoton is the stylistic scheme in which words derived from the same root are repeated . A related stylistic device is antanaclasis, in which the same word is repeated, but each time with a different sense....
- Satiric misspelling
- Syllepsis
Further reading
- Pollack, John, The Pun Also Rises: How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History, and Made Wordplay More Than Some Antics, Penguin, 2011