“Pun, n. A form of wit, to which wise men stoop and fools aspire.” — Ambrose Bierce
This time around we’ll be examining paronomasia, which, according to Wikipedia, is “a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect.” In other words, today we’ll be looking at puns.
While most puns are fun, and to me, bad puns are even funner (yes, “funner” is an actual word), there is also a more serious side to the art of punning, which is what we’ll be looking at this time. But don’t worry, we’ll also look at plenty of puns, some of which will be bad enough to make you roll your eyes and groan out loud. I hope.
According to Masterclass.com, there are five different types of puns. The first is what’s called a homophonic pun, which uses homonyms —words that sound the same or similar but have different meanings — to achieve its punnyness.
The punchline of a homophonic pun is in the double meaning of a word, as in the old saying, “You can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish.” Some other classics are: “It’s so wet in England because many kings and queens have reigned there,” and “Seven days without laughter makes one weak.”
Homographic puns, on the other hand, are plays on words that are spelled the same, but have a double meaning (or more). For that reason, homographic puns are also called heteronymic (“same name”) puns. They’re funny because they’re true in both interpretations of the word, and are often best understood when read. For instance: “Why didn’t the kleptomaniac understand puns? Because he took everything literally.”
Some other good examples include: “Every calendar’s days are numbered.” And: “Being in politics is like playing golf: You’re trapped in one bad lie after another.” And: “If you fail to pay your exorcist, you’ll be repossessed.”
A compound pun contains more than one pun in the same sentence and can be either homophonic, homographic or both. For instance, “Animals in the jungle are very honest because cheetahs are always spotted.” One website offers up the old Groucho Marx line about how “time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana,” as an example of a compound pun because it makes use of the two different meanings of “flies” and “like.”
Then there is the visual pun, which, ironically, I’ll have to describe. Obviously a visual pun does not use phonetic writing but employs the use of imagery, graphics or logos to make its twisted point. Two of my favorites are the chalk outline of a dog on a sidewalk to represent the slightly annoyed exclamation “doggone,” and the symbol “Π” carved into a pumpkin for “pumpkin pie.”
Finally, the fifth type of pun is the recursive pun. It is a two-part pun in which one needs to understand the first part of the pun in order for the second part to make sense. The example usually given for this one explains that you have to know the saying “May the force be with you” in order to understand that May the 4th is Star Wars Day. Also you’d have to understand the significance of the number 3.14 to get that March 14 is National Pi Day.
I think we’ve had enough pun for one day.
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