Homophonic " A homophonic pun is one that uses word pairs which sound alike (
homophones) but are not synonymous. Walter Redfern summarized 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
Cold War era 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 in the anti-war slogan "
Give Peace a Chance".
Homographic A
homographic pun exploits words that are spelled the same (
homographs) but possess different meanings and sounds. Because of their origin, 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 that 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 (a
string instrument), and (a
kind of fish). Homographic puns do not necessarily need to follow grammatical rules and often do not make sense when interpreted outside the context of the pun.
Homonymic one into the other.
Homonymic puns, another common type, arise from the exploitation of words that 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 that 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.
Compounded A compound pun is a statement that contains two or more puns. In this case, the wordplay cannot go into effect by utilizing the separate words or phrases of the puns that make up the entire statement. 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. Similarly, the phrase "piano is not my forte" links two meanings of the words
forte and
piano, one for the dynamic markings in music and the second for the literal meaning of the sentence, as well as alluding to "pianoforte", the older name of the instrument. Compound puns may also combine two phrases that share a word. For example, "Where do
mathematicians go on weekends? To a Möbius strip club!" puns on the terms
Möbius strip and
strip club.
Recursive 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". The recursive pun "Immanuel doesn't pun, he
Kant" is attributed to
Oscar Wilde.
Mark Elvin describes how this "peculiarly Chinese form of visual punning involved comparing written characters to objects". Visual puns on the bearer's name are used extensively as forms of heraldic expression, they are called
canting arms. They have been used for centuries across Europe and have even been used recently by members of the
British royal family, such as on the arms of
Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and of
Princess Beatrice of York. The arms of U.S. Presidents
Theodore Roosevelt and
Dwight D. Eisenhower are also
canting. In the context of non-phonetic texts,
4 Pics 1 Word, is an example of visual paronomasia where the players are supposed to identify the word in common from the set of four images.
Paronomastic Paronomasia is the formal term for punning, playing with words to create humorous or rhetorical effect. Paronomastic puns often manipulate well-known
idioms,
proverbs, or phrases to deliver a punned twist. The classic structure of a joke, with a setup leading to a punchline, is a common format for paronomastic puns, where the punchline alters the expected phrase in a way that plays on multiple meanings of a word. For instance, in the sentence "I used to be a baker, but I couldn't make enough dough", the word "dough" is used paronomastically to refer both to the substance used to make bread and to slang for money. This type of pun is frequently used in
advertisements,
comedy, and
literature to provide a clever and memorable message. One notable example comes from an advertising slogan for a moving company: "We don't charge an arm and a leg. We want your tows." Here, the familiar phrase "an arm and a leg" is paronomastically punned upon with "tows", playing on the phonetic similarity to "toes" while referring to the company's service of towing belongings.
Metonymic Metonymic puns exploit the
metonymic relationship between words – where a word or phrase is used to represent something it's closely associated with. In such puns, one term is substituted for another term with which it's closely linked by a concept or idea. The humor or wit of the pun often comes from the unexpected yet apt connection made between the two concepts. For instance, consider a hypothetical news headline: "The White House loses its balance." In this case, "The White House" is used metonymically to represent the
U.S. government, and "balance" could be interpreted both as physical stability (as if the building itself is tipping over) or fiscal balance (as in the budget), thereby creating a pun. While metonymic puns may not be as widely recognized as a specific category of pun, they represent a sophisticated linguistic tool that can bring an additional layer of nuance to wordplay.
Sylleptic/heteronymic Syllepsis, or heteronymy, is a form of punning where a single word simultaneously affects the rest of the sentence, while it changes the meaning of the idiom it is used in. This form of punning uses the word in its literal and metaphorical senses at once, creating a surprising and often humorous effect. An example of a sylleptic pun is in the sentence "She lowered her standards by raising her glass, her courage, her eyes and his hopes." In this case, "raising" applies in different ways to each of the items listed, creating a series of linked puns. This type of punning can often be seen in literature, particularly in works that play extensively with language. (She razed his self-esteem in how she raised the children.) Notable practitioners of the sylleptic pun include authors such as
P. G. Wodehouse, who once wrote: "If not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled", playing on the
dichotomy of "disgruntled" and "gruntled", where the latter is not typically used.
Antanaclasistic Antanaclasis is a type of pun where a single word or phrase is repeated, but the meaning changes each time. The humor or wit derives from the surprising shift in meaning of a familiar word or phrase. This form of punning often relies on homophones, homonyms, or simply the contextual flexibility of a word or phrase. A classic example is
Benjamin Franklin's statement "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." In this quote, the word "hang" is first used to mean "stay" or "work together", but then, it is repeated with the meaning "be executed". This punning style is prevalent in both humorous and serious contexts, adding layers of complexity to the language by highlighting the multifaceted nature of words. Such puns are frequently used in literature, speeches, and advertising to deliver memorable and impactful lines.
Other Richard J. Alexander notes two additional forms that puns may take: graphological (sometimes called visual) puns, such as
concrete poetry; and
morphological puns, such as
portmanteaux. Morphological puns may make use of
rebracketing, where for instance
distressed is parsed as
dis-tressed (having hair cut off), or in the
self-referential pun "I entered ten puns in a pun competition hoping one would win, but no pun in ten did" (parsed as "no pun intended"). == Use ==