PUNS
in the
English Language
Irma Sheryl Crespo
To pun or not to pun.
What is a pun?
ISCRESPO
Is it a
phonological word
play?
 Pun
refers to two disparate
meanings linked by a single sound.

Academic American Encyclopedia
 Pun
is created based on two words
with different spellings that have the
same pronunciation.

Encyclopedia Americana
ISCRESPO
Let’s take the
peak…
ISCRESPO
 To
a dog, the pest things in life are flea.
-Contextual and Grammatical Analysis of Puns and Punning
in the English Language
 Lord
Chief Justice: Your means are very
slender, and your waste is great.
Falstaff: I would it were otherwise; I would
my means were greater, and my waist
slenderer.
-Shakespeare, The Second Part of Henry the IV
 Why
did the cookie cry?
Because her mother has been a
wafer so long. -Pepicello and Green 1983:59
ISCRESPO
Is it a semantics
game?
A
pun is made when one word is used to
suggest two or more meanings or
applications.
Visual Puns in Design by Eli Kince
 Puns
can be created for different purposes.
They can appear as humor, insight,
sophistry, and poetry. They do not have to
be funny.
Quoted in De Bolt: 1997:39)
ISCRESPO
Let’s make it
reel…
ISCRESPO
GM’s
CHEVROLET:
 An American Revolution
FORD’S
FUSION:
 This is life. This is life on D[rive].
DAIMLER
CHRYSLER’S DODGE:
 Grab life by the horn.
TARGET:
 See
Spot. Save.
ISCRESPO
Is it a syntactical
amusement?
Puns are based on some expressions
with a restricted collocation and require
the presence of all its elements to be
understood.
 It is a structure where the usual
components of the expression are
exchanged among themselves or
replaced by words of a similar sound
taken from outside the expression, but
determined by the context.

Contextual & Grammatical Analysis of Puns
and Punning in the English Language by A. De Bolt

ISCRESPO
Components
The replaced word – part of the original
expression which is getting replaced
 A replacing word - a word of a similar sound
determined by the context that starts functioning
as part of the expression
 The remaining elements – words of the
expression, which remain unchanged and
perform the role of collocates for a replaced
word

Contextual & Grammatical Analysis of Puns
and Punning in the English Language by A. De Bolt

ISCRESPO
Let’s see it in the
wring…
ISCRESPO
 “Where
have you been?”, asked his
wife. “Out walking the dog,” he said,
“looking for the old familiar feces.”
 Artificial
snow produces snow fakes.
 “A
group of chess enthusiasts were
telling each other of their successes in a
hotel lobby. The conversation went out
of hand, the hotel manager came over
and said, “I can’t abide chess nuts
boasting in an open foyer.”
-Contextual and Grammatical Analysis of Puns and
Punning in the English Language by Arina De Bolt
ISCRESPO
Finally,it’s a
wrap…
ISCRESPO

Puns get their clout not only from the play of
sound and word meaning but also from the play
between the literal and the metaphoric.The pun
itself is the essence of two-sided language, of
controlled ambiguity, of enthusiastic contradiction.
-Puns, Public Discourse & Post Modernism
by Brock Hausseman

-
Punning is everywhere. It is for:
Play
Effect
Poetic device
Subtlety
Attention and memorability
Critical thinking
ISCRESPO
An Addendum…
Let’s
play the popular MELD Puns!
 A Meld Pun is a word consisting
of two or more lexical units of the
same or similar sounds, which
synthesizes the meanings of
both words.
 Example:
What is pun + funny?
It’s punny.
ISCRESPO
1
H A P
2
P
Y
C H O
O
R
K
I
N
G
N D R
ACROSS:
1. A satisfied patient is
a____.
4. A college marriage course
is a_____.
A C
3
E
4
W E
P
L
O
M
A

I
D U C A 5T
I
O N
H
Y
M
E
L
Y

DOWN:
2. Five thousand pigs can be kept
in a ____ lot.
3. You get a ____ when you
graduate from a diving
school.
5. Critiques called a book on
herbs____.
ISCRESPO
References
BOOKS
 De Bolt, Arina A 1997. Contextual and Grammatical Analysis of Puns and
Punning in the English Language, Mount Pleasant: Central Michigan University.
 Glenn, Phillip J; LeBaron, Curtis D;Mandelbaum, Jenny Eds. 2003. Studies in
Language and Social Interaction,Mahwah:Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
 Hempelmann, Christian 2003. Paronomasic Target Recoverability Towards
Automatic Generation, Purdue University.
 Kince, Eli 1982. Visual Puns in Design, New York: Watson-Guptill Publications.
 Moger, Art 1979. The Complete Pun Book, Secaucus: Citadel Press.
 Redfern, Walter 1985. Puns, Oxford/New York: Basil Blackwell Inc.
ARTICLES
 Haussamen,Brock 1997. Puns, Public Discourse and Postmodernism, Visible
Language, Vol. 31-1. 53-61.
 Heller, Louis 1983. Puns, Ironies(Plural) and Other Type-4 Patterns, Poetics
Today, Vol. 4 –3. 437-449.
 Tanaka, Keiko 1992. The Pun in Advertising: A Pragmatic Approach, Lingua
87,91-102.
 McCullough, Lynette; Taylor, Ronald 1993. Humor in American, British, and
German Ads, Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 22. 17-28.
ISCRESPO
THE END
ISCRESPO