Linguistic Humor, and
Language Play
by Don L. F. Nilsen and
Alleen Pace Nilsen
1
A Pun and a Polish Joke:
2
The Semi-Colon
3
Double Vision:
Kale Fish
• We usually need to be
surprised to find
something funny.
• In texts that have two
contradictory
meanings, our minds
are happily surprised to
resolve the “problem”
by figuring out that it is
an intentional joke as
with these vegetables
cut to look like animals.
4
Egg Plant Penguins
5
Green Pepper Frogs
This kind of creative art
work is frequently
posted online where it
serves not only as
amusement, but also as
inspiration for others to
create their own visual
puns and examples of
incongruous imagery
that will bring smiles to
viewers.
6
ALLUSION
• “Allusion” is the noun form of the English
verb “to allude.”
• “Allude” comes from Latin “ad-” plus
“ludere” meaning “to play.”
• Modern English is filled with allusions,
thanks partly to modern media, where
“instant” allusions can be puffed out in
readers’ or listeners’ minds to full stories.
7
JIMINY CRICKET AS AN ALLUSION
• The expression “By Jiminy” used to be a swear
word. In fact it was a double swearword, because it
was swearing by the constellation “Gemini” which
represented the twins (Castor and Pollux) from
Greek mythology.
• Americans, who were not as familiar with Greek
mythology, changed the expression to “Jiminy
Christmas” and later to “Jiminy Cricket” after the
Walt Disney version of Carlo Collodi’s 1882 The
Adventures of Pinocchio.
8
Jiminy Cricket
9
• In Collodi’s original Pinocchio there is a “talking
cricket,” who offers advice to the naughty little
puppet who has miraculously been changed into a
boy. However, the boy doesn’t like taking advice
and throws a hammer, killing the cricket.
• The cricket’s ghost later appears as a minor
character, but it was the genius of the Walt Disney
makers of the 1940 Pinocchio film, to name the
cricket and give him a major role as the little boy’s
conscience.
• What better conscience could one have than
someone with the same initials as Jesus Christ?
10
The Humor in Confused
Allusions
• Comedian Michael Davis juggled with
the ax that George Washington had
used to chop down the cherry tree.
• “However,” he explained, “I did have to
replace the handle,” ………..
• “and the head.”
11
• On the “George Burns and Gracie Allen”
television show, Gracie often got her
allusions wrong.
• GEORGE: If you keep saying funny things,
people are going to laugh at you.
• GRACIE: That’s OK. Look at Joan of Arc.
People laughed at her, but she went ahead
and built it anyway.
12
George Burns and Gracie Allen
13
ANTITHESIS = opposite
concepts being connected in a
surprising way
• A MasterCard advertisement showed a picture of a
tall man looking at a shirt. The caption read, “You
found a 50 long. But you’re $17 short.”
• The World Book Encyclopedia ran a summertime
advertising campaign under the slogan, “Schools
are closed…Minds are open.”
• The Hoover Company advertised its irons with “The
iron with the bottom that makes it tops.”
14
CHIASMUS = Words repeated in
inverted order
• Mae West said, “It’s not the men in my life that
count; it’s the life in my men.”
• A bumper sticker reads, “Aging is a matter of mind:
If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”
• Another bumper sticker reads, “Marijuana is not a
question of “Hi, how are you” but of “How high are
you?”
• A one-liner that is popular around tax time reads,
“The IRS: We’ve got what it takes to take what
you’ve got.”
15
CLIPPING
16
EPONYMY= Applying the name of a real
or a mythical person to new uses
• During the first Gulf War, American soldiers complained
about JOHNNY WEISSMULLER showers where the cold
water made them scream like Tarzan.
• When the wealthy Ross Perot was running for president,
he was accused of hold the DADDY WARBUCKS theory
of presidential qualifications.
• When a report stated that over 500 out of the 700
shooting incidents in which Los Angeles police were
involved between 1987 and 1994 were potentially lifethreatening mistakes, the officers were said to have
succumbed to the JOHN WAYNE syndrome.
17
More Playful Eponyms
Based on “generic” first names:
Lazy Susan
To Peter out
Great Scot
By George
Rhyming names:
Even Steven
Flap Jack
Ready for Freddie
Alliteration:
Gloomy Gus
Dumb Dora
Nervous Nellie
Assonance:
Alibi Ike
Long Johns
Fancy Dan
Sneaky Pete
Screaming Meemie
18
Lazy Susan: Another Eponym
19
The Common Name Joe is Probably the
“Mother of all Eponyms”
Older Examples
• Joe Six-Pack
• Good Old Joe
• Joe Blow
• Joe Schmo
• G.I. Joe (from
“General Issue”) for a
soldier.
• Holy Joe for an army
Newer Examples
• Joe (or J.) Random
Hacker for a computer
whiz
• Joe College for a
student
• Joe Camel for the
controversial cartoon
character that sold
Camel cigarettes.
chaplain
20
Irony: Chuckles is
not a happy clown. Neither is Paglacci
21
Metaphor: “Raining Cats and Dogs”
This saying originated when
London had such poor
sewer drainage that in city
streets small animals could
easily drown.
After a heavy rainstorm,
dead cats and dogs were
lying in the gutters.
Today it is just a humorous
kind of exaggeration.
22
“Dog Tags”
• Soldiers in the
military are required
to wear dog tags.
• As with dogs, these
tags helped to
identify soldiers
who might be
unable to speak.
23
METONYMY = Being named for an
associated quality
This full-page ad in USA
Today was protesting a
decision made by Direct
TV to no longer offer
Nickelodeon, as well as
other channels.
What different kinds of
metonymy are related to
the word “Square?”
24
Metonymy in the Names of
Antique Shops
• Another Fine Mess
• As You Were
These include the
owners’ names:
• Suzantiques
• The Collected Works
• Fourscore and More
• A Touch of Glass
• Shair’s Wares
• Young’s Oldies
• Den of Antiquity
• Fine’s finds
25
NONSENSE
• The literal meaning of Nonsense is that it
doesn’t make sense.
• However nonsense verse and other
nonsense is carefully put together so that it
has a strong rhythmic quality that serves to
highlight logical infelicities and nonce words.
• Nonce means “only once.” Nonsense words
are found in Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky”
poem where he created frabjous and
galumphing.
26
Jabberwocky
27
OXYMORON=Contradictory or
Paradoxical Terms
Oxymoron comes from two Greek words oxys meaning
“sharp” and moros meaning “foolish or dull.”
• This kind of paradox or contradiction can be seen in such
brand names as:
Icy-Hot (an arthritis medicine)
Cool Fire (a line of shoes)
Soft Brick (a floor covering)
• Oxymorons also appear in such phrases as:
All deliberate speed
Civil War
A peace offensive
Friendly fire
• And in the ironic slogan:
“Anarchists Unite!”
28
29
Identify the oxymorons in this story created by W. S.
Blumenfeld and published in People Magazine.
• It was a new tradition---the First Annual Florida Snowmobilers’
Ball.
• As he gazed across the crowded room, he saw her sitting on
the real vinyl banquette.
• She was a relative stranger, but he was attracted by her
seductive innocence.
• Sophisticated good ole boy that he was, he adopted an air of
studied indifference as he mused upon the planned serendipity
of their meeting.
• “What if she is a closet exhibitionist?” he wondered.
• “What if she thinks my minor surgery is old news?” Still, she
was his only choice.
30
Palindrome
31
PERSONIFICATION—And
sometimes Animalification
• Even babies respond to
toys as if they were
human.
• In nursery rhymes and
stories, animals, dolls,
“choo-choo” trains, and
teapots come to life.
• We never outgrow this
kind of personification.
32
Personification
• What was photoshopped into this photo
of two baby dolphins?
• Besides personifying
the creatures, what else
did it do?
• How does this relate to
basic human emotions?
33
PUNS
• Richard Lederer in the introduction to his Get
Thee to a Punnery said that puns are “a
three-ring circus of words: words clowning,
words teetering on tightropes, words
swinging from tent-tops, words thrusting
their heads into the mouths of lions.”
• Tony Tanner said that a pun is like an
adulterous bed in which two meanings that
should be separated are coupled together.
34
A Visual Pun
35
A Salted Peanut
36
Double Meanings (Puns) Used to
Market TIME Magazine
•
•
•
•
•
•
TIME flies (1924)
TIME marches on (1932)
TIME to get the facts (1932)
It’s TIME (1944)
TIME to get it straight (1951)
A man hardly ever had TIME
all to himself (1954)
• This is the time to start
reading TIME (1960)
• Make time for TIME (1989)
• Understanding comes with
TIME (1994)
37
Creative Spellings
Even before text
messaging,
product names
had to be spelled
creatively to
allow registration
of brand names.
38
SYNECDOCHE
Synecdoche is a specific kind of metonymy in which a part
of something is used to represent the whole thing.
• Movies are the big screen; television is the tube.
• In a popular example from The Lone Ranger radio show,
Tonto used synecdoche when he responded to the Lone
Ranger’s announcement that “We are being followed by
Indians,” with “What you mean we, Paleface?”
• In a Brant Parker Wizard of Id cartoon a girl brings home
a boy and introduces him with, “Father, he’s asked for my
hand.”
• The father replies, “Marv. . . It’s the whole package or
nothing.”
39
40
Truthiness:
Stephen Colbert’s
“truthiness” is shown
in the gag names of
the Asiana Airlines
flight crew.
The plane crashed in
San Francisco in July
of 2013.
Captain Sum Ting
Wong
Wi Tu Lo
Ho Lee F**k
Bang Ding Ow
41
42
ZEUGMA=Faulty Parallelism
as in these examples:
• Chuckles the Clown on the Mary Tyler Moore show offered, “A
little song..., A little dance…, A little Seltzer down your pants!
• Naturalist Joseph Wood Krutch wrote that “the most serious
charge that can be brought against New England is not
Puritanism, but February.”
• Henry Clay declared that he “would rather be right than
President.”
• A cartoon by D. Cresci pictured a bank robber informing the
teller, “You won’t get hurt if you hand over all the money, keep
quiet, and validate this parking ticket.”
43
Sometimes the beginning of a sentence is not
compatible with the end of the sentence:
• You were never lovelier, and I think it’s a shame.
• Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may be
radioactive.
• There’s no fool like an old fool; you just can’t beat
experience.
• An apple a day keeps the doctor away; an onion a
day keeps everyone away.
• Rome wasn’t built in a day; the pizza parlors alone
took several weeks.
44