Pun

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Pun

A pun, or paronomasia, is a form of word play

Word play

Word play is a literary technique in which the words that are used become the main subject of the work. Puns, phonetic mix-ups such as spoonerisms, obscure words and meanings, clever rhetorical excursions, oddly formed sentences, and telling character names are common examples of word play....
that deliberately exploits ambiguity between similar-sounding word

Word

A word is a unit of language that represents a concept which can be expressively communication with Meaning . A word consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together, and has a phonetic value....
s for humorous

Humour

Humour or humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. Many theories exist about what humour is and what social function it serves....
or rhetoric

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the art of using language as a means to persuade. Along with logic and dialectic, rhetoric is one of the three ancient arts of discourse....
al effect. Such ambiguity may arise from the intentional misuse of homophonical

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....
, homographical

Homograph

A homograph is one of a group of words that share the same spelling but have different meanings. When spoken, the meanings are sometimes, but not necessarily, distinguished by different pronunciations....
, homonymic

Homonym

In linguistics, a homonym is one of a group of words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings, usually as a result of the two words having different origins....
, polysemic

Polysemy

Polysemy is the capacity for a sign or signs to have multiple meanings , i.e. a large semantic field. This is a pivotal concept within social sciences, such as media studies and linguistics....
, 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

Metaphor is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. It is a figure of speech that compares two or more things without using the words "like" or "as." More generally, a metaphor describes a first subject as being or equal to a second object in some way....
ical language.

By definition, puns must be deliberate; an involuntary substitution of similar words is called a malapropism

Malapropism

A malapropism is the substitution of an incorrect word for a word with a similar sound, usually to comic effect. It is not the same as an eggcorn, which is a similar substitution in which the new phrase makes sense on some level....
.

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

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Encyclopedia

A pun, or paronomasia, is a form of word play

Word play

Word

Humour

Rhetoric

Homophone

Homograph

Homonym

Polysemy

Metonymy

Metaphor

Malapropism

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson was an English author. Beginning as a Grub Street journalist, he made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer....
disparagingly referred to punning as "the lowest form of humour". However it has been employed as a literary device by innumerable canonical writers, such as Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope is generally regarded as the greatest England poet of the eighteenth century, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer....
, James Joyce

James Joyce

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Ireland expatriate author of the 20th century. He is best known for his landmark novel Ulysses and its controversial successor Finnegans Wake , as well as the short story collection Dubliners and the semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ....
, Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a Multilingualism Russian-American novelist and short story writer.Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian language, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist....
, Shakespeare (who is estimated to have used over 3,000 puns in his plays

Shakespeare's plays

William Shakespeare Play have the reputation of being among the greatest in the English language and in Western literature. Traditionally divided into the genres of Shakespearean tragedy, Shakespearean history, and Shakespearean comedy, they have been translated into every major Modern language language, in addition to being continually per...
), John Donne

John Donne

John Donne was an England Literature in English#Jacobean literature poet, preacher and a major representative of the metaphysical poets of the period....
, and Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll , was an England author, mathematics, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer....
.

Definitions

According to Walter Redfern, "To pun is to treat homonyms as synonym

Synonym

Synonyms are different words with identical or very similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy....
s". Henri Bergson

Henri Bergson

Henri-Louis Bergson was a French philosophy, influential in the first half of the 20th century....
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". Richard J. Alexander outlined the three forms which puns may take as graphological puns; such as Concrete poetry

Concrete poetry

Concrete poetry, pattern 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....
; phonological

Phonology

Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system....
; such as homophonic puns; and morphological

Morphology (linguistics)

Morphology is the identification, analysis and description of structure of words . While words are generally accepted as being the smallest units of syntax, it is clear that in most languages, words can be related to other words by rules....
puns, such as a Portmanteau.

Etymology

The word pun has been used in English at least since 1550. It is thought to be originally a contraction of the (now archaic) pundigrion. This term is thought to have originated from punctilious, which itself derived from the Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
puntiglio, diminutive of punto, "point", from the Latin punctus, past participle of pungere, "to prick". These etymological sources are reported in the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press , is a comprehensive dictionary of the English language. Two fully-bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989; as of December 2008 the dictionary's current editors have completed a quarter of the third edition....
, which labels them "conjecture".

Typology

Puns can be classified in various ways. A homophonic pun exploits word pairs that sound exactly alike (perfect homophones), but are not synonymous. For example, the statement "Atheism is a non-prophet institution" substitutes the word "prophet

Prophet

In religion, a prophet is a person who has claimed to have encountered the supernatural or the Divinity, often one who serves as an intermediary with humanity....
" for its homophone "profit" in the common phrase "non-profit institution

Non-profit organization

A nonprofit organization is any organization that does not aim to make a profit, and which is not a public body....
". Similarly, the joke "Question: Why do we still have troops in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
? Answer: To keep the Slovaks in Czech" relies on the disparity of meaning between the non-synonymous but similar sounding words "check" and "Czech".

A homographic pun exploits different words (or word meanings) which are spelled the same way, but possess different meanings. For example, the statement "Being in politics

Politics

Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions. The term is generally applied to behaviour within civil governments, but politics has been observed in all human group interactions, including corporation, academia, and religion institutions....
is just like playing golf

Golf

Golf is a sport in which players using many types of Golf club including wood , iron , and putter , attempt to hit golf ball into each hole on a golf course in the lowest possible 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 example which uses both homophonic and homographic punning would be Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams

Douglas Noel Adams was an England author, dramatist and musician. He is best known as the author of the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series....
's line "You can tune a guitar, but you can't tuna fish. Unless of course, you play bass." The phrase exploits the homophonic qualities of "tune a" and "tuna", as well as the homographic pun on "bass", in which ambiguity is reached through the identical spelling of (low frequency), and (a kind of fish). Homographic puns using words with the same spelling but different pronunciations, like "bass" above, are said to be heteronymic. Homographic puns are sometimes compared to the stylistic device

Stylistic device

In literature and writing, a stylistic device is the use of any of a variety of techniques to give an auxiliary meaning, idea, or feeling to the literal or written....
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....
, 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....
; but these concepts are not identical.

A compound pun is a sentence that contains two or more puns, such as :"A man bought a cattle ranch for his sons and named it the 'Focus Ranch' because it was where the sons raise meat", punning on the phonological similarity to "where the sun's rays meet". Other examples might include: "Sign in a golf-cart shop: "When drinking, don't drive. Don't even putt."" (Puns on "driving" and "putting" a golf ball, vs. "driving" a car or "putting" around in a golf cart); Punch line

Punch line

A punch line is the final part of a joke or comedy sketch, usually the word, sentence or exchange of sentences which is intended to be funny and to provoke laughter from listeners....
of a knock knock joke: Q: "Eskimo Christians who?" A: "Eskimo Christians Italian no lies." (Pun on the stock phrase "Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies".)

A recursive pun is a sentence that contains a pun that refers to the similar sounding word: , for example the statement "p is only half a pie." (Half a circle is 180 degrees

Degree (angle)

A degree , usually denoted by ? , is a measurement of plane angle, representing 1/360 of a Turn ; one degree is equivalent to p/180 radians....
or p radians, and a pie
Pie

A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough shell that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweetness or savoury ingredients....
is circular

Circle

A circle is a simple shape of Euclidean geometry consisting of those point in a plane which are the same distance from a given point called the center....
).

An extended pun or pun sequence is a long utterance that contains multiple puns with a common theme .

Formats for punning

There are numerous pun formats:

Bilingual pun
Bilingual pun

A bilingual pun is a pun in which a word in one language is similar to a word in another language. Typically, use of bilingual puns results in in-jokes, since there is often a very small overlap between speakers of the two languages....
Daffynition
Daffynition

A daffynition is a pun format involving the reinterpretation of an existing word, on the basis that it sounds like another word . They are similar to transpositional puns, but often much less complex and easier to create....
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....
Knock-knock joke
Knock-knock joke

The knock-knock joke is a type of joke, probably the best-known format of the pun, and is a time-honoured "call and answer" exercise.It is a roleplay exercise, with a punster and a recipient of wit....
Shaggy dog story
Spoonerism
Spoonerism

A spoonerism is an error in speech or deliberate word play in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched . It is named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner , Warden of New College, Oxford, who was notoriously prone to this tendency....
Tom Swifty
Transpositional pun
Transpositional pun

A transpositional pun is a complicated pun format with two aspects. It involves transposing the words in a well-known phrase or saying to get a daffynition-like clever redefinition of a well-known word unrelated to the original phrase....

Usage

Comedy and jokes

Puns are a common source of humor in joke

Joke

A joke is a short story or ironic depiction of a situation communicated with the intent of being humour. These jokes will normally have a punch line that will end the sentence to make it humorous....
s and comedy

Comedy

Comedy as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse generally intended to amuse, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western culture origins are found in Ancient Greece....
show

Show

Show can refer to:* A television program* A theatre production* A concert* A radio program* A donkey show* Show , a live album by British band The Cure...
s. They are often used in the punchline 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. 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 and starring Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey, with Paul Bettany as Stephen Maturin....
(though the punchline is at least five decades older): Captain Aubrey: "Do you see those two weevil

Weevil

A weevil is any beetle from the Curculionidae superfamily. They are usually small, less than 6 mm , and Herbivore. Due to the shape of their heads, weevils are commonly known as snout beetles....
s, Doctor?...Which would you choose?" Dr. Maturin: "Neither. There's not a scrap of difference between them. They're the same species of Curculio." 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 Service

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of the British Armed Forces . From the mid-18th century until well into the 20th century, it was the most powerful navy in the world, playing a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant world power from 1815 until the early 1940s....
, one must always choose the lesser of two weevils?" The last line uses a pun on the stock phrase "the lesser of two evils

Lesser of two evils principle

The lesser of two evils principle, also known simply as the lesser evil, is the idea 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....
".

Gag name

Gag name

A gag name is a false name used to elicit humor through its simultaneous resemblance to a real name on the one hand, and to a term or phrase that is funny, strange, or vulgar on the other hand....
s based on puns (such as calling a character who is always almost late Justin Thyme) can be found in many works, such as Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English people poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist....
's Hamlet
Hamlet

Hamlet is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601. The play, set in Denmark, recounts how Prince Hamlet exacts revenge on his uncle King Claudius, who has murdered King Hamlet, the King, and then taken the throne and married Gertrude ....
, Piers Anthony

Piers Anthony

Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob is an English American author in the science fiction and fantasy genres, publishing under the name Piers Anthony....
's Xanth

Xanth

Xanth is a fantasy world created by author Piers Anthony for a series of novels....
novels, Uderzo

Albert Uderzo

Albert Uderzo is a French comic book artist, and Script . He is best known for his work on the Asterix series, but also drew other comics such as Oumpah-pah, also in collaboration with Ren? Goscinny....
and Goscinny

René Goscinny

Ren? Goscinny was a Polish-French author, editor and humorist, who is best known for the comic book Ast?rix, which he created with illustrator Albert Uderzo, and for his work on the early issues of the comic book series Lucky Luke with Morris ....
's Asterix
Asterix

The Adventures of Asterix is a List of Asterix volumes of France comic strips written by Ren? Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo . The series first appeared in French in the magazine Pilote on 29 October 1959....
albums, The Eyre Affair
The Eyre Affair

The Eyre Affair is the first published novel by United Kingdom author Jasper Fforde, released by Hodder and Stoughton in 2001. It takes place in Alternate history 1985, where literary detective Thursday Next pursues a master criminal through the world of Charlotte Bront? Jane Eyre....
, the Carmen Sandiego
Carmen Sandiego

Carmen Sandiego refers to a media franchise of educational computer & video games, television programs, books and other media featuring Carmen Sandiego, a thieving villainess of the same name....
computer games, and many works of Spider Robinson

Spider Robinson

Spider Robinson is an United States Canadian Hugo award and Nebula award winning science fiction author....
, including the Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
Callahan's Crosstime Saloon

In the fictional universe of Spider Robinson, Callahan's Place is a bar with strongly community-minded and empathic clientele. It appears in the Callahan's Crosstime Saloon short story and the computer game....
series.

Literature

Examples of puns are found in the Bible

Bible

The Bible is the central religious text of Judaism and Christianity. The exact Books of the Bible is dependent on the religious traditions of specific denominations....
(in both the Old

Old Testament

In Western Christianity, the Old Testament refers to the books that form the first of the two-part Christianity Bible Biblical canon. These works correspond to the Hebrew Bible , with some variations and additions....
and the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the name given to the second major division of the Christianity Bible, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
s). A well-known example is found in the Matthew

Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel of Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels in the New Testament and is a synoptic gospel. It narrates an account of the New Testament view on Jesus' life and Ministry of Jesus of Jesus of Nazareth....
16.18:

"Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church."

and the name "Peter" (pet???, petros), which also means "stone".)

Puns on the names of pharaoh

Pharaoh

Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. In antiquity this title began to be used for the ruler who was the religious and political leader of united ancient Egypt, only during the New Kingdom, specifically, during the middle of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt....
s of Egypt

Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
, found in Biblical literature, have been used to date historical events

Chronology

Chronology is a chronicle or arrangement of events in their occurrence order. General chronology is the science of locating and resolution of temporal sequence of past events in time...
.

Non-humorous puns were and are a standard rhetorical or poetic device in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
literature. Puns and other forms of word play have been used by many famous writers, such as Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope is generally regarded as the greatest England poet of the eighteenth century, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer....
, James Joyce

James Joyce

Vladimir Nabokov

Robert Bloch

Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific United States writer, primarily of crime fiction, horror fiction and science fiction. He was the son of Raphael "Ray" Bloch , a bank cashier, and his wife Stella Loeb , a social worker, both of Germans-Jewish descent....
. Here is an example from Shakespeare's Richard III
Richard III (play)

Richard III is a Shakespearean history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591, depicting the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of Richard III of England....
:

"Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York"

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 was an English author. Beginning as a Grub Street journalist, he made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, 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."

In the poem A Hymn to God the Father, John Donne

John Donne

John Donne was an England Literature in English#Jacobean literature poet, preacher and a major representative of the metaphysical poets of the period....
, married to Anne More, puns repeatedly on his own name (which is pronounced "Dun"). The verses

"When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done / For I have more."

can be interpreted as "God, when you have forgiven me this much, you are not finished/you do not have John Donne (safe yet), for I have more sins to confess." In the third stanza, having received assurance, counteracting his fears,

"that at my death Thy Son / Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore"

(another Son/sun pun), he ends the poem

"And having done that, Thou hast done; / I fear no more."

Here are some additional examples:

"As different as York from Leeds" — James Joyce in Finnegans Wake
Finnegans Wake

Finnegans Wake is a work of Comic novel by Irish literature James Joyce, which is recognised for its difficulty for the reader and its experimental style....

On the other hand, puns are despised by some authors and critics as being too "vulgar" or "childish". For example, Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

Publicity

Puns are often used in advertisement as an attention-getting device:

"Thanks for the brake", a sign on the back of buses in the Denver Regional Transportation District
Regional Transportation District

The Regional Transportation District, or RTD, was organized in 1969 and is the regional authority operating public transit services in eight of the twelve counties in the Denver-Aurora-Boulder Combined Statistical Area in Colorado....
and in certain cities in British Columbia
British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's Provinces and territories of Canada and is famed for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu ....
(Such as Victoria
Victoria, British Columbia

Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia. Located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, Victoria is a major tourism destination seeing more than 3.65 million visitors a year who inject more than one billion dollars into the local economy....
and Nanaimo)

Acronyms and codes

K-9, a designation for military dog
Dog

The dog is a domesticated subspecies of the Gray Wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties....
s or police dogs

Lexicon and names

"Funny bone" is the popular name for a sensitive exposed nerve located where the humerus
Humerus

The humerus is a long bone in the arm or forelimb that runs from the shoulder to the elbow.Anatomically, it connects the scapula and the ulna, and consists of the following three sections:...
joins the ulna
Ulna

The ulna is a long bone, prism atic in form, placed at the Anatomical terms of location#Relative directions side of the forearm, parallel with the radius ....
at the elbow.

|publisher=Checkmark Books |location=New York |pages=281 |isbn=0-8160-5992-6}}

The Viceroy butterfly
Viceroy butterfly

The Viceroy Butterfly is a North American butterfly with a range from the Northwest Territories along the eastern edges of the Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada mountains, southwards into central Mexico....
closely resembles the Monarch butterfly
Monarch butterfly

The monarch is a milkweed butterfly , in the family Nymphalidae. It is perhaps the best known of all North American butterflies. Since the 19th century, it is also found in New Zealand, and has been known in Australia since 1871....

Visual puns

Visual pun

A visual pun is a pun involving an 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, where one of the confounding words is replaced by a picture, are the basis of many logo

Logo

A logo is a graphical element that, together with its logotype form a trademark or commercial brand. Typically, a logo's design is for immediate recognition....
s, emblem

Emblem

An emblem is a pictorial , abstract art or representational, that epitomizes a concept ? e.g., a moral truth, or an allegory ? or that represents a person, such as a Monarch or Saint symbology....
s, insignia, and other graphic symbol

Symbol

A symbol is something such as an entity, picture, written word, sound, or particular mark that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention....
s:

The U.S. 4th Infantry Division
U.S. 4th Infantry Division

The 4th Infantry Division is a modular Division of the United States Army based at Fort Hood, Texas, with four brigade combat teams. It is a very technically advanced combat division in the U.S....
patch has four ivy
Ivy

Hedera is a genus of 15 species of climbing or ground-creeping evergreen woody plants in the family Araliaceae, native to the Macaronesia, western, central and southern Europe, northwestern Africa and across central-southern Asia east to Japan....
leaves on it

The German
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
Flakgruppe Wachtel suggested as an emblem "^W/₈"

In European heraldry

Heraldry

Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of devising, granting, and blazoning Coat of arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms....
, this technique is called canting arms

Canting arms

Canting arms is a technique used in European heraldry whereby the name of the individual or community represented in a coat of arms is "translated" into a visual pun or rebus....
. Visual puns 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....
s as well as in certain cartoon

Cartoon

The word cartoon has various meanings, based on several very different forms of visual art and illustration. The term has evolved over time.The original meaning was in fine art, and there cartoon meant a preparatory drawing for a piece of art such as a painting or tapestry....
s such as Lost Consonants
Lost Consonants

Lost Consonants is a comic collage series made by Graham Rawle , appearing in Britain's the Guardian and the Observer newspapers, where a single consonant is missing from a normal sentence, creating a humorous effect....
or The Far Side
The Far Side

The Far Side is a popular one-panel print syndication comic strip created by Gary Larson. Its surrealism humor is often based on uncomfortable social situations, improbable events, an anthropomorphic view of the world, logical fallacies, impending bizarre disasters, or the search for meaning in life....
.

Science

The term punning is sometimes used in science

Science

In its broadest sense, science refers to any systematic knowledge or practice. In its more usual restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research....
to describe either unintentional muddled thinking or intentional deception where the same word is used with two subtly different meanings. In statistical

Statistics

Statistics is a Mathematics pertaining to the collection, analysis, interpretation or explanation, and presentation of data. It also provides tools for prediction and forecasting based on data....
contexts, for example, the word significant is usually assumed to mean "statistically significant", which has a precisely defined technical meaning. Using significant with the meaning "of practical significance" in such contexts would be a case of "punning" in this sense.

In computer science

Computer science

Computer 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

__FORCETOC__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....
refers to a programming technique that subverts or circumvents the type system

Type system

In computer science, a type system may be defined as "a tractable syntactic method for proving the absence of certain program behaviors by classifying phrases according to the kinds of values they compute."....
of a programming language

Programming language

A programming language is a machine-readable artificial language designed to express computations that can be performed by a machine, particularly a computer....
, by allowing a value of a certain type to be manipulated as a value of a different type.

Puns about puns

Puns and punning have often been the subject of puns:

"There is nothing punny about bad puns." — original source unknown.

"The pun is mightier than the word." — original source unknown

"A pun is its own reword." — Dance Drier, British comedian
Comedian

A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain members of an audience, primarily by making them laughter. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy....

"Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted." — Fred Allen
Fred Allen

Fred Allen was an United States comedian whose absurdist, pointed radio show made him one of the most popular and forward-looking humorists in the so-called classic era of American radio....

"Immanuel doesn't pun; he Kant." — Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish people playwright, Irish poetry and author of numerous short stories and one novel. Known for his biting wit, he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London, and one of the greatest Celebrity of his day....

"A pun is the lowest form of humor, but poetry is much verse." — original source unknown

"If puns are the lowest form of wit, are bun
Bun

A bun is a small, usually sweet bread. Commonly they are hand-sized or smaller, domed in shape with a flat bottom. It can also mean a savory bread roll similar to a Bap or barmcake....
s the lowest form of wheat
Wheat

Wheat , is a worldwide cultivated Poaceae from the Levant region of the Middle East. Globally, after maize, wheat is the second most-produced food among the cereal just above rice....
?" — Piers Anthony
Piers Anthony

Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob is an English American author in the science fiction and fantasy genres, publishing under the name Piers Anthony....

"Heralds don't pun; they cant." — Society for Creative Anachronism
Society for Creative Anachronism

The Society for Creative Anachronism , is a historical reenactment and living history group founded in 1966, which endeavors to promote the study and recreation of mainly pre-17th century Western European cultures and their histories....
.

"Congratulations you have one, it's a year's subscription of bad puns" — Kurt Cobain
Kurt Cobain

Kurt Donald Cobain was an American musician who served as Singer, guitarist, and songwriter for the Grunge music band Nirvana .With the lead single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from Nirvana's second album Nevermind , Cobain with Nirvana entered into the mainstream, bringing along with them a subgenre of alternative rock called Grunge musi...
, "Opinion"

"Blunt and I made atrocious puns. I believe, indeed, that Miss Blunt herself made a little punkin, as I called it" —Henry James
Henry James

Henry James, Order of Merit , son of theologian Henry James Sr., brother of the philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James, was an United States author....

Quotes about puns

Here are some notable quotes about puns:

"A pun is the lowest form of humor, unless you thought of it yourself." — Doug Larson
"The goodness of the true pun is in the direct ratio of its intolerability." — Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American poet, Short story writer, Editing and Literary criticism, and is considered part of the American Romanticism. Best known for his tales of Mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the Detective fiction genre....
, Marginalia
Marginalia

Marginalia is the general term for notes, scribbles, and editorial comments made in the margin of a book. The term is also used to describe drawings and flourishes in medieval illuminated manuscripts....
, 1849
"'The man', says Johnson, 'that would make / A pun, would pick a pocket!'" ." — Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll , was an England author, mathematics, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer....
, "Phantasmagoria", 1869
"In the beginning was the pun." — Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett

Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish people writer, dramatist and poet. Beckett's work offers a bleak outlook on human culture and both formally and philosophically became increasingly minimalism....
, Murphy
Murphy (novel)

The novel Murphy was Samuel Beckett's third work of prose fiction. It was written in English language, unlike much of Beckett's later writing, which he composed in French language....

Pun

Definitions

Etymology

Typology

Formats for punning

Usage

Comedy and jokes

Literature

Publicity

Acronyms and codes

Lexicon and names

Visual puns

Science

Puns about puns

Quotes about puns

See also

External links