History Main / Pun

The problem with puns is that they are the lowest form of humor, (although poetry is verse), and often [[SelfDemonstratingArticle are not very punny]], at least in English - at best, they're SoBadItsGood. On the other hand, languages such as Chinese or Japanese, where words can be chosen for sound, character, or meaning, allow for puns of incredible complexity, working on multiple levels, and they are often viewed as an art form.

** UranusIsShowing: Homophony of the name of the planet seventh distal to the Earth's sun and a phrase stating the possession of a digestive tract's terminating point by a second person.

A pun (also known as a [[{{Literature/Discworld}} pune, or a play on words]]) is a form of word play where a word with more than one meaning is exploited to make a joke based on this {{double meaning}}. This can also take the form of substituting one word for a different, similarly sounding word. Usually done for [[PlayedForLaughs humorous]] effect.

Ironically, most article titles ARE puns.

* PunBasedCreature: Creatures based off of literal interpretations of puns and wordplay.

* TomSwifty: A punny adverb when attributing a quotation, based around the content of the quotation.

** OwlsAskWho: An animal (often not a TalkingAnimal) is confused for inquiring something due to its species' signature vocalization. Commonly result of an owl's hooting.
* WorldOfPun: A work which is full of puns.

[[caption-width-right:330:[[Theatre/RichardIII Now is the winter of our]] [[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/discontent disco tent.]]]]

!!Tropes:

The stigma against puns in the English language is a contemporary attitude. Within historic fiction, esteemed authors pun freely including in situations that modern tastes would regard as most inappropriate. In A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens has Ebenezer Scrooge tell the ghost of Jacob Marley "There's more of gravy than of grave about you," and Shakespeare uses a similar pun in Romeo and Juliet where Mercutio is fatally wounded (3.1.94-95) yet plays on the different noun and adjectival meanings of grave with "Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man." Even prim and proper Jane Austen gives Mary Crawford the line, "Certainly, my home at my uncle’s brought me acquainted with a circle of admirals. Of Rears and Vices, I saw enough," in Mansfield Park, leaving later generations of readers wondering whether Crawford is talking about different ranks of admirals or something else[[[https://notchesblog.com/2018/12/13/rears-and-vices-the-austens-and-naval-sodomy/]]]. Each of those examples reveals something within the larger context of the work: Scrooge puns when seeing the first ghost because he thinks the apparition is a hallucination caused by a bad meal, Mercutio is upbeat and witty concealing the seriousness of his wounds, and Mary Crawford's speech foreshadows that her wealth and connections have not really made her genteel.

* AccentDepundent
* AccidentalPun
* DoubleEntendre
* {{Duck}}
* EpunymousTitle
* {{Feghoot}}
* FlintstoneTheming
* FunWithHomophones
* GoroawaseNumber
* HurricaneOfPuns
* JustForPun
* LamePunReaction
* MissXPun
* MultipleReferencePun
* OwlsAskWho
* ParallelPornTitles

* PunBasedTitle
* PunnyHeadlines
* PunnyName
* PungeonMaster
* QuipToBlack
* RussianReversal (the technical term is "transpositional pun")
* StealthPun
* SubvertedPunchline
* TomSwifty
* UranusIsShowing
* VisualPun
* WhatsAHenway
* WhosOnFirst
* WorldOfPun
* {{WPUN}}

The problem with puns is that they are the lowest form of humor, and often [[SelfDemonstratingArticle are not very punny]], at least in English - at best, they're SoBadItsGood. On the other hand, languages such as Chinese or Japanese, where words can be chosen for sound, character, or meaning, allow for puns of incredible complexity, working on multiple levels, and they are often viewed as an art form.

->''"Puns are little plays on words that a certain breed of person loves to spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied way to indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far the cleverest person on Earth now that Benjamin Franklin is dead, when in fact what you are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in a lifeboat, the other passengers will hurl him overboard by the end of the first day even if they have plenty of food and water."''

Shakespeare puns so frequently that original version of the "disco tent" meme illustrating this page ends in a different pun: "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York." Richard III was the last of the Yorkist kings during the English Wars of the Roses, so that plays on the homophone sun/son of the house of York.

Shakespeare puns so frequently that original version of the "disco tent" meme illustrating this page ends in a different pun: "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York." Richard III was the last of the Lancastrian kings during the English Wars of the Roses, so that plays on the homophone sun/son of the rival house of York.

The stigma against puns in the English language is a contemporary attitude. Within historic fiction, esteemed authors pun freely including in situations that modern tastes would regard as most inappropriate. In A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens has Ebenezer Scrooge tell the ghost of Jacob Marley "There's more of gravy than of grave about you," and Shakespeare uses a similar pun in Romeo and Juliet where Mercutio is fatally wounded (3.1.94-95) yet plays on the different noun and adjectival meanings of grave with "Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man." Even prim and proper Jane Austen gives Mary Crawford the line, "Certainly, my home at my uncle’s brought me acquainted with a circle of admirals. Of Rears and Vices, I saw enough," in Mansfield Park, leaving later generations of readers wondering whether Crawford was talking about different ranks of admirals or something else[[[https://notchesblog.com/2018/12/13/rears-and-vices-the-austens-and-naval-sodomy/]]]. Each of those examples reveals something within the larger context of the work: Scrooge puns when seeing the first ghost because he thinks the apparition is a hallucination caused by a bad meal, Mercutio is upbeat and witty concealing the seriousness of his wounds, and Mary Crawford's speech foreshadows that her wealth and connections have not really made her genteel.

Shakespeare puns so frequently that original version of the *disco tent* meme illustrating this page ends in a different pun: "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York." Richard III was the last of the Lancastrian kings during the English Wars of the Roses, so that plays on the homophone sun/son of the rival house of York.

The stigma against puns in the English language is a contemporary attitude. Within historic fiction, esteemed authors pun freely including in situations that modern tastes would regard as most inappropriate. In *A Christmas Carol*, Charles Dickens has Ebenezer Scrooge tell the ghost of Jacob Marley "There's more of gravy than of grave about you," and Shakespeare uses a similar pun in *Romeo and Juliet" where Mercutio is fatally wounded (3.1.94-95) yet plays on the different noun and adjectival meanings of *grave* with "Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man." Even prim and proper Jane Austen gives Mary Crawford the line, "Certainly, my home at my uncle’s brought me acquainted with a circle of admirals. Of Rears and Vices, I saw enough," in *Mansfield Park*, leaving later generations of readers wondering whether Crawford was talking about different ranks of admirals or something else[[[https://notchesblog.com/2018/12/13/rears-and-vices-the-austens-and-naval-sodomy/]]]. Each of those examples reveals something within the larger context of the work: Scrooge puns when seeing the first ghost because he thinks the apparition is a hallucination caused by a bad meal, Mercutio is upbeat and witty concealing the seriousness of his wounds, and Mary Crawford's speech foreshadows that her wealth and connections have not really made her genteel.

The true problem with puns is that they are the lowest form of humor, and often [[SelfDemonstratingArticle are not very punny]], at least in English - at best, they're SoBadItsGood. On the other hand, languages such as Chinese or Japanese, where words can be chosen for sound, character, or meaning, allow for puns of incredible complexity, working on multiple levels, and they are often viewed as an art form.

-->-- ''Creator/DaveBarry''

Categories:

+ {{Snowclones}}]

!!Associated Tropes

[[caption-width-right:330:[[Theatre/RichardIII Now is the winter of our]] [[https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/261500.html disco tent.]]]]

The true problem with puns is that they are the lowest form of humor, and often [[SelfDemonstratingArticle are not very punny]]. If a pun is SoBadItsGood, the Incredibly Lame Pun trope is used. at least in English. On the other hand, in languages such as Chinese or Japanese, where words can be chosen for sound, character, or meaning, allows for puns of incredible complexity, working on multiple levels, and they are often viewed as an art form.

[[caption-width-right:330:[[Theatre/RichardIII Now is the winter of our]] [[https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/261500.html disco tent]].]]

The true problem with puns is that they are the lowest form of humor, and often [[SelfDemonstratingArticle are not very punny]]. If a pun is SoBadItsGood, the IncrediblyLamePun trope is used. at least in English. On the other hand, in languages such as Chinese or Japanese, where words can be chosen for sound, character, or meaning, allows for puns of incredible complexity, working on multiple levels, and they are often viewed as an art form.

The true problem with puns is that they are the lowest form of humor, and often [[SelfDemonstratingArticle are not very punny]]. If a pun is SoBadIt'sGood, the IncrediblyLamePun trope is used. at least in English. On the other hand, in languages such as Chinese or Japanese, where words can be chosen for sound, character, or meaning, allows for puns of incredible complexity, working on multiple levels, and they are often viewed as an art form.

The true problem with puns is that they are the lowest form of humor, and often [[SelfDemonstratingArticle are not very punny]]... at least in English. On the other hand, in languages such as Chinese or Japanese, where words can be chosen for sound, character, or meaning, allows for puns of incredible complexity, working on multiple levels, and they are often viewed as an art form.

The true problem with puns is that they are the lowest form of humor, and often [[SelfDemonstratingArticle are not very punny]].

[[caption-width-right:330:[[Theatre/RichardIII Now is the winter of our]] [[VisualPun disco tent]].]]