Puns: A Practical Guide
Created | Updated Mar 7, 2005
Introduction
Puns for the whole family or let them pun for themselves.Puns are a simple pleasure enjoyed by simple folk. Craftily hunting around one's vocabulary for a pertinent double meaning can be hours of fun. However the pun also has a darker side; the associated sadistic streak that inflicts one's colleagues with these groan-extracting twists of semantics. The only thing better than creating a great play on words is the joy felt hearing the groans of dismay from those in earshot.
Definition
A pun is a phrase or sentence in which the several meanings of one word are alluded to in an attempt, with many levels and measures of success, to elicit humour.
To appreciate the technical distinctions of different styles of puns, please visit Puns and Other Word Play
Discussion
Humour for the most part has two distinct flavours; making a fool of oneself or making a fool of someone else. To give a physical analogy, the clown can take a fall himself or hit someone else in the face with a pie.
Puns are slightly outside this dichotomy. Although they may contain criticism of self or others, their humour is centred in cleverness and the act of sharing this cleverness. Making fun of the language, twisting it to extract these witticisms, is a gentle pleasure when compared with the violence of the deliberate pratfall or pie-in-the-face, figurative or literal.
However success is gauged on the length or loudness of the ensuing groan. If laughter is the desired result then puns are to be avoided at all costs.
Construction
Puns are fun to create and share with loved ones although good body armour and life insurance is advised. To illustrate their construction here is a pun constructed especially for the H2G2 site.
Did he mark it badly? No, it was only 'Arf a Dent.
This pun demonstrates the construction rather than the quality.
Once the theme is decided, in this case the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, it is simply a matter of considering the related material and finding a potential word or phrase for the pun.
The phrase "Arthur Dent" allows two intrepretations; the literal one and by altering "Arthur" to a contraction of "Half a", the secondary 'Arf a Dent is obtained.
It is then a matter of creating a context for the phrase to extract both meanings. In this case the location of the pun in the H2G2 site elicits the literal meaning and the phrasing of the pun extracts the second.
To gain confidence in pun construction, try playing the punning word association game described in the next section. With practice finding puns will become almost automatic. However if punning comes compulsive it would be wise to seek help to establish if this is Freudian in nature.
A Warning
Occasionally converting the discovery into a full pun can be more problematic; it is often difficult to make the found word or phrase into something consistent. Often a word or phrase has wonderful potential but the attempt to put it in context fails and creating a full consistent pun is impossible. In this case it should be discarded unless the pun is so poor it actually extracts louder groans.
A Game
Here is a punning word association game. Decide on a theme, then carry out a conversation with each participant trying to deliver a pun related to the theme. For example if the theme was fishing the conversation might go as follows;
“This one will hook you in”
“I think you’re floundering”
“That was a bit of a sinker”
“Cod, that was horrible”…
Examples
Puns are versatile; they can be as simple as:
--whoosh-- Duck! Quack.
As convoluted as:
Ghandi was a super-calloused fragile mystic, hexed by halitosis. (say this three time quickly)
As obscure as:
The man read the sign over the Llama’s cage “Beware it spits” and he was. (wait for it)
As cheeky as:
Old Lady 1 “Where’s the candle?”
Old Lady 2 with satisfied sigh “Yes, it does!”
As ridiculous as:
CRUN: Put the brake on, Min.
BANNISTER: Doesn’t suit me, Henry.
Mixed with incongruity:
Pull up a sock and sit down.
Derivative:
The pun is mightier than the scorn.
Self-referential
A man sent ten examples of his own word play to his friends with the expectation that they would get a laugh. Unfortunately no pun in ten did.
Multilingual:
FAWLTY: Manuel, there is too much butter on those trays.
MANUEL: No, no, no Mister Fawlty, un dos tres.
And again with sauce:
The shopper asked for a double entendre, and the sale assistant gave her one.
Conclusion
Puns for the most part are harmless: neither hazardous to one's own physical, spiritual, mental or emotional health nor to the recipient's
physical, spiritual, or mental health (N.B. deliberate removal of effect on the recipient's emotional health).
Puns are not easy, they require practice to create and often family and friends will try to dissuade the practice however I say:
Persist! The vagaries of English are infinite!
Try a pun today!
Sources:
The Goon Show
Fawlty Towers
