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Having fun with puns
Puns, witty plays on words, pop up everywhere in English and are an
essential part of British humour. Writer Catherine Rooney lets us in on
these jokes.
W
hat did the cheese say
when it looked in the
mirror? Halloumi.
Where do you find chili seeds?
The North Pole.
What do you call a man with no
shin? Toe-Knee.
Are you rolling around the floor
laughing? Have you just spat out
your tea? These three examples
of jokes in English are made
using something many people
take very seriously: puns.
People always say you really
know a language when you
can make jokes in it. Whether
you find these puns funny or
not, introduce them into your
language and you are sure to get
at least some people laughing.
A pun is a word game that
takes advantage of the fact that
many words have more than
one meaning. In English, these
double-meaning words are
called homonyms. Homonyms
are words that sound the same
but have various meanings. For
example ‘bark’, which describes
the outside of a tree, and ‘bark’,
the sound a dog makes.
When homonyms sound the
same but are spelt differently,
they are called homophones,
like ‘one’ and ‘won’, or ‘write’
and ‘right’. People are happy to
receive flowers on their birthday,
but are not so impressed if you
send them flour. Many languages
have homonyms, and many
languages have word games, but
not all languages have puns.
Once you have the basic idea,
it’s easy to start playing around
with all of the homonyms that
you know. Let’s go back to the
examples above. In the first joke,
‘halloumi’, a type of cheese,
sounds very similar to ‘hello me’.
What did the cheese say when it
looked in the mirror? Halloumi.
‘Chili’ describes a spicy pepper,
but ‘chilly’, a word that sounds
the same but is spelt differently,
describes something cold. Where
do you find chili seeds? The
North Pole.
Toe-Knee sounds like the very
common English name, Tony.
What do you call a man with no
shin? Toe-Knee.
All of these jokes are funny
because the punch lines have
two meanings.
The history of puns
Puns have a long history. There
is evidence of puns dating back
to the ancient Egyptians, who
included them in hieroglyphics
to leave hidden messages about
their dead. Moving forward
through history, academics
have argued that there are
puns included in the Bible,
though many do not translate
into English. Even the beloved
William Shakespeare was fond
of a pun. In ‘Romeo and Juliet’,
Mercutio jokes, “tomorrow, you
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will find me a grave man […]”
His literal meaning is that he will
be gravely sad, but Shakespeare
also hints at his upcoming death,
where he is sent to his grave.
Shakespeare can also be credited
for introducing perhaps the most
common type of pun into the
English language, the ‘knock,
knock’ joke. ‘Knock, knock’
jokes use puns to play with
popular names that sound like
English words, and there are
thousands of them. For example:
Knock, Knock
Who’s there?
Mary.
Mary Who?
Merry Christmas.
Or
Knock, Knock
Who’s there?
Harry.
Harry who?
Hurry up, it’s cold out here!
The first ever ‘knock, knock’
joke appeared in Shakespeare’s
‘Macbeth’. He was the original
master of puns.
Puns, Marketing and Special
Occasions
Now that you know what puns
are, and have a little idea of
their history, you will start to
recognize them when reading
or listening to English. They
are everywhere, perhaps most
notably in advertising.
Marketing agencies want to
make products stand out and be
remembered. What better way
to do that than to get potential
customers giggling at a pun in
your commercial? Some famous
examples include the Kit Kat
tagline ‘have a break’. Kit Kat
maker Nestle wants you to stop
what you’re doing and relax.
They also want you to ‘break off’
a bar of their chocolate wafer and
really enjoy yourself.
Other examples include the UK
loan company ‘Wonga.com’
with their campaign ‘you’re
broke, we’ll fix it’, and ‘Nokia
– connecting people’, a very
witty slogan for a company that
‘connects’ people with good
telephone ‘connections’.
Examples of puns don’t stop
with advertising; they are also
incredibly popular on greeting
cards. In English speaking
countries, greeting cards are
sent to celebrate every occasion:
birthdays, anniversaries, and
weddings, as well as to say thank
you, to say sorry, and to say
congratulations. You can even
buy cards for your pet! Usually
when you send a card you are
trying to make someone smile,
and because of their usual lighthearted and positive sentiment,
greetings cards are a perfect
place for puns.
A common way to create simple
funny birthday cards is by using
a visual pun. A picture of a
bumble bee accompanied by the
text ‘Ha-bee birthday’, a picture
of a pea and ‘A pea Birthday’,
lettuce and the text ‘lettuce (let
us) party’. It’s great to receive a
card with a pun on the front, and
a huge part of the greeting card
industry is dedicated to making
them. If you’d like to check out
some examples yourself, google
‘greeting card puns’ or take a
look at brands like Kenzie and
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Characterwise, which specialise
in puns on greeting cards.
are loved or loathed, adored or
abhorred.
Another more morbid place
where you often encounter puns
is on graves, in obituaries and
even during funerals. This type
of black humour is definitely
not to everybody’s taste, but I
suppose people are entitled to
freedom of expression even from
beyond the grave.
Famous movie director Alfred
Hitchcock was quoted saying,
‘Puns are the highest form of
literature’. Neurologist Sigmund
Freud, on the other hand,
described them as the lowest form
of wit, formed with ‘the least
amount of effort’. Well-loved
comedian John Oliver recently
reiterated this, describing puns
as “…not only the lowest form
of wit, but the lowest form of
human behaviour”.
In 2009 a YouTube video of
a Marine who requested that
the song by Queen, ‘Another
One Bites The Dust’ be played
during his funeral went viral.
The mourners attending seemed
to enjoy this example of a rather
dark pun.
There is another story of a
mother from the United States,
who was famous for making
delicious cookies that everybody
loved. She was repeatedly asked
for the recipe and whenever she
was, she would respond, ‘over
my dead body’. When she passed
away, her family were surprised
to find that one of her wishes
was to have the cookie recipe
printed on her gravestone. She
was literally only going to give
her cookie recipe away ‘over her
dead body’. They followed her
wishes, and the mother managed
to create a long-standing visual
pun that will surely give her
family and friends something to
smile about for many years.
Even though puns are meant to
be fun, not everyone finds them
amusing. While some people
find them hilariously witty and
entertaining, others think they
are immature and un-intellectual
ways to get a cheap laugh. They
Whichever side of the fence you
sit on, it is impossible to escape
the fact that puns are an integral
part of the culture of the English
language.
Expressions
From beyond the grave – an
expression to describe an action
or message that people are
figuratively able to communicate
after death.
Over my dead body – an
expression used to emphasise
the fact that a person refuses to
do something; that they would
have to be dead for it to happen.
Side splitting – an expression
used when something is
extremely funny, causing you to
laugh so much that the sides of
your body ‘split’.
The jury is out – an expression to
show no decision has been made
on a subject, or that the answer is
not clear.
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Fact box
The English Oxford dictionary
states that there are over
3,000 homonyms and 7,000
homophones in the English
language, enough to give you
the material for plenty of jokes.
The word ‘raise’ is known as a
‘septet’. In the English language
there are seven unique ways
to spell this word, each with a
different meaning (raise, rays,
rase, raze, rehs, res, reis). This
is the only septet in the English
language, and surely the word
with the most pun-tential!
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