Pun (Figurative Language)

Pun

Puns can be found everywhere in modern society, and it is difficult to imagine advertising, sitcoms, and even comedy without them. Turn on the TV for 30 minutes and the odds are that you will have heard many puns even in that short time, likely both in the show being broadcast and the commercials which appear within it. Punning has been described as the lowest form of wit and humor, but it has nonetheless continued to pervade both literary and popular culture for generations.

The definition of pun given in most high school classrooms is "a play on words," and while this is perfectly right, it is so general as to be vague and largely unhelpful. After all, what does the phrase "play on words" mean? To remain somewhat general while introducing a technically more accurate and useful definition, I would define a pun as the intentional confusion or conflation of a word or phrase with another, based on similar sounds, resulting in the attribution of inappropriate and humorous meanings to the word or words in question. This sounds complicated, but an example or two will make it very clear.

One simple example from contemporary advertising is the product name

"Quackers."

Just reading the word, we can quickly see what is going on, and what the product might be; Quackers are crackers shaped like ducks. Here, the company has found a similar sound in the word cracker and the work quack, and combined them to make a new word, Quackers. Puns have to work on two levels, and this word accomplishes that because it combines the sound a duck makes with the word crackers, resulting in a word that expresses both ducks and crackers. Also, since ducks quack, even though it is not a proper English word, we can imagine that they could be referred to as "quackers," that is, things that quack.

Puns often exploit homonyms (two words that sound identical but which carry different meanings and spellings) because the sound similarity (as mentioned in the long definition above) is perfect. For example, we might end a story about a dog being rescued from an abandoned mineshaft by a miner with

"As Fido leapt from the man's arms into the bright open air, everyone cheered; they knew they had all been witnesses to a miner miracle."

The pun here relies on the homonyms miner and minor, the first referring to the person who works in a mine, the second to something small or of relatively little importance. Both of these meanings are appropriate here, since the rescue was completed by a miner in a mine, and since the rescue of a dog (especially considering how much more important the rescue of people in a mine would be) is a relatively minor accomplishment. This pun becomes even more effective because it employs a commonly used phrase, "minor miracle." This phrase is used to describe an outcome which, while not truly miraculous or impossible, is still positive and unlikely. The rescue is a minor miracle in the usual sense, as well as a miracle performed by miners, so the pun works to bring both levels of meaning together. Note that in cases like these, the way the word is spelled is important. If the word had been spelled "minor" like it usually is in the phrase "minor miracle," the pun would not have been so obvious, since we expect this kind of phrase. By changing its spelling in context with the word miracle, however, the pun stands out, and causes us to consider both meanings.