A pun is the lowest form of wit
It does not tax the brain a bit
One merely takes a word that’s plain
And picks one out that sounds the same.
Perhaps some letters may be changed,
Or others slightly disarranged,
This to the meaning gives a twist,
Which much delights the humorist.
A sample now may help to show
The way a good pun ought to
‘It isn’t the cough that carries you of
It’s the coffin they carry you off in.”
Let us illustrate the use of pun by one more example – a famous extract from
“Alice in Wonderland ” where the Mock Turtle tells Alice about the school she went to and the subjects she took there:
“I couldn’t afford to learn it, “ said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. “I only took a regular course”.
“What was that?” inquired Alice.
“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle replied; “and then the different branches of Arithmetic –Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”
“What else did you learn?” asked Alice.
“Well, there was Mystery,” the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the subjects on his flappers –“Mystery, ancient and modern, with Seaography; then Drawling – the Drawling master was an old conger-eel, that used to come once a week: he taught us Drawling, Stretching and Fainting in coils”.
Cf.: Reeling and Writhing= reading and writing
Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision = addition, subtraction, multiplication and division
Mystery = history
Seaography = geography
Drawling = drawing
Stretching =sketching
Fainting in coils = painting in oils
More examples of pun (used in jokes and riddles):
e.g. - What is the difference between a school-master and an engine-driver?
- One trains the mind and the other minds the train.
e.g. - Waiter, what is it?
- It’s bean soup.
- No matter, what it’s been. What is it now?
e.g. He left her a comfortable fortune and a daughter.
e.g. - Have you seen a horse-fly here?
- No, but I’ve seen a cow jumping over the fence.
e.g. - Can February march?
- No, but April may.
Lexical Stylistic Devices: Interaction of Logical and Emotive Meanings
Some elements of a language have emotive meaning in their structure (semantic structure). Others acquire this meaning in a context under the influence of a stylistic device or other expressive means in the utterance.
The most highly emotive words (charged with emotive meaning to such an extent that their logical meaning can hardly be registered) are interjections and exclamations. Next come epithets in which we can observe a kind of parity [p riti] (равенство, аналогия, соответствие) between emotive and logical meaning.