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Pun Intended!

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Do you know what a pun is? Have you ever heard the phrase, “no pun intended”?

Well, puns are a form of word play that suggest two or more meanings of a sentence/saying. It uses multiple meanings of words or similar-sounding words to create humor!

There are four different types of puns: homophonic pun, homographic pun, homonymic pun, and compound pun.

1. Homophonic pun is the most common type. The word homophonic, or homphones, means words that sound alike, but do not have the same meaning.

There’s a leek in the boat!

Source: http://imgur.com/account/favorites/HtcS9I0

Check out this pun from the upcoming movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2! This is a movie about foods that have come alive. In this scene the main character screams, “there’s a leek in the boat!” …A leek is a vegetable, but a leAk (pronounced the same way) is a crack or a hole. This is an example of a homophonic pun because the two words sound exactly the same, but have different spellings and two very different meanings.

2. A homographic pun can be created in two ways. One, by using a word that has two different meanings; two, by substituting a word with the exact same spelling as the word for which it was substituted

Corduroy pillows are making headlines.

This pun/joke uses the word headlines in two different ways. The corduroy could be extremely popular and is being talked about in a newspaper or magazine. Or the corduroy is creating creases or lines on your forehead after you have slept on it!

3. Homonymic pun exploits both homophones and homographs!

 

Souce: http://imgur.com/account/favorites/3uwKFI6

The two meanings of the word plus as “mathematical symbol of addition” and as “an advantage” are being used to create humor.

4. Compound puns are made by using a string of two or more words that sound similar to a string of different words.

A man walks into a psychiatrist’s office wearing only shorts made of plastic wrap. The shrink says, “Well, I can clearly see you’re nuts.”

I will let you guys figure this one out on your own…

But come to EC Los Angeles to have fun learning English! We have best value English courses and awesome teachers that will make you laugh all day!

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