Questions tagged [puns]
Pun is a play on words or paronomasia.
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What-all does "pun" mean, really? [closed]
To my knowledge, a pun is a specific kind of wordplay hinged on a homophone/double-entendre (e.g., "What's black and white and re(a)d all over? A newspaper") or on multiple meanings of a ...
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Terry/Gina "testes" double entendree
On a series (Brooklyn 99 S2E2 beginning), one character announces their decision to get a vasectomy, and lets the others have fun at him. One such response is "No need to be so testes". I ...
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Could "jibe with" imply something racist?
In the latest episode of Succession, they are talking about potential candidates and we know there is a guy called Salgado (I don't remember a prior implication that Salgado is racist but he is not ...
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What is the meaning of this pun: "planphlet"? [closed]
In a recent video (exactly here) there was a term used, "planphlet":
... a plan printed on a pamphlet. PLANPHLET!
which I believe is a pun, but I can't decipher what it relates to.
From ...
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Is the movie title "love and other drugs" a play on some phrase?
Does anyone know if the movie title "love and other drugs" is a play on some other phrase of the form X and other Y?
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What is it called when two words are combined by overlapping each other?
Say I have the word "hotel" and "telephone." I then combine them together to make "hotelephone." Note that there is no truncation in this example. It is not a portmanteau....
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Can 'An ass that won't quit' connote stubbornness?
I've tracked down a potential folk etymology of "butt that won't quit" from the phrase 'legs that won't quit', but I can't attest that in a dictionary anywhere.
My question comes from my ...
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Is "Biggles Flies Undone" a pun?
At the end of the Monty Python sketch "Biggles Dictates a Letter", there's a voiceover (sounds like John Cleese to me) saying: "Next week, part 2: Biggles Flies Undone"
https://...
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Pun of the word “fall”
Is this sentence sound native to English speakers?
Fall falls on falls.
Which I intended to say "Autumn comes to the waterfalls."
If this does not sound native, how would you use the word &...
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A "pun" that I can't understand, at all
In the book The Quantum Universe: Everything That Can Happen Does Happen by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw, on page 104 there seems to be a pun of authors:
Generally speaking, frequency is the ...
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How to translate "Facéties de Descendre" from French in the context of a board game?
I'd like to translate a card from a French board game. In particular, I'm interested about one of the names of the abilities. Now, I'm not a native English speaker, but I'm pretty sure that the ...
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Opposite opinion vs Opposing opinion
Suppose I think that puppies are cute (which I do) and someone thinks otherwise (how dare they?), i. e. puppies are not cute. Is the latter the opposing opinion or the opposite opinion? If both ...
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What is the 'evident pun' in Moonchild?
Recently, a friend sent me this passage from Aleister Crowley's 1917 novel Moonchild:
“Dinner was served; the Poltergeist supplied the conversation. Never before had he been so light, so genial, so ...
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Meaning of the joke about the fish and the dam [closed]
There is the joke.
-What did the fish say when he ran into the wall?
-Dam.
Could someone explain it to me, please?
As far as I can tell the joke is all about the intended pun: the dam sounds similar ...
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Is 'avocardio' a pun?
My coworker has a shirt where it's a picture of an avocado riding a bicycle. The joke? Avocardio!
My coworker says the joke is a pun. It's definitely a play on words, but I always thought a pun had ...
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What is the meaning of "objectively better" in this sentence
I read a sentence in Word by Word by Kory Stamper which was:
If you ask a modern adherent to this rule why, exactly, you aren't supposed to end a sentence with a preposition, they merely goggle at ...
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Term for a joke with a missing punchline
What do you call a joke that has a punchline which as been emphatically implied through omission, as in...
[Comedian peeling banana, saying...]
"one skin, two skin, three skin, (pregnant pause)....
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Is there an existent terminology for ironically replacing a word in a phrase with something related that does not sound similar to the original word?
This is mirrored to the question: "Jokes where you replace a word with something unrelated but similar sounding" (Jokes where you replace a word with something unrelated but similar sounding).
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Can the word "backhanded" be easily misunderstood by a young kid?
In a recent question at Spanish Language it has been asked about the translation of "backhanded" into Spanish as "treacherous". I answered that that is an adaptation more than a translation because of ...
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What is the term for finding words within words for comedic effect?
I am trying to find a word that describes finding a word within another word for comedic effect i.e. functioning as a pun or word play.
The example that sparked this question was when I came across a ...
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Spoonerisms in the English language
As a native French speaker, I am a big enthusiast of spoonerisms.
I used to write a few texts full of them, mainly for my own pleasure!
But I have to be honest...the underlying meaning was bawdy most ...
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Is a sentence with two literal meanings a metaphor?
Yesterday, the Twitter user @TomLarkinSky tweeted:
Metaphor alert: there’s currently no power in the room at No 10 where
the PM is going to make her speech. Might delay things a bit.
Is this a ...
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What do you call a pun that isn't a pun?
I've just learned of the event within the (UK) Labour Party known as the 'Chicken Coup' and it made me wonder: is it still a pun if it's a play on writing, and not the spoken word?
According to the ...
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sarcastic responses as used in comedy or joking around [closed]
when a supervisor gives unsolicited advice on how to do something as a reminder and you have been doing this job just that way for the last twenty years and you want to say ...really for real you are ...
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What's the meaning of "They’ll be all the sense you got"?
On page 13 of Educated by Tara Westover, it says
When Dad read the verse to his mother, she laughed in his face. “I got
some pennies in my purse,” she said. “You better take them. They’ll be all ...
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Explain this Pun "A Slice of New York"
How would you describe "A Slice of New York" as a pun?
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Is “on porpoise” a pun?
Is the phrase “Did you do that on porpoise?” a pun? It doesn’t exploit multiple meanings of the same word but instead uses a different word that sounds similar
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Is there a hidden meaning to the name "Coraline Cake" from the suffragette cook book?
According to NPR, the suffragette movement included politically subversive recipe books.
Chicago obstetrician and gynecologist Alice Bunker Stockham, the fifth woman to become a licensed doctor in ...
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A Pun or Not a Pun [closed]
If you say, "hello dear" to a person dressed as a deer is it a pun? I think it is a pun, but my friend argues that it is not.
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Can the unexpected validity of the literal meaning of a phrase on top of the usual figurative sense be considered a pun?
This is from the transcript of an episode titled Leela and the Genestalk (WARNING: very badly formatted wiki page) of the popular cartoon series Futurama.
(Background: a character named Mom has ...
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Ovine Wordplay: On the 'lam' vs. On the 'lamb'
Pardon me for feeling a bit sheepish; this is my first time posting a question here.
I am known - and revered, as far as I can tell - as something of a pun wizard at my workplace. Today, on our ...
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What is the meaning of the phrasal verb 'move about'?
In the Xenophobe's guide to the English, page 54, under the heading Sense of Humour, the authors, Antony Miall and David Milsted, state that:
English humour is as much about recognition as it is ...
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Is there a word for the use of words which, phonetically, create another word?
In the board game "Scotland Yard" one player attempts to thwart capture by the others through misleading them as to his true whereabouts. In the rules, this player is referred to as "Mr. X".
Saying ...
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Term For A Portmanteau of Phrases [duplicate]
Does "portmanteau" only refer to single words like spork or turducken? If so what would be the term for multiple phrases combined together on a common word or words?
For example:
If I wanted to ...
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Does this pun make sense to native speakers? [closed]
If one were to play the pipes without an audience, would that constitute an "exercise in flutility"?
Not sure if that pun works on native speakers…
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"Love Trumps hate"? [closed]
I noticed a slogan in the past presidential election: Love Trumps hate.
At first I thought "Trumps"referred to people who supported Trump, and a "what" was omitted. Only "Love what Trumps hate" made ...
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What is so bad about puns?
Many times I've heard of 'pun intended' or 'pun not intended', which I see as a form of excuse in the English-spoken world. However, I can not wrap my head around why are you constantly excusing/...
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Identifying Literary Devices ~ Synecdoche or Pun?
She would step out of the river, dry in the sun for five minutes and climb back into the car among the shocked eyeballs of her companions.
Is the emphasized phrase an example of a synecdoche or a pun?...
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Does "X is made of people" intend a joking tone?
The essay How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub reads:
It said "people ages 25 to 29 now make up 7.6 percent of all residents, up from 7 percent about a decade ago." Wow, I thought, ...
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Wordplay that thwarts expectation by applying a description to a different object? [duplicate]
Example:
A news show puts an image of donald trump holding up a fish on the screen. The announcer says: "Here's a photo of a slimy, scaly, reptile -- and he's holding a fish, too."
I'm not sure if ...
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Is there a name for a phrase or proverb that multiple possible word-meanings but the same phrase-meaning?
I will start with my example to clarify the odd phrasing of my question.
The die is cast.
Since both 'die' and 'cast' have two meanings, the phrase can be read in two ways:
The die [as in a game ...
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"Keeping up with the car dash icons" - What's the pun?
This tweet asserts that an article by this title contains a pun. However, myself and a few friends, all American, don't get the joke. We assume it's in the title:
Keeping up with the car dash icons
...
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Is there a pun in the name "Crodfoller T. Rhubarb"?
In the 1992 adventure game The Dagger of Amon Ra, the protagonist Laura Bow has the following conversation with her colleague, Crodfoller T. Rhubarb:
Laura: What can you tell me about ...
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Explain a pun please
I think it's the right place to ask. English is not my native, so while I'm able to understand a majority of puns I come acrossб this one puzzles me:
Here's a link to the image.
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Word meaning "has many similar forms"
I'm looking for one word (or a variety of words) that imply ambiguity through synonymous meaning.
"Do you have that in large?"
"No sir, we only have it in big, great, impressive, grand, and
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How or why did "sock" come to mean "punch"?
I see that sock as an article of clothing is derived from Latin soccus for slipper. But, how did it also become a synonym for "a punch" or "to punch"?
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Would you consider "sound idea" (usable as) a pun?
Today I read this comment in the Csound mailing list see full post (emphasis mine):
The interface could be polished, IMO, but the idea is sound [...]
it took me (as a German native speaker) a ...
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What does "cup and Chaucer" mean?
I've recently come across a phrase unknown to me: "cup and Chaucer". What does it mean?
Obviously it is connected with the popularity and influence of Geoffrey Chaucer as the Father of English ...
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What's it called when a compound word can be split up in diff ways to present alt meanings? [duplicate]
For instance, is the pet store PETSMART meant to be Pets Mart, or Pet Smart? That's not actually my question, as I'm pretty sure it's Pet Smart. I'm just asking what it's called when a word either CAN ...
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Is there a technical name for a play on words, such as "FaceCrook"? [duplicate]
Is there a technical name for the play on words where someone would substitute a word for a similar one (or add a common word to the end of one) in order to express their opinion about the subject in ...
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