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Eight Types of Puns

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

James Brown
James Brown*
Affiliation:
North Texas State CollegeDenton
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Extract

The Pun, Addison notes, is “a Sound, and nothing but a Sound.” Lamb elaborates: a pun “is a pistol let off at the ear”; it has, he says, “an ear-kissing smack with it.” But the position is not entirely sound; like “The Echo,” a poem which Hood rejected, it “will not answer.” Any hearing on the pun must first admit the pun effect, which precedes analysis and shows that we distinguish the pun semantically, not aurally. The sound is only echo to the sense, and through reflection we conclude that the pun effect is a function of multiple meaning. But even the best pun, whatever that may be, when it must be explained fails to elicit those unusual noises which are the punster's usual reward; the pun effect, it seems, results from some kind of greatly accelerated or simultaneous perception of multiple meanings. Psychology is here deeply involved—for any kind of meaning perception is singularly difficult to analyze—and such tangled affairs are most wisely avoided. A more reasonable approach lies in study of the conditions permitting and the significance attending this curious and characteristic phenomenon; for the pun effect hints at larger matters.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 71 , Issue 1 , March 1956 , pp. 14 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1956

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References

1 Spectator, No. 61; “Popular Fallacies: ix, ‘That the Worst Puns are the Best’ ” and “Distant Correspondents” in Elia and the Last Essays of Elia; The Works of Thomas Hood, ed. by his son [Thomas Hood] (London, 1862), i, 53.

2 The intermediate situation, when multiple known meanings are not significantly different, or when significant differences are known but do not apply, is the realm of nuance. The sometimes “emotional” emphasis attributed to the nuance results from the latter case, it seems, when known different meanings do not apply but implicit lexical ambiguity (tantamount to implicit symbol ambiguity) asserts some kind of additional meaning.

3 Journal to Stella, ed. Harold Williams (Oxford, 1948), ii, 400, 402–403.

4 Perhaps some mention should be made of the “bad” pun, which is achieved by abuse or misuse of the powers and limitations here under discussion. Though the “bad” pun can be very elaborate, there are only two basic forms: the one makes use of a forced or false lexical ambiguity; the other sometimes brutally manipulates contexts so as to utilize ambiguities fetched from afar.

The most common kind of false lexical ambiguity results from forcing similarity upon symbols only approximately alike; such puns range from the gross imposition of “A meretricious and a happy New Year” to the malaprop pun—commonly met as the student blunder—“Brian de Bois Guilbert asked Rebecca to be his mistress, and she reclined to do so.” Another kind of false lexical ambiguity can be achieved with the neologism—“The druggist is a piller of society.” (The same pun can be seen as more legitimately but less effectively based upon the archaic ‘pill—to plunder (pillage).‘) All puns using symbol distortion are more effective, probably, when the reader is forced to supply the distortion: W. R. Parker reports the pun topical, in a discussion of voodoo—“It all reminds me of flying sorcerers” (PMLA, lxvii [Sept. 1952], xii).

The second form of the “bad” pun occurs when any context linking is achieved simply because an ambiguity presents itself or can be arranged for. Hamlet offers several examples in his reply to Polonius:

Polonius: I did enact Julius Caesar; I was killed i' the Capitol; Brutus killed me.

Hamlet: It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there. (iii.ii. 108–111)

For this kind of thing, homonyms are a never-failing source-pot. A final example, and a classic of its kind, is that furtive remark attributed to one of Macbeth's guards when he saw Birnam wood advancing on Dunsinane: “Cheese it,” he said, “the copse.”

The difficult thing about “bad” puns, of course, is that the perceiver cannot fail to follow them out; “bad” puns are characterized by symptoms of birth which draw attention, and the perceiver's own skill in language-use is responsible for his pain. The two remedies for an attack of “bad” puns are an immediate retreat or an offensive onslaught of your own.

5 The presence of “melt” suggests a metal crown: ‘The royal headdress (symbolizing sovereignty) which made earth kingly is dissolving.’ A synecdochic understanding of such a crown can apply: ‘The king of the earth is dying.’ Royalty leads to excellence: ‘The most excellent thing in the world is disappearing.’ Excellence suggests the elevation metaphor: ‘The peak of mankind is falling?