Lexpert Magazine

LEXPERT MAGAZINE | OCTOBER 2017 67 WORDS | DETOURS | Love them or hate them, puns have been a fixture of language throughout the ages IF YOU ARE a reticent punster, be aware that you represent the not-so-silent major- ity. It has been calculated that two-thirds of the jokes in a typical language collection rely on puns. e humour in language is oen deliberate but many have posed this ludic question: To pun or not to pun? Puns have been much maligned by a host of commentators. Freud derided puns as "cheap," and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes assailed them as "verbicide." Many writers in 17th- and 18th-century England, in- cluding John Dryden, Daniel Defoe and Joseph Addison, believed that the English language approached perfection and that the inherent ambiguity in puns created confusion and impoliteness. Puns have had their defenders. ree hundred years ago, Henry Erskine coun- tered the statement that "a pun is the lowest form of wit" by adding that "it is therefore the foundation of all wit," and Oscar Le- vant opined that punning was the "lowest form of humour when you didn't think of it first." Punning has been a language fixture through the ages. In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus introduces himself to the Cy- clops as Outis, which means "no man" in Greek. He then attacks the giant, who calls for reinforcement from his fellow monsters with the plea, "No man is killing me!" Nat- Where to Find Giant Snails e creation of puns was facilitated by the many borrowings from the Romance languages in the 13th and 14th centur- ies. As well, the revolutionary changes in English pronunciation at the beginning of the 15th century created many new homo- nyms, the building blocks of puns. Queen Elizabeth I herself punned when she de- clared, "Ye be burly, my Lord of Burleigh, but ye shall make less stir in our realm than my Lord of Leicester." TYPOLOGY OF PUNS Puns may be divided into discrete categor- ies. We have homophonic puns, which treat words that are homonyms as synonyms. Example: Why is it so wet in London? Be- cause so many kings and queens reign there. Another form is the homographic pun, which uses words that are spelled the same but possess different meanings and sounds. Example: Did you hear about the optician who fell into a lens grinder and made a spec- tacle of himself? ese two forms can be combined, and when this is done it is usually referred to as a homonymic pun. Example: She was only a rancher's daughter, but all the horsemen knew her. Still another genre is the compound pun, in which a word or string of words forms another word or string of words. Example: Where do you find giant snails? On the end of giants' fingers. e final type is the recur- sive pun, where the second part of the pun depends on understanding the first part. Example: A Freudian slip is where you say one thing and mean your mother. Next month I'll look at some of the verbal wit from the greatest punster of all time: William Shakespeare. urally, no one rushes to his aid, proving that the pun is indeed mightier than the sword. Cicero was another habitual grave pun- ster. When a man plowed up the burial ground of his father, Cicero couldn't resist interjecting, "is is truly to cultivate a father`s memory." In the Bible there are many puns on names. In Hebrew, adamah means ground and edom means red. e name Adam may derive from the red earth whence he came. e name Jacob is derived from the Heb- rew word for heel (ah' kev), because Jacob held onto the heel of his older twin brother, Esau, at birth. However, one might award Jesus the prize for best Biblical pun. We read in Mat- thew 16:18, "thou art Peter (Greek: Petros), and upon this rock (Greek: petra) I will build my church … " Pope Gregory, one- time guardian of the church, punned when he stated that English slaves were Non Ang- li, sed angeli: "not Angles, but angels." e heyday of English language puns was the Elizabethan era. is type of word- play was enjoyed by all strata of society, wordplay such as puns, repartee and double entendres being used, and wordsmiths ad- hering to a rigid distinction between them. For example, according to the OED a pun refers to "the use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more meanings or differ- ent associations, or the use of two or more words of the same or nearly the same sound with different meanings, so as to produce a humorous effect; a play on words." e Oxford English Dictionary defines double entendre as "a double meaning; a word or phrase having a double sense, esp. as used to convey an indelicate meaning." It is usually reserved for puns with sexual connotations, such as this one: Did you hear about the sleepy bride who couldn't stay awake for a second? Howard Richler's latest book, Wordplay: Arranged and Deranged Wit, was published in 2016; this month's column was adapted and excerpted from it. PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK

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