Puns

Puns are ambigous words; words which sound the same but with two very different meanings which are used for humourous effect. (A traditional explanation of a pun is a "play on words" but since this defines everything from puns to Spoonerisms to Malapropsims to Pig Latin it really is too general to use here.)

This example illustrates a pun well:

There are two meanings here of hard to beat:

1. not able to be surpassed, i.e. nothing is better than a boiled egg
2. cannot be whisked, i.e. because the boiled egg is hard you can't whisk it into scrambled eggs, for example

The usual response to a pun is a groan from the audience. Traditionally, making a pun never leads to laugh out loud humour. Joseph Addison the playwright reportedly said that puns were, "the lowest form of wit"; the usual response is to say this is because they are the foundation of all humour.

In the TEFL classroom puns are useful for several good reasons:

1. They break the ice. A bad pun (and most of them are) releases tension and relaxes everyone.
2. They can be very useful to explain homonyms; the students will remember the word and its two meanings if its associated with a pun.

Because a good pun relies not on the similarity of words but also of meaning, it has a place in TEFL.

Homophone Puns

Homophones are words which are spelt differently but sound the same. Examples of homophonic puns include:

Shakespeare writes in Richard III:

Here the pun relies on the sound of son and sun. Some homophones, however, will need specific pronunciation:

This example above works in many dialects but by no means all.

Usefully for teachers, almost any homophone can be worked into a pun and this will help the class remember it. Suppose you come across the word, copse, in a text. Explain to the class the meaning and then give them this homophonic pun to remember it:

Homographic Puns

Homographs are words which are spelt the same, but have different meaning and pronunciation. Because of this they work best when written.

This sentence from Douglas Adams relies on the homophonic pun tune a and tuna along with the homographic pun of bass (as in the instrument and the fish).

Puns vs Malapropisms

A malapropism is a word used wrongly - and accidentally - in place of a correct word. Someone might want to say:

But instead say:

This is not a pun as such, but the same principle could be used humorously in the right circumstances:

Here the word suppository is used instead of respository. It is not a pun per se, but could almost be classed as one due to the similarity of the two words.

Example Puns

The following puns are all related to language, teaching and grammar in some way.

And these are less so but worth repeating:

External Links

Pun of the Day