Word play sentences

Word Play: Examples of a Play on Words

It goes without saying that writers are drawn to language, but because we love words so much, the English language is filled with word play. By interrogating the complexities of language—homophones, homographs, words with multiple meanings, sentence structures, etc.—writers can explore new possibilities in their work through a play on words.

It’s easiest to employ word play in poetry, given how many linguistic possibilities there are in poetry that are harder to achieve in prose. Nonetheless, the devices listed in this article apply to writers of all genres, styles, and forms of writing.

After examining different word play examples—such as portmanteaus, malapropisms, and oxymorons—we’ll look at opportunities for how these devices can propel your writing. But first, let’s establish what we mean when we’re talking about a play on words.

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Wordplay Definition

Word play, also written as wordplay, word-play, or a play on words, is when a writer experiments with the sound, meaning, and/or construction of words to produce new and interesting meanings. In other words, the writer is twisting language to say something unexpected, with the intent of entertaining or provoking the reader.

Wordplay definition: Experimentation with the sounds, definitions, and/or constructions of words to produce new and interesting meanings.

It should come as no surprise that many word play examples were written by Shakespeare. One such example comes from Hamlet. Some time after Polonius is killed, Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius, asks him where Polonius is. The below exchange occurs:

KING CLAUDIUS

Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?

HAMLET

At supper.

KING CLAUDIUS

At supper! where?

HAMLET

Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain
convocation of politic worms are e’en at him. Your
worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all
creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for
maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but
variable service, two dishes, but to one table:
that’s the end.

The line “Not where he eats, but where he is eaten” is a play on words, drawing the audience’s attention to Polonius’ death. He is not eating, but being consumed by the worms. This play on the meaning of “eat” utilizes the verb’s multiple definitions—to consume versus to decompose. (It is also an example of synchysis, and of polyptoton, a type of repetition device.)

The most common of word play examples is the pun. A pun directly plays with the sounds and meanings of words to create new and surprising sentences. For example, “The incredulous cat said you’ve got to be kitten me right meow!” puns on the words “kidding” (kitten) and “now” (meow).

To learn more about puns, check out our article on Pun Examples in Literature. Some of the play on words examples in this article can also count as puns, but because we’ve covered puns in a previous blog, this article covers different and surprising possibilities for twisting and torturing language.

Examples of a Play on Words: 10 Literary Devices

Word play isn’t just a way to have fun with language, it’s also a means of creating new and surprising meanings. By experimenting with the possibilities of sound and meaning, writers can create new ideas that traditional language fails to encompass.

Let’s see word play in action. The following examples of a play on words all come from published works of literature.

1. Word Play Examples: Anthimeria

Anthimeria is a type of word play in which a word is employed using a different part of speech than what is typically associated with that word. (For reference, the parts of speech are: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, articles, interjections, conjunctions, and prepositions.)

Most commonly, a writer using anthimeria will make a verb a noun (nominalization), or make a noun a verb (verbification). It would be much harder to employ this device using other parts of speech: using an adjective as a pronoun, for example, would be difficult to read, even for the reader familiar with anthimeria.

Here are some word play examples using anthimeria:

Nouns to Verbs

The thunder would not peace at my bidding.

—From King Lear, (IV, vi.) by Shakespeare

The word “peace” is being used as a verb, meaning “to calm down.” Many anthimeria examples come to us from Shakespare, in part because of his genius with language, and in part because he needed to use certain words that would preserve the meter of his verse.

“I’ll unhair thy head.”

—From Antony and Cleopatra (II, v. ) by Shakespeare

Of course, “unhair” isn’t a word at all. But, it’s using “hair” as a verb, and then using the opposite of that verb, to express scalping someone’s hair off.

Up from my cabin, My sea-gown scarf’d about me, in the dark
Groped I to find out them; had my desire.

—From Hamlet, (V, ii.) by Shakespeare

Shakespeare is using “scarf” as a verb, meaning “to wrap around.” Nowadays, the use of “scarf” as a verb is recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary, but at the time, this was a very new usage of the word.

Verbs to Nouns

It’s difficult to find examples of nominalization in literature, mostly because it’s not a wise decision in terms of writing style. Verbs are the strongest parts of speech: they provide the action of your sentences, and can also provide necessary description and characterization in far fewer words than nouns and adjectives can. Using a verb as a noun only hampers the power of that verb.

Nonetheless, we use verbs as nouns all the time in everyday conversation. If you “hashtag” something on social media, you’re using the noun hashtag as a verb. Or, if you “need a good drink,” you’re noun-ing the verb “drink.” Often, nouns become acceptable dictionary entries for verbs because of the repeated use of nominalizations in everyday speech.

Nouns and Verbs to Adjectives

“The parishioners about here,” continued Mrs. Day, not looking at any living being, but snatching up the brown delf tea-things, “are the laziest, gossipest, poachest, jailest set of any ever I came among.”

—From Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy

The words “gossipest, poachest, jailest” might seem silly or immature. But, they’re fun and striking uses of language, and they help characterize Mrs. Day through dialogue.

“I’ll get you, my pretty.”

—From The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

By using the adjective “pretty” as a noun, the witch’s use of anthimeria in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz strikes a chilling note: it’s both pejorative and suggests that the witch could own Dorothy’s beauty.

Anthimeria isn’t just a form of language play, it’s also a means of forging neologisms, which eventually enter the English lexicon. Many words began as anthimerias. For example, the word “typing” used to be a new word, as people didn’t “employ type” until the invention of typing devices, like typewriters. The word “ceiling” comes from an antiquated word “ceil,” meaning sky: “ceiling” means to cover over something, and that verb eventually became the noun we use today.

2. Word Play Examples: Double Entendre

A double entendre is a form of word play in which a word or phrase is used ambiguously, meaning the reader can interpret it in multiple ways. A double entendre usually has a literal meaning and a figurative meaning, with both meanings interacting with each other in some surprising or unusual way.

In everyday speech, the double entendre is often employed sexually. Indeed, writers often use the device lasciviously, and bawdry bards like Shakespeare won’t hesitate when it comes to dirty jokes.

Nonetheless, here a few examples of double entendre that are a little more PG:

“Marriage is a fine institution, but I’m not ready for an institution.”

—Mae West, quoted in The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said by Robert Byrne

The repeated use of “institution” suggests a double meaning. While marriage is, literally, an institution, West is also suggesting that marriage is an institution in a different sense—like a prison or a psychiatric hospital, one that she’s not ready to commit to.

“What ails you, Polyphemus,” said they, “that you make such a noise, breaking the stillness of the night, and preventing us from being able to sleep? Surely no man is carrying off your sheep? Surely no man is trying to kill you either by fraud or by force?”But Polyphemus shouted to them from inside the cave, “No man is killing me by fraud; no man is killing me by force.”

“Then,” said they, “if no man is attacking you, you must be ill; when Jove makes people ill, there is no help for it, and you had better pray to your father Neptune. ”

—Odyssey by Homer

In Homer’s Odyssey, the hero, Odysseus, tells the cyclops Polyphemus that his name is “no man.” Then, when Odysseus blinds Polyphemus, the cyclops is enraged and tells people that “no man” did this, suggesting that his blindness is an affliction from the gods. In this instance, Polyphemus means one thing but communicates another, causing humorous ambiguity for the audience.

On the contrary, Aunt Augusta, I’ve now realized for the first time in my life the vital importance of being Earnest.

—The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde

In Oscar Wilde’s play, the protagonist Jack Worthing leads a double life: to his lover in the countryside, he’s Jack, while he’s Ernest to his lover in the city. The play follows this character’s deceptions, as well as his realization of the necessity of being true to himself. Thus, in this final line of the play, Jack realizes the importance of being “earnest,” a pun and double entendre on “Ernest. ”

3. Word Play Examples: Kenning

The kenning is a type of metaphor that was popular among medieval poets. It is a phrase, usually two nouns, that describes something figuratively, often using words only somewhat related to the object being described.

If you’ve read Beowulf, you’ve seen the kenning in action—and you know that, in translation, some kennings are easier understood than others. For example, the ocean is often described as the “whale path,” which makes sense. But a dragon is described as a “mound keeper,” and if you don’t know that dragons in literature tend to hoard piles of gold, it might be harder to understand this kenning.

A kenning is constructed with a “base word” and a “determinant.” The base word has a metaphoric relationship with the object being described, and the determinant modifies the base word. So, in the kenning “whale path,” the “path” is the base word, as it’s a metaphor for the sea. “Whale” acts as a determinant, cluing the reader towards the water.

The kenning is a play on words because it uses marginally related nouns to describe things in new and exciting language. Here are a few examples:

Kenning In

At some point in the text of Beowulf, the following kennings occur:

• Battle shirt — armor
• Battle sweat — blood
• Earth hall — burial mound
• Helmet bearer  — warrior
• Raven harvest — corpse
• Ring giver — king
• Sail road  — the sea
• Sea cloth — sail
• Sky candle — the sun
• Sword sleep — death

Don’t be too surprised by all of the references to fighting and death. Most of Beowulf is a series of battles, and given that the story developed across centuries of Old English, much of the epic poem explores God, glory, and victory.

Kenning Elsewhere in Literature

The majority of kennings come from Old English poetry, though some contemporary poets also employ the device in their work. Here are a few more kenning word play examples.

So the earth-stepper spoke, mindful of hardships,
of fierce slaughter, the fall of kin:
Oft must I, alone, the hour before dawn
lament my care. Among the living
none now remains to whom I dare
my inmost thought clearly reveal.
I know it for truth: it is in a warrior
noble strength to bind fast his spirit,
guard his wealth-chamber, think what he will.

—”The Wanderer” (Anonymous)

“The Wanderer” is a poem anonymously written and preserved in a codex called The Exeter Book, a manuscript from the late 900s. It contains approximately ⅙ of the Old English poetry we know about today. In this poem, an “earth-stepper” is a person, and a “wealth-chamber” is the wanderer’s mind or heart—wherever it is that he stores his immaterial virtues.

No, they’re sapped and now-swept as my sea-wolf’s love-cry.

—from “Cuil Cliffs” by Ian Crockatt

Ian Crockatt is a contemporary poet and translator from Scotland, and his work with Old Norse poetry certainly influences his own poems. “Sea wolf” is a kenning for “sailor,” and a “love cry” is a love poem.

There is a singer everyone has heard,Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.

—“The Oven Bird” by Robert Frost

In this Frost sonnet, the speaker employs the kenning “petal-fall” to describe the autumn. The full text of the poem has been included, not for any particular reason, other than it’s simply a lovely, striking poem.

4. Word Play Examples: Malapropism

A malapropism is a device primarily used in dialogue. It is employed when the correct word in a sentence is replaced with a similar-sounding word or phrase that has an entirely different meaning.

For example, the word “assimilation” sounds a lot like the phrase “a simulation.” Employing a malapropism, I might have a character say “Everything is programmed. We all live in assimilation.”

For the most part, malapropisms are humorous examples of a play on words. They often make fun of people who use pretentious language to sound intelligent. But, in everyday speech, we probably employ more malapropisms than we think, so this device also emulates real speech.

The name “malapropism” comes from the play The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. In it, the character Mrs. Malaprop often uses words with opposite meanings but similar sounds to the word she intends. Here’s an example from the play:

“He is the very pineapple of politeness!” (Instead of pinnacle.)

Malapropisms are also known as Dogberryisms (from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing), or as acyrologia. Though this word play device is employed humorously, it also demonstrates the complex relationship our brain has with language, and how easy it is to mix words up phonetically.

5. Word Play Examples: Metalepsis

Metalepsis is the use of a figure of speech in a new or surprising context, creating multiple layers of meaning. In other words, the writer takes a figure of speech and employs it metaphorically, using that figure of speech to reference something that is otherwise unspoken.

This is a tricky literary device to define, so let’s look at an example right away:

As he swung toward them holding up the handHalf in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling…

—“Out, Out” by Robert Frost

The expected phrase here would be “the blood from spilling.” But, in this excerpt, “life” replaces the word “blood.” The word life, then, becomes a metonymy for “blood,” and as this displacement occurs in the common phrase “spilled blood,” “life” becomes a metalepsis.

So, there are two layers of meaning going on here. One is the meaning derived from the phrase “spilled blood,” and the other comes from the use of “life” to represent “blood.” In any metalepsis, there are multiple layers of meaning occurring, as a metaphor or metonymy is employed to modify a figurative phrase, adding complexity to the phrase itself.

This is a tricky, advanced example of word play, and it primarily occurs in poetry. Here are a few other examples in literature:

“Was this the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium?”

—Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe

Here, the face in question is that of Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world (according to The Iliad and the Odyssey). Helen is claimed by Paris, a prince of Troy, and when he takes Helen home with him, it incites the Trojan war—thus the references to a thousand ships and the towers of Ilium. So, the face refers to Helen, and Faustus describes the beauty of that face tangentially, referencing the magnitude of the Trojan War.

“And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities.”

—The Book of Amos (4:6)

In this Biblical passage, the phrase “cleanness of teeth” is actually referencing hunger. By having nothing to eat, the people have nothing to stain their teeth with. Thus, the figurative image of clean teeth becomes a metalepsis for starvation.

“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

—Macbeth (V; v), by Shakespeare

This is a complex extended metaphor and metalepsis. Instead of saying “to the ends of time,” Shakespeare modifies this phrase to “the last syllable of recorded time. ” He then extends this idea by saying that life is “a walking shadow, a poor player”—in other words, that which speaks the syllables of recorded time, and then never speaks again. By describing life as an idiot which signifies nothing, Macbeth is saying that life has no inherent value or meaning, and that all men are fools who exist at the whim of a random universe.

Note: this soliloquy arrives after the death of Macbeth’s wife, and it clues us towards Macbeth’s growing madness. So, yes, it’s a very dark passage, but dark for a reason.

To summarize: a metalepsis is a type of word play in which the writer describes something using a tangentially related image or figure of speech. It is, put most succinctly, a metonymy of a metonymy. There is also a narratological device called metalepsis, but it has nothing to do with this particular literary device.

6. Word Play Examples: Oxymoron

An oxymoron is a self-contradictory phrase. It is usually just two words long, with each word’s definition contrasting the other one’s, despite the apparent meaning of the words themselves. It is a play on words because opposing meanings are juxtaposed to form a new, seemingly-impossible idea.

A common example of this is the phrase “virtual reality.” Well, if it’s virtual, then it isn’t reality, just a simulation of a new reality. Nonetheless, we employ those words together all the time, and in fact, the juxtaposition of these incompatible terms creates a new, interesting meaning.

Oxymorons occur all the time in everyday speech. “Same difference,” “Only option,” “live recording,” and even the genre “magical realism.” In any of these examples, a new meaning forms from the placement of these incongruous words.

Here are a few examples from literature:

“Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

—Romeo and Juliet (II; ii), by Shakespeare

“No light; but rather darkness visible”

—Paradise Lost by John Milton

“Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit. ”

—“The Hound of Heaven” by Francis Thompson

Note: an oxymoron is not self-negating, but self-contradictory. The use of opposing words should mean that each word cancels the other out, but in a good oxymoron, a new meaning is produced amidst the contradictions. So, you can’t just put two opposing words together: writing “the healthy sick man,” for example, doesn’t mean anything, unless maybe it’s placed into a very specific context. An oxymoron should produce new meaning on its own.

7. Word Play Examples: Palindrome

The palindrome is a word play device not often employed in literature, but it is language at its most entertaining, and can provide interesting challenges to the daring poet or storyteller.

A palindrome is a word or phrase that is spelled the exact same forwards and backwards (excluding spaces). The word “racecar,” for example, is spelled the same in both directions. So is the phrase “Able was I ere I saw Elba.” So is the sentence “A man, a plan, a canal, Panama. ”

The longer a palindrome gets, the less likely it is to make sense. Take, for example, the poem “Dammit I’m Mad” by Demetri Martin. It’s a perfect palindrome, but, although there are some striking examples of language (for example, “A hymn I plug, deified as a sign in ruby ash”), much of the word choice is nonsensical.

Because of this, there are also palindromes that occur at the line-level. Meaning, the words cannot be read forwards and backwards, but the lines of a poem are the same forwards and backwards. The poem “Doppelganger” by James A. Lindon is an example.

Want to challenge yourself? Write a palindrome that tells a cohesive story. You’ll be playing with both the spellings of words and with the meanings that arise from unconventional word choice. Good luck!

8. Word Play Examples: Paraprosdokian

A paraprosdokian is a play on words where the writer diverts from the expected ending of a sentence. In other words, the writer starts a sentence with a predictable ending, but then supplies a new, unexpected ending that complicates the original meanings of the words and surprises the reader.

Here’s an example sentence: “Is there anything that mankind can’t accomplish? We’ve been to the moon, eradicated polio, and made grapes that taste like cotton candy.” This last clause is a paraprosdokian: the reader expects the list to contain great, life-altering achievements, but ending the list with something a bit more trivial, like cotton candy grapes, is a humorous and unexpected twist.

With the paraprosdokian, writers contort the expected endings of sentences to create surprising juxtapositions, playing with both words and sentence structures. Here are a few literary examples, with the paraprosdokian in bold:

We clutch our bellies

and roll on the floor.

When I say this, it should mean laughter,

not poison.

—“Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out” by Richard Siken

By the time you swear you’re his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying—
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.

—“Unfortunate Coincidence” by Dorothy Parker

“By the wide lake’s margin I mark’d her lie –The wide, weird lake where the alders sigh –
A young fair thing, with a shy, soft eye;
And I deem’d that her thoughts had flown …
All motionless, all alone.
Then I heard a noise, as of men and boys,
And a boisterous troop drew nigh.
Whither now will retreat those fairy feet?
Where hide till the storm pass by?
On the lake where the alders sigh …
For she was a water-rat.”

—“Shelter” by Charles Stuart Calverley

9. Word Play Examples: Portmanteau

A portmanteau is a word which combines two distinct words in both sound and meaning. “Smog,” for example, is a portmanteau of both “smoke” and “fog,” because both the sounds of the words are combined as well as the definition of each word.

The portmanteau has become a popular marketing tactic in recent years. A portmanteau is also, often, an example of a neologism—a coined word for which new language is necessary to describe new things.

Here are a few portmanteaus that have recently entered the English lexicon:

• Fanzine (fan + magazine)
• Telethon (telephone + marathon)
• Camcorder (camera + recorder)
• Blog (web + log)
• Vlog (video + blog)
• Staycation (stay + vacation)
• Bromance (brother + romance)
• Webinar (web + seminar)
• Hangry (hungry + angry)
• Cosplay (costume + play)

Lewis Carroll popularized the portmanteau, but a work of fiction that’s rife with this word play is Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce. The novel—which is notoriously difficult to read due to its use of foreign words, as well as its disregard for conventional spelling and syntax—has coined portmanteaus like “ethiquetical” (ethical + etiquette), “laysense” (layman + sense), and “fadograph” (fading + photograph).

10. Word Play Examples: Spoonerism

A spoonerism occurs when the initial sounds of two neighboring words are swapped. For instance, the phrase “blushing crow” is a spoonerism of “crushing blow. ”

Often, spoonerisms are slips of the tongue. We might confuse our syllables when we speak, which is a natural result of our brains’ relationships to language.

Spoonerisms can be literary examples of a play on words. But they’re also just ways to have fun with language. An example is Shel Silverstein’s posthumous collection of children’s poems Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook.

How to Use a Play on Words in Your Writing

Writers can utilize word play for two different strategies: literary effect, and creative thinking.

When it comes to literary effect, a play on words can surprise, delight, provoke, and entertain the reader. Devices like oxymoron, metalepsis, and kenning offer new, innovative possibilities in language, and a strong example of these devices can move the reader in a way that ordinary language cannot.

Word play can also stimulate your own creativity. If you experiment with language using literary devices, you might stumble upon the following:

• A title for your work.
• Character names.
• Witty dialogue.
• Interesting or provocative description.
• The core idea of a poem or short story.

I’ll give a personal example. Once, in a fiction course, I was struggling to come up with an idea for a short story. A friend and I ended up bouncing words around and came up with the phrase “psychic psychiatrist” (an example of alliteration and polyptoton). Just playing with words like this was enough to inspire me to write a story about exactly that, a psychiatrist who predicts the future for their clients without realizing it.

Titles like The Importance of Being Earnest (a self-referential pun), “Dammit I’m Mad” (palindrome), or Back to the Future (oxymoron) all use word play to frame and guide the story or poem. You might find inspiration for your own work by considering, with careful attention and an appreciation for language, the many possibilities of a play on words.

Experiment with Word Play at Writers.

The instructors at Writers.com are masters of word play. Not only do we love words, we love to mess with them in surprising and innovative ways. If you want to formulate new ideas for your work, take a look at our upcoming online writing classes, where you’ll receive expert instruction on all the work you write and submit.

Wordplay: Definitions and Examples | Literary Terms

Wordplay (or word play, and also called play-on-words) is the clever and witty use of words and meaning. It involves using literary devices and techniques like consonance, assonance, spelling, alliteration, onomatopoeia, rhyme, acronym, pun, and slang (to name a few) to form amusing and often humorous written and oral expressions. Using wordplay techniques relies on several different aspects of rhetoric, like spelling, phonetics (sound and pronunciation of words), and semantics (meaning of words).

Here are some simple jokes that use wordplay for their humor:

Q: What did the ram say to his wife?

A: I love ewe.

Puns are some of the most frequently used forms of wordplay. Here, when spoken aloud, “I love ewe” sounds like “I love you.” But, the word “ewe” is the term for a female sheep.

Q: What did the mayonnaise say when the girl opened the refrigerator?

A: Close the door, I’m dressing!

This joke relies on two meanings of the word “dressing” for its humor—one for “dressing” as in putting on clothes, and one for mayonnaise being a type of salad “dressing.”

Here we will outline some primary wordplay techniques. However, this represents only a small selection; in truth, the actual list includes hundreds of techniques!

Acronyms are abbreviations of terms formed by using parts or letters of the original words, like saying “froyo” instead of frozen yogurt or “USA” for United States of America. The use of acronyms is increasingly common in our culture today—both formal and informal—and has risen in popularity over the past decade as texting has become commonplace (think of BRB and TTYL!). We use acronyms for all kinds of things, though—for example, the recent news about Great Britain’s exit from the European Union has come to be referred to as “Brexit,” combining parts of the words “Britain” and “Exit.”

Alliteration is a technique expressed by repeating the same first consonant sound in a series of words. You’re probably pretty familiar with this device, as it is a distinguishing feature of many nursery rhymes and tongue twisters. For example, “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”

Assonance is the matching of vowel sounds in language, while consonance is the matching of consonant sounds. These techniques can create some very catchy and interesting wordplay.

Assonance creates a rhyming effect, for example, “the fool called a duel with a mule.” Consonance has a pleasing sound, for example, “the shells she shucks are delicious.”

Double entendre is the double interpretation of a word or phrase, with the secondary meaning usually being funny or risqué. Naturally, double entendres rely on wordplay for their success, because the words used have a literal and a figurative meaning. For example, if you said “The baker has great buns,” it could be understood in two ways!

Idioms are popular, culturally understood phrases that generally have a figurative meaning. The English language alone is said to have more than 25,000 idioms. Common examples are almost endless, but to name a few, “it’s raining cats and dogs,” “butterflies in my stomach,” “catch a cold,” “rise and shine,” and “chill out” are some idioms that you probably hear every day.

Malapropism is incorrect use of a word or phrase when you mean to use another word or phrase that sounds similar.  For example, on Modern Family, Gloria says “Don’t give me an old tomato” instead of “Don’t give me an ultimatum”

Onomatopoeia are words that phonetically imitate sounds. Some common examples are boom, achoo, pow, whoosh, bam, tick-tock, click, meow, woof, tweet, and ribbit, just to name a few.

A pun is the ultimate form of wordplay and probably the most popular and widely used. In fact, many would define it as wordplay in general! Puns uses multiple meanings and the similar sounds of words to create a humorous affect. For example, “love at first bite” is a food pun for the idiom “love at first sight,” or, “spilling that glue made a real sticky situation!” uses glue’s main property (stickiness) to make a joke out of the common phrase “sticky situation,” which means a difficult situation.

Using spelling for wordplay is a tricky but fun technique that obviously works best when you can see it in written form. One great example is the web-sensation pig “Chris P. Bacon,” whose name sounds like “Crispy Bacon”!

As you probably know rhyming is the matching and repetition of sounds. It’s an especially popular form of wordplay for poetry, nursery rhymes, and children’s literature because of its catchy and rhythmic style. There are all different rhyme schemes that writers use, from rhyming every word to just rhyming the first or last word of a line. For example, Roses are red/Violets are blue/ Sugar is sweet/ And so are you! follows the scheme ABCB.

Slang is the use of casual and unique language and expressions, and varies depending on age, location, field of work or study, and many other factors. Localized slang and pop culture lingo often rely on wordplay for meaning, and are often filled with idioms (see above).

Wordplay’s use extends far beyond jokes and humor. It makes language more unique, more interesting, and more witty and amusing than using standard words and phrases. It has had an important role in rhetoric going as far back as the classics of literature and philosophy, from Plato to Shakespeare to Mark Twain. What’s more, it is a huge part of all languages and cultures around the globe, used not only by talented writers, speakers, and storytellers, but by all people of all ages. As soon as kids start telling jokes, they starting using wordplay!

Everybody knows Dr. Seuss for his completely unique wordplay and rhymes. Often a bit nutty, his stories are one-of-a-kind with creative and often totally strange language. While most authors would choose words to fit their rhyme schemes, Dr. Seuss often just makes up new words altogether. Here’s an example from a book you probably know very well, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish:

At our house we open cans.

We have to open many cans.

And that is why we have a Zans.

A Zans for cans is very good.

Have you a Zans for cans?

You should.

Here, Dr. Seuss needed a creature that rhymes with the word “cans,” so he decided to create one called a “Zans.” You can see the author’s wordplay clearly here—he uses not only made-up words, but rhyming as well; the signature Dr. Seuss style!

Shakespeare was a master of language and wordplay, and his puns are particularly well known. Here’s an example from Romeo and Juliet:

Mercutio: “Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.”

Romeo:     “Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes

With nimble soles; I have a soul of lead

So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.”

 Here, Romeo uses wordplay to speak about both dancing and his broken heart. First, he refers to Mercurio’s shoes’ “nimble soles,” but says he himself has a “soul of lead”—this means he both has a heavy heart, but also shoe soles of lead would “stake” him to the ground so that he “cannot move,” making it impossible to dance.

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the Weasley twins Fred and George open their own magic joke shop. Some of the advertisements for their products use some pretty funny wordplay, like this:

Why Are You Worrying About You-Know-Who?

You SHOULD Be Worrying About

U-NO-POO —

the Constipation Sensation That’s Gripping the Nation!

In the series, the evil Lord Voldemort is sometimes called You-Know-Who because it’s considered bad luck to speak his real name. Here, Fred and George make a risky joke about Voldemort by referring to him in their ad for a trick candy that causes constipation. They use rhyming lines with assonance, and the pun “You-No-Poo” to make their advertisement comedic and appealing to fellow jokesters.

The comic book style TV series iZOMBIE is filled with comedic wordplay about brains and zombie life. In fact, even the protagonist’s name, “Liv Moore,” is a play-on-words (she “lives more” even though she is a zombie). Some of the most notable instances of wordplay come in the chapter titles, which each feature a pun based on a combo of popular culture references and brains. Here are some examples from the episode “Even Cowgirls Get the Black and Blues,” which is a pun, too!

Pawn of the  Dead

This chapter titles makes a pun out of the well-known horror flick “Dawn of the Dead” as Liv and her partner enter a pawn shop.

Weapons of Glass Destruction

This chapter title makes a pun out of “Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

Seattle PDA

This chapter title, picturing Liv’s cop partner and member of the Seattle Police Department (Seattle PD) makes the pun “Seattle PDA.”

In Winnie the Pooh, Pooh often confuses the sounds of words with their real meaning. In this clip, Owl is using the word “issue,” and Pooh soon thinks he has a cold…

Winnie the Pooh: Owl's Cold Clip

Watch this video on YouTube

Here, Pooh mistakes Owl’s use of the word “issue” as the sound “achoo,” which as you know is associated with sneezing. As Owl tries to explain, Pooh continues to tell him that he might need to go lay down. This cute and clever wordplay is a signature feature of Pooh’s thinking.

The comedy series Modern Family is renowned for its use of all kinds of clever and hilarious wordplay. In particular, the character Gloria is known for her mispronunciations and malapropisms when speaking English, which is her second language. In this clip, her husband Jay points out some of the silly mistakes that she makes when speaking:

Baby Jesus Sneak Peek - Modern Family

Watch this video on YouTube

Here, we learn some of Gloria’s errors: “Doggy dog world” instead of “Dog-eat-dog world,” “blessings in the skies” instead of “blessings in disguise,” and so on. The clip ends with her final mistake—she accidentally ordered Jay a box of baby Jesus’ instead of a box of baby cheeses!

A figure of speech is a word or phrase that has a figurative (not literal) meaning. Many types of wordplay will use figures of speech, and vice versa. Some types of figures of speech include metaphors, similes, irony, oxymorons, and so on.

In all, wordplay is a wonderful rhetorical device that can serve all kinds of purposes across all kinds of genres and styles. It can be used by writers and everyday people alike to create interesting and memorable language that often quickly gains popularity and becomes widely understood. Wordplay never goes out of style and never stops changing and growing, and therefore, it’s an essential and important part of the English language for writers and speakers of all ages.

Wordplay - puns, their varieties

One day a teacher of theology, or simply a theologian, met his student.

"Hello god of donkeys!" - the schoolboy with a sharp tongue scoffed.

“Ah, brute,” the theologian was not taken aback, “he recognized his master!”

This joke is based on a play on words , which are equally perceived by ear, although they are spelled differently:
the theologian is the god of donkeys. Such witty word combinations are called puns . Pun is a French word, and it translates like this: pun . In one context, different meanings of the same word or homonyms deliberately collide. I have already written about homonyms in puns. Read an article about it here (click to open the page).

Homonyms are the basis of most puns, because the meaning of the word is revealed from a very unexpected side and leads to a comic effect. Not so long ago, I came across such a political pun, although it is almost irrelevant: “Ukraine began to be ruled by a woman with oblique ". Funny, isn't it?! This is how the homonyms of the word "braid" are played up here so successfully.

I want to bring to your attention the puns of Dmitry Dmitrievich Minaev , a Russian poet and translator of the 19th century. He is considered a master of epigrams, parodies and puns. And indeed, how masterfully he handles the Russian word!

You exclaim sadly:

Am I the right one?

My waist is a hundred centimeters…”

Indeed, I will become like this

I will not express praise.

Gold is valued by its weight;

I put on a wig on my bald head,

And I don't expect anything from ladies,

Even though sometimes I would give my life for them.

And here are the puns of the modern poetess Lyudmila Katz:

I'll set the theme, hit the strings:

Let's drink to the ladies, as well as to the virgins!

Sometimes I look in the mirror and find myself:

I would like to see myself differently ...

Talking about my bitter fate,

In defiance of fate and in protest

I will also remember about pies and dough.

I will remember your dearest test -

He knew about pies and dough,

Choosing a bride was a test

Her ability to handle dough!

A trickle of steam will rise above the pie -

You won't say that I'm not a match for you!

The cake is shiny, like varnished,

When hot, it is especially varnished!

If puns have been popular for several centuries, then superpuns, in science they are called heterograms, have appeared quite recently. The term heterogram was formed from the merger of two Greek words. The first part "hetero-" is translated as "other", "other", "different". This is a play on words in which the words are similar in LETTER composition. The letters in a word or sentence are the same, but you can put a space in any other place, and you get a completely different meaning! nine0003

We'll see, Sing, Canaries.

We'll see, Petka, bunks.

Napoleon stood and thought:

The road to evil is wide.

He stood on the field and thought:

The road is wide for a goat.

The donkey did not understand at all

Those who thought they understood little.

And just looking at the mother pony,

He began to understand a little.

There are other terms for this linguistic phenomenon: pantogram, pantorhyme, homogram, equal letter, equal rhyme, and even ... hiccup. All this refers to combinatorial poetry.

Poetic opuses of combinatorial literature are created on the basis of combining text elements: letters, words, phrases, sentences - by rearrangements, repetitions, etc. .

I will go, shaman, through the valley —

sing, soul, through the mandolin!

Morning burns with dogma -

my dog ​​barks by the path.

Take the guitar

— take care of the container!

Is Israel from heaven?

I was thinking about fame.

Donkey lead. I am small.

We are not witches!

After all, we are not us -

Witches are dumb!

Address of the public -

Hell of the Republic

Well, I have more experience - . ..

You must listen, well! —

You should listen to your wife.

Puns and their varieties are also called literary chess. In writing this article, I had to re-read a lot of sources. And I suddenly discovered Dmitry Avaliani. He is considered the founder of pantogram puns in Russian poetry. I am in awe of this poet! I will definitely write the next article about the personality and work of Avaliani! nine0003

Not the law is an eternal effigy.

I will not finish the humane,

For where is the point?

Morning is a butterfly,

And God is a child:

The womb is a barrel.

Why are you moaning?

That you're just not the same?

The order and the knife were given,

They were waiting for the casino.

The game is quiet, the mood opened,

And the coldness from the wings is sad…

Literary chess, puzzles, riddles, indeed! You agree with me?! Then come back to the Russian Word blog again to also experience the same delight about how masterfully, masterly, amazingly you can use the RUSSIAN WORD!!! I advise you to subscribe to blog updates (this can be done below). And you will always know about the appearance of new publications! I promise to post even more amazing examples of word creation on the blog pages! nine0003

While preparing the article for publication, I came across a whole heterogram poem! The author is Sergey Fedin.

We were tempted,

We were eaten,

Azam taught,

and tortured,

was still treated -

crippled.

Extracted

from extraction,

bottom knife.

Gold and togas

evil is the result.

Avaricious longing for evil, what?

Buying gold, gallop.

Idol of the casket - rhythm and rage,

and the dollar reigns - a mirage.

Yoke - sirs -

and sovereigns -

lie and do not pardon.

Comfort is sweet in routine;

flattened comb…

sleeping as a puppy.

Oh hold me!

I'm obsessed!

I'll come, jokingly,

I'll strangle you!!!

Amazing, right? I would like to re-read it several times, think about it, unravel it...

There are such heterograms in which different readings are directly opposite to each other. Offer your friends such a playful test: let them read the heterogram written in solid text (without spaces). What the reader sees first is closer to him. nine0003

STALINIZED RUSSIA!

YOU WITCHMADONNAROZA!

SEE THE CANARS!

ON THE UNSELF.

GET FRIEND!

I AM UNFAITHFUL!

DID YOU?

The list of such superpuns can be continued. Try! You will see that this is a very exciting play on words. Play with words, play with words, develop your intelligence, enjoy the game!!! nine0003

More puns from our reader here

In the popular sketch show “Give Youth!” rastamans Dill and Cupcake also tried to play with words. Did they succeed? Watch the video:

Love the RUSSIAN WORD! And take care of our native Russian language!

Wordplay and jokes in English

Have you ever heard unflattering remarks about subtle English humor? Has it ever happened that you couldn't fully understand the lyrics of a song? Have you ever had difficulty understanding "real English" poetry? Surely yes! All this is due to a technique favored by English-speaking poets, writers and comedians - a pun (pun). nine0003

A pun is, simply put, a play on words, most often built on ambiguity or homonymity in English. Every second word in English has from two to 330 meanings. Fertile ground for word games, right?

Can fish fish a fish in a fish can?
Can a fish catch fish in a fish can?

Puns as a popular literary trope are constantly being studied and classified. Most often, wordplay uses compound puns, as well as jokes based on homophones and homonyms. nine0003

- Homophonic puns. Homophones

In such puns, words sound the same (pronunciation depends on the dialect), but are spelled differently and have almost opposite meanings. For example, fine, depending on the context, can be translated both as “good, excellent, excellent”, and as “bad”.

Board of Education - Bored of education
Ministry of Education - tired of learning

- Homonymic puns. Homonyms

Words that sound and are spelled the same, but differ from each other in meaning, play a key role in homonymous puns. nine0003

Why is history the sweetest lesson? Because it's full of dates. nine0505
Date - date and date