the humorous use of word or phrase that has two meanings, or of words with the same sound but different meanings
how do we use it?
he made his pun: "seven days without water make one weak (one week)."
word quiz
the english language can be used in lots of tricky ways. which one of these statements do you think contains a pun?
a. the st. bernard pup that joanne adopted is now as big as a house.
b. in summer sheila sells seashells by the seashore.
c. taylor got up at the crank of dawn to be on time for the game.
d. "even though you didn't cause an accident," the police officer said, "i'm going to have to charge you with wreckless driving."
key
[d]
it's d that should tickle your humorous (oops, humerus), that is, your funny bone. sentence a is an example of "hyperbole," an exaggeration meant to emphasize a point, in this case the large size of the dog. if you find sentence b trips up your tongue, that's because it's what we call a "tongue twister." a series of similar consonant sounds make it hard to say. sentence c has fallen victim to the "malapropism," the use of a word that sounds somewhat like the right one, but is totally wrong as used in the statement. here, "crank" of dawn should clearly be "crack." that leaves d. when "wreckless" is used.
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