PUNS

D e f i n i t i o n  : A play on words, either on different senses of the same word or on the

similar sense or sound of different words. Known in rhetoric as paronomasia. Puns can:
make you laugh, make you think, increase clarity when you are trying to discern the
meaning of the text, introduce ambiguity.

A person who is fond of making puns is called a punster.

Classification of puns :

 Homonym puns: they are created by substituting one word for a similar-sounding
word. E.g: “A good pun is its own reword.”

 “I bet the butcher the other day that he couldn‟t reach the meat that was on the top
shelf. He refused to take the bet, saying that the steaks were too high.”

 Homographic puns: they are crated in one of two ways: either by using a word that
has 2 different meanings, or by substituting a word with the exact same spelling as
the word for which it was substituted. E.g: “Corduroy pillows are making
headlines.”

 “Did you hear about

about the optometrist who fell into a lens grinder and made a
spectacle of himself?”

Compound puns: 
puns:  They are made by using a string of two or more words that sound
similar to a string of different words.

E.g: “Where do you find giant snails?

snails? On the end of giants‟ fingers.”
fingers.”
“Santa´s helpers are subordinate clauses.”

"To pun is to treat homonyms as synonyms."

(Walter Redfern, Puns: More
More Senses Than One. John Wiley & Sons, 1986)

We can generally find puns at jokes, slogans, poetry and literature.

 Ex amp le s of pun s:

 “I would like to go to Holland someday. Wooden shoe?” (People from all over
the world still think that the Dutch wear clogs or wooden shoes every day. If
you‟re one of those people, we‟re sorry to disappoint you. Contrary to popular
 belief, most Dutch people don‟t wear clogs anymore. The only group of people
that still wear them are rural workers.)

 "When it rains, it pours." (slogan of Morton Salt since 1911) (The Spanish
translation of this idiomatic expression is “las desgracias no vienen solas” or 
“cuando llueve, truena” but in this slogan is more literal the idea of a girl
 pouring the salt.

 "Look deep into our ryes." (slogan of Wigler's Bakery) (The ideal phrase would
 be “look deep into our eyes” that can be translated into: “miranos
 profundamente a los ojos” and the meaning of ryes in Spanish is “centeno”. In
 this case, the slogan is taken from a bakery.)

 “The best way to communicate with a fish is drop them a line” (This puns has a
double effect. First: we communicate through letter when we say “to drop
somebody a line” and in second place: this joke refers to go fishing.)

 One of the cleverest and most morbid poems comes as a joke from a fatally
stabbed Mercutio, who stops joking to explain that „Tomorrow… you shall find
me a grave man‟. (William Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet) (Grave means
serious, but here alludes to his imminent death.)

 “Upon this rocks I will build my church.” (Jesus Christ. The Bible.) (The name
Peter or Cephas also meant rock.)

Conclussion:

Dificultades para traducir: Many people regard puns as untranslatable, although a perfect
 pun‟s translation is impossible according to the three traditional principles of faithfulness,
smoothness and elegance. However, it doesn‟t mean that puns are untranslatable. It‟s
obvious that in pun‟s translation, something has to be dropped in order to well preserve the
other more important parts. We conclude that the two most widely used methods in pun‟s
translation, namely are, adding footnotes or rewriting. In spite of their respective
disadvantages, the two methods do partly fulfill the purpose of conveying more and better
the information from different angles.