Pun

A pun (also known as paronomasia) is a figure of speech which consists of a deliberate confusion of similar words or phrases for rhetorical effect, whether humorous or serious. A pun can rely on the assumed equivalency of multiple similar words (homonymy), of different shades of meaning of one word (polysemy), or of a literal meaning with a metaphor.

Quotations

• "The pun is mightier than the sword." - James Joyce in ???
• "As different as York from Leeds" - James Joyce in Finnegans Wake, a play on "As different as chalk from cheese".
• "A man who could make so vile a pun would not scruple to pick a pocket." - John Dennis, 1781
• "He that would pun, would pick a pocket" —Alexander Pope, punster
• "Blunt and I made atrocious puns. I believe, indeed, that Miss Blunt herself made a little punkin, as I called it" —Henry James
• "Pun (n.): the lowest form of humour" —Samuel Johnson, lexicographer
• "…but the height of wit." —common rebuttal to the above
• "…when you didn't think of it first." —common rebuttal to the above (that is, the above which is above that immediately above)
• "A bun is the lowest form of wheat" —Anon.
• "The eleventh pun always gets a laugh, even if no pun in ten did." —Anon.
• "Heralds don't pun; they cant." SCA heralds' expression
• "Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted." —Fred Allen