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Figures of Speech IloveIndia
Puns are fun-to-use figures of speech. This article gives you an idea about the examples of puns. Read on!

Pun Examples

"Diet slogan: Are you going the wrong weigh?" Do you identify the twist on the word, weigh, which was originally supposed to be spelt 'way'? Well, words which sound the same but have different meanings are called puns. A better way to describe it would be 'a play on words'. Although such terms render ambiguity to a sentence, it is often added for a humourous or rhetorical effect. Puns, or paronomasia, are used to understand speech better. The famous Roman playwright, Plautus, was known for the excessive use of puns in his work. William Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde are also 'masters of the pun'. You might confuse puns with malapropism, but the latter is the misuse of similar sounding words (e.g. electoral and electrical) whereas the former uses correct expressions in order to allude to another correct and, sometimes, hilarious one. As Walter Redfern rightly put, 'to pun is to treat homonyms as synonyms'. Making use of this form of speech in your daily language can make it seem more interesting and fun. If you want to learn more about puns, then read below.

Examples of Puns

Kinds of Puns
A pun can be of two types: Typographic and Visual. Typographic is further divided into five:
Visual Puns - They are those which use non-phonetic writing.
Example: In 'The Muppet Movie', Kermit and Fozzie are driving. Then Kermit looks at the map and says they need to turn at the fork in the road. At this point, he lowers the map at which point and sees a giant fork in the middle of the road.

Other Examples:

One-Liners
Jokes
In Literature
Funny Newspaper Headlines
The examples of puns above give you a general idea about their usage in literature and daily communication in today's language. The first puns were used in ancient Egypt while interpreting dreams. Hope this article has been a 'pun' reading! Oops, fun!