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Uluwehi Kang

The pun conundrum - 3 views

www.bbc.com/...magazine-21011778

pun literary_device wordplay

shared by Uluwehi Kang on 24 Apr 14 - No Cached
Lara Cowell liked it
  • Lara Cowell on 28 Apr 14
     
    To pun or not to pun, that is the question. Are puns the lowest form of wordplay, or an ancient art form embraced by the likes of Jesus and Shakespeare? Roman orators Cicero and Quintilian believed that "paronomasia", the Greek term for punning, was a sign of intellectual suppleness and rhetorical skill. Although often seen as annoying by detractors, puns may impart shades of meaning in an economical fashion, perhaps, or render lessons and concepts more vivid and memorable to listeners.
Andrea Liu

Not Jest For Pun: A Surprising History Of Wordplay - 4 views

www.npr.org/...surprising-history-of-wordplay

puns

shared by Andrea Liu on 01 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • Andrea Liu on 01 Oct 14
     
    A brief history of puns and reasons why they shouldn't be seen as the lowest form of humor. Puns are actually very complex and allow people to convey messages with fewer words. There are so many ideas to convey, but a limited number of sounds to describe them. Punning is inevitable.
Steve Wagenseller

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/BuffaloBuffalo/buffalobuffalo.html - 0 views

Puns Puns pun pun Puns.

shared by Steve Wagenseller on 26 May 11 - No Cached
  • Steve Wagenseller on 26 May 11
     
    A look at the famous Buffalo (repeat as necessary) sentence construction.
  • Steve Wagenseller on 26 May 11
jessicawilson18

Why English is Such a Great Language for Puns - The Economist - 1 views

www.economist.com/...hy-english-such-great-language

puns word play funny silly joke fun English words

shared by jessicawilson18 on 10 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • jessicawilson18 on 10 Mar 18
     
    We've all laughed at some horrible puns and made them as well! This article explores why English enables us to create word play and the extreme level to which people have taken it! For example, the pun masters of this world dubbed Gandhi as "a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis" for his barefoot and food fasting lifestyle. There are even competitions to show off your skill.
Lara Cowell

8 Common Homophonic puns in Chinese Spring Festival - 0 views

www.digmandarin.com/n-chinese-spring-festival.html

homophones China Chinese New Year

shared by Lara Cowell on 27 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Lara Cowell on 27 Jan 17
     
    Chinese New Year, known in China as Spring Festival, has an abundance of unique traditions associated with it. Some of these traditions are more widespread than others. Among the many New Year's customs are a few whose meaning is derived from puns of Mandarin words.
Lisa Stewart

Figures of Rhetoric in Advertising Language - 9 views

business.scu.edu/...rhetjcr.htm

wordsrus advertising

shared by Lisa Stewart on 18 Nov 09 - Cached
  • the discipline of rhetoric was the primary repository of Western thinking about persuasion
  • The principal purpose of this paper is to contribute a richer and more systematic conceptual understanding of rhetorical structure in advertising language
  • Rhetoricians maintain that any proposition can be expressed in a variety of ways, and that in any given situation one of these ways will be the most effective in swaying an audience.
  • ...33 more annotations...
  • the manner in which a statement is expressed may be more important
  • a rhetorical figure occurs when an expression deviates from expectation
  • With respect to metaphor, for instance, listeners are aware of conventions with respect to the use of words, one of which might be formulated as, words are generally used to convey one of the lead meanings given in their dictionary entry. A metaphor violates that convention, as in this headline for Johnson & Johnson bandaids, "Say hello to your child's new bodyguards," accompanied by a picture of bandaids emblazoned with cartoon characters (from Table 2)
  • listeners know exactly what to do when a speaker violates a convention: they search for a context that will render the violation intelligible. If context permits an inference that the bandaid is particularly strong, or that the world inhabited by children is particularly threatening, then the consumer will achieve an understanding of the advertiser's statement.
  • every figure represents a gap. The figure both points to a translation (the impossibility in this context of translating "Say hello to your child's new petunias" is the key to its incomprehensibility), and denies the adequacy of that translation, thus encouraging further interpretation.
  • metaphors that have become frozen or conventional: e.g., the sports car that "hugs" the road.
  • an important function of rhetorical figures is to motivate the potential reader.
  • Berlyne (1971) found incongruity
  • (deviation) to be among those factors that call to and arrest attention.
  • "pleasure of the text"--the reward that comes from processing a clever arrangement of signs.
  • Berlyne's (1971) argument, based on his research in experimental aesthetics, that incongruity (deviation) can produce a pleasurable degree of arousal.
  • Familiar examples of schematic figures would include rhyme and alliteration, while metaphors and puns would be familiar examples of tropic figures.
  • Schemes can be understood as deviant combinations, as in the headline, "Now Stouffers makes a real fast real mean Lean Cuisine."
  • This headline is excessively regular because of its repetition of sounds and words. It violates the convention that sounds are generally irrelevant to the sense of an utterance, i.e., the expectation held by receivers that the distribution of sounds through an utterance will be essentially unordered except by the grammatical and semantic constraints required to make a well-formed sentence. Soundplay can be used to build up meaning in a wide variety of ways (Ross 1989; van Peer 1986).
  • Many tropes, particularly metaphors and puns effected in a single word, can be understood as deviant selections. Thus, in the Jergens skin care headline (Table 2), "Science you can touch," there is a figurative metaphor, because "touch" does not belong to the set of verbs which can take as their object an abstract collective endeavor such as Science.
  • For example, a rhyme forges extra phonemic links among the headline elements.
  • "Performax protects to the max," the consumer has several encoding possibilities available, including the propositional content, the phonemic equivalence (Performax = max), and the syllable node (other words endin
  • Because they are over-coded, schemes add internal redundancy to advertising messages. Repetition within a text can be expected to enhance recall just as repetition of the entire text does.
  • The memorability of tropes rests on a different mechanism. Because they are under-coded, tropes are incomplete in the sense of lacking closure. Tropes thus invite elaboration by the reader. For example, consider the Ford ad with the headline "Make fun of the road" (Table 2). "Road" is unexpected as a selection from the set of things to mock or belittle. Via
  • This level of the framework distinguishes simple from complex schemes and tropes to yield four rhetorical operations--repetition, reversal, substitution, destabilization.
  • s artful deviation, irregularity, and complexity that explain the effects of a headline such as "Say hello to your child's new bodyguards," and not its assignment to the category 'metaphor.'
  • The rhetorical operation of repetition combines multiple instances of some element of the expression without changing the meaning of that element. In advertising we find repetition applied to sounds so as to create the figures of rhyme, chime, and alliteration or assonance (Table 2). Repetition applied to words creates the figures known as anaphora (beginning words), epistrophe (ending words), epanalepsis (beginning and ending) and anadiplosis (ending and beginning). Repetition applied to phrase structure yields the figure of parison, as in K Mart's tagline: "The price you want. The quality you need." A limiting condition is that repeated words not shift their meaning with each repetition (such a shift would create the trope known as antanaclasis, as shown further down in Table 2).
  • the possibility for a second kind of schematic figure, which would be produced via an operation that we have named reversal. Th
  • rhetorical operation of reversal combines within an expression elements that are mirror images of one another.
  • The rhetorical operation of destabilization selects an expression such that the initial context renders its meaning indeterminate. By "indeterminate" we mean that multiple co-existing meanings are made available, no one of which is the final word. Whereas in a trope of substitution, one says something other than what is meant, and relies on the recipient to make the necessary correction, in a trope of destabilization one means more than is said, and relies on the recipient to develop the implications. Tropes of substitution make a switch while tropes of destabilization unsettle.
  • Stern, Barbara B. (1988), "How Does an Ad Mean? Language in Services Advertising," Journal of Advertising, 17 (Summer), 3-14.
  • "Pleasure and Persuasion in Advertising: Rhetorical Irony as a Humor Technique," Current Issues & Research in Advertising, 12, 25-42.
  • Tanaka, Keiko (1992), "The Pun in Advertising: A Pragmatic Approach," Lingua, 87, 91-102.
  • "The Bridge from Text to Mind: Adapting Reader Response Theory to Consumer Research," Journal of Consumer Research,
  • Gibbs, Raymond W. (1993), "Process and Products in Making Sense of Tropes," in Metaphor and Thought, 2nd ed
  • Grice, Herbert P. (1989), Studies in the Way of Words, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Leigh, James H. (1994), "The Use of Figures of Speech in Print Ad Headlines," Journal of Advertising, 23(June), 17-34.
  • Mitchell, Andrew A. (1983), "Cognitive Processes Initiated by Exposure to Advertising," in Information Processing Research in Advertising, ed. Richard J. Harris, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 13-42.
Lara Cowell

Homophonic puns in Standard Chinese - Wikipedia - 0 views

en.m.wikipedia.org/...honic_puns_in_Standard_Chinese

homophone pun Chinese codeword

shared by Lara Cowell on 03 Jul 21 - No Cached
  • Lara Cowell on 03 Jul 21
     
    This Wikipedia article details several categorical contexts, e.g. Internet posts, text messages, Chinese New Year, in which Chinese homophonic punning is used.
kpang18

Is Eminem The Greatest Lyricist Ever? - 0 views

www.theodysseyonline.com/eminem-greatest-lyricist

eminem rap pun wordplay rhyme rhyme_scheme

shared by kpang18 on 12 Apr 18 - No Cached
  • kpang18 on 12 Apr 18
     
    This article talks about: -Eminem -his rhyme schemes -how his rhyme schemes compare to historical rhyme schemes (ie. Shakespeare) -his rapping speed -his word puns and wordplay
Lara Cowell

Fǎ Kè Yóu, River Crab - 0 views

www.economist.com/...chinese-censorship

Chinese homophones censorship Internet

shared by Lara Cowell on 27 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Lara Cowell on 27 Jan 17
     
    An interesting (if crass read) about how Chinese Internet users have circumvented governmental censorship via homophonic, sometimes cross-lingual puns, often taking the form of Internet memes, in order to talk about forbidden topics, use taboo words, or criticize the government.
Lara Cowell

History of the English Language in 10 Acts - 1 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...index_embed.shtml

English language evolution history

shared by Lara Cowell on 20 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Ryan Catalani on 20 Oct 10
     
    Interactive timeline of the history of English (spread across 10 different "acts") - includes sound clips (including Beowulf and the Canterbury Tales prologue), English language history, etc.
  • Lara Cowell on 08 Mar 12
     
    Adding on to Ryan's commentary: For each era, you can click on the different icons and do the following: 1. Read and hear a famous document 2. Get a brief historical overview 3. Linguistic developments 4. New words entering the language 5. A fast fact 6. A pun or riddle
nicoleikeda18

The priming effect: Why you're less in control of your actions than you think - 4 views

crew.co/...of-your-actions-than-you-think

priming prime influence actions control pareidolia fill-in-the-blank

shared by nicoleikeda18 on 20 Nov 17 - No Cached
  • nicoleikeda18 on 20 Nov 17
     
    The priming effect occurs when one is exposed to words or images that subconsciously influence decision-making. For example, seeing pictures of a shower would likely influence you to fill in so__p as "soap." But, seeing pictures of bread, you would probably say "soup." A somewhat controversial study has shown that subjects who were unknowingly exposed to elderly words (like bald, gray, and wrinkle) walked more slowly toward the next experiment than the control group. Another study asked participants to lie via email and another group of participants to lie via voicemail. Those who lied on the email were more likely to purchase soap, whereas the group who lied via voicemail were more likely to buy mouthwash. This wasn't included in the article, but I suspect the reason it's easy to come up with puns is because our brains are primed to think of words within a certain theme. The article mentioned that you can use priming to help you come up with new ideas around a central idea by writing related words in a list, until you think of something appropriate.
Lara Cowell

WPM Invitational | Word Play Masters - 0 views

www.washingtonpostsmensainvitational.com

neologism wit pun humor

shared by Lara Cowell on 11 Oct 21 - No Cached
  • Lara Cowell on 11 Oct 21
     
    A neologism is a newly-coined word. The website Word Play Masters keeps an archive of humorous neologisms: words created by changing a real word by one letter, in order to give new, witty meanings to existing words. Some examples: 1.Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it. 2. Beelzebug (n.) : Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out. 3. Coptimism The irrational hope that the police car behind you is pulling over someone else FYI: This contest is often (incorrectly) attributed to either the Washington Post or Mensa International, but is actually an Internet phenomenon. You can view the present year's winners, and listing of winners dating back to 2010
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