‘Poets capture words on the run

Fence then in as writing’s begun

The game is muddled

And authors befuddled

When penning a hard-to-catch pun.’

–Duke Beaufort

You might have marked the use of pun in this short poem; for all those who are not aware of this figure of speech, here we tell you what a pun is.

A pun can be roughly defined as a play on the sounds of the words (same or similar pronunciation but different meanings) to achieve a funny effect. The joke is often addressed intentionally to bring humor that comes out of the confusion of two meanings. For example – Without geometry, life is pointless.

The importance of puns

The point of pun is to keep the mood of the reader/listener light and make them laugh. Pun is used creatively to bring a jokey tone in writing or speaking. It can be said a silly comic relief that can be used in a creative piece of writing.

Example of puns for famous literary pieces

Shakespeare is considered a huge fan of puns. He used this figure of speech even in his tragic plays, like Romeo and Juliet and leveraged similar sounding words to create dirty puns.

Examples of Shakespearean puns:

• It is the unkindest tied that ever any man tied
• When Mercutio begs Romeo to dance, Romeo refuses. Unlike Mercutio’s shoes with “nimble soles,” Romeo says that he has a ‘soul of lead.”
• At one point, Romeo asks for a torch, saying “being heavy, I will bear the light.”

Puns from poetic works of literature

John Donne

Poet John Donne, whose name rhymed with ‘done’ often punned his own name in his poetry. He even punned his wife’s name Anne More, and the excellent example is:

“Though hast not done, For I have more.”

James Joyce

The famous Irish writer James Joyce has used a good example of pun in his book Ulysses:

If you see kay

Tell him he may

See you in tea

Tell him from me.

Conclusion – Hope you would have enjoyed our write-up on puns. We are aware of many more such figures of speech and their uses as we are a full-time translation agency. Our translators are well-versed in doing a variety of translation, be it legal document translation or certified translation service. Need an impeccable translation of any document? Contact us at – 888-670-3369.