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What is a pun?

A pun, also called paronomasia (which I didn’t know either until right now!), is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect (thanks Wikipedia!).

One of my favorite puns, which I learned in high school is “The butcher has very attractive ribs.” Of course the main reference is to the meat he sells, but it could also mean his own ribs!

Here are some other clever ones:

A Great Pun Is Its Own Re-Word

1. Energizer Bunny arrested — charged with battery.
2. A pessimist’s blood type is always b-negative.
3. A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother.
4. Marriage is the mourning after the knot before.
5. A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
6. Corduroy pillows are making headlines.
7. Is a book on voyeurism a peeping tome?
8. Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
9. A successful diet is the triumph of mind over platter.
10. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
11. A gossip is someone with a great sense of rumor.
12. Without geometry, life is pointless.
13. A man’s home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.
14. When two egotists meet, it’s an I for an I.
15. A bicycle can’t stand on its own because it is two-tired.
16. What’s the definition of a will? (Come on, it’s a dead giveaway!)
17. A backwards poet writes inverse.
18. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
19. When a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds.
20. The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
21. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.
22. A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.
23. He had a photographic memory that was never developed.
24. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium-at-large.
25. Once you’ve seen one shopping center, you’ve seen a mall.
26. Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine.
27. When an actress saw her first strands of grey hair, she thought she’d dye.
28. Acupuncture is a jab well done.

Yours in crisp, error-free writing,
Jessica xx

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