Puns rely on wordplay, whereas jokes can take on a variety of setups and narrative structures. What’s the difference between a pun and a joke? The phrase “no pun intended” means the speaker created the wordplay unintentionally and is especially useful when either the situation does not call for humor or the pun has not had the effect they wanted it to. The English language is filled with homophones, creating plentiful opportunities to make accidental puns. This is harder to gauge, but try to assess whether the altered meaning of the pun adds a sense of humor, irony, or gravity to the situation. If it is a stretch to make the pun clear, then it probably isn’t worth the pun. It should be obvious why both words work in that context. For a pun to work, the writer must ensure two things: Puns depend on the writer or speaker purposely confusing one word with another. Of course, the company’s recurring use of the word makes them stand out, adding irony to the whole situation. The pun uses the name Blendin, which, when spoken aloud, sounds like blend in, which is exactly what a secret surveillance company would be trying to do. In one episode it’s the Blendin Mobile Pet Grooming truck, and in another it’s Blendin Electric Company. In the television show Arrested Development, there is a running joke that whenever the family is being secretly surveilled, a company with the word blendin in its title is present. Puns can also be used to allude to an ongoing joke. If you are constantly interrupting the pace of your piece for the sake of a pun, your reader might become more annoyed than delighted. That said, because puns cause a reader to pause, you should consider whether or not it’s a pun worth pausing for. For example, there are countless books and seminars about personal finance called Making Cents, a pun on the word cents, since it makes sense (logically) to make cents (monetarily). When are puns used?Ĭausing a reader to think twice about a turn of phrase means they will spend more time in that moment and, hopefully, remember it better. For a pun to land, both sides of the brain need to communicate quickly with one another and generate either the smirk, sigh, giggle, or eye roll that the pun deserves.Īll of that is to say, puns use a lot of brainpower, which is one of the reasons they can’t be written off as mere dad joke material. At first the left hemisphere-the side tasked with linguistic analysis-has to interpret the word and pause on its usage, and then the right hemisphere takes over to understand the joke. Researchers at the University of Windsor in Ontario ran a study that found it takes a division of labor between the left and right hemispheres of our brains in order to decipher a pun. Grammarly helps you communicate clearly Write with Grammarly How do puns work?Īs silly as they seem, puns are a surprisingly complex mental task.
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