Playing with Words: Humour in the English LanguageHumour permeates our lives. People tell jokes, make puns, and engage in witty banter. There is written humour in headlines and captions, in ads, on signs, t-shirts, and bumper stickers, and in the form of graffiti. Nowadays humour is available on the web and circulated by e-mail. Playing with Words shows how every facet of language is exploited for humour. Where a word has multiple meanings or sounds like another, this is the basis for puns (A boiled egg is hard to beat). The word-building rules are used for clever compounds, smart blends and catchy phrases as in 'circulated by word of mouse'. Ambiguities in the syntax afford further scope for humour (Miners refuse to work after death), and the sounds of words can be exploited in humorous verse. There is also humour to be found in slips of the tongue, malapropisms, and funny misspellings. Playing with Words also covers the subject matter of humour and the part it plays in society. It is an informed account in non-technical language, full of examples, a book to be read for information and for fun. |
Contents
What do people joke about? | 22 |
Where humour is to be found | 48 |
Laughs in the lexicon | 54 |
Copyright | |
7 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
addressee adjective ambiguity asked audience blend blonde butt called cannibal change a light child Clerihew clever colloquial colourful comedians common context culture Dan Quayle dictionary doctor drink English euphemisms expected expressions father Fawlty Towers film following example funny girl graffiti headlines homophones horse humour instance insults interpretation involves irony kind language laugh laughter light bulb Lone Ranger look malapropisms male meaning misspelling mondegreen mother noun parody person phrase pick play politicians polysemy popular professional humour pronounced punchline puns question quoted Radio Yerevan refer replied rhyme Sam Goldwyn satire says sentence sequence sexual slip someone Sometimes sounds speaker speech spoonerism sports commentators St Peter story student take to change talk tell term there's Tom Swift Tonto verb verse Viagra W. S. Gilbert wife witty woman women Woody Allen words writing young