Taxonomy of Wordplay | |
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Contents | previous: Etymology: Word formation and history | next: Meaning: Synonyms and Antonyms
MeaningAmbiguitydifferent meanings or senses, most [11-228]
common word: break (245)
Janus-faced word (one spelling parsed into different morphemes with unrelated meanings) [12-174]
e.g. UNIONIZED = union+ized / un+ionized
e.g. PERIODIC = period+ic / per+iodic
telling misprint (typographical error that creates an unintended word or meaning) [2-163,25-90]
e.g. GLUE FACTORIES HAVE STOPPED USING OLD HAGS (for nags)
e.g. MANLY BOY MARRIES FERTILE GIRL
different parts of speech, most
common word: like (8)
anthimeria (proper or brand names turned into verbs, adjectives, adverbs) [19-166]
e.g. Gleeming her teeth Crestfully; Budweisered his thumb
pun (play on two meanings or on sound-alike words), incl. punning headlines and bilingual puns [32-300,35-77,38-15,39-31,39-136,39-204,39-255,40-168,41-149,41-201,41-316,44-222,44-255,45-20,45-54,TJ1-22,TJ2-65,TJ3-78,TJ7-43,TJ9-20,TJ10-16,TJ11-26,IN1-48,IN5-95,WW51.1-58,WW51.2-23,WW51.4-21,WW51.4-96,WW52.3-75,WW53.4-41]
e.g. As plumbers say, it's not drain surgery.
knock-knock joke (name or word answer reread as a sound-alike phrase) [17-106]
e.g. Who's there? Ezra Pound. Ezra Pound who? Ezra pound of coffee in the house?
nymble (absurd chain of reasoning linked by puns) [10-173]
e.g. Why are fire engines red? ... Russians ... fire engines are always rushin'
punning business name (shop name built on a pun) [17-42,18-76]
e.g. CLOTHES ENCOUNTER; KITCHEN LITTLE; Hair-It-Is
state-abbreviation pun (town name plus state abbreviation that reads as a phrase) [16-45]
e.g. IN CO ME TEX (income tax); FYVAN TENN (five and ten); OOLA LA
what's-the-difference riddle (two phrases told apart by a spoonerism, reversal or homophone) [17-229]
e.g. brew lock / Lou Brock; Baton Rouge / rogue baton
what's the question? (name or phrase given as the punning answer to a question) [13-175,15-172]
e.g. FLIP WILSON: What did the karate expert do to America's 28th president?
feghoot or fabled phrase (shaggy-dog story ending in a pun or spoonerism on a well-known name or phrase) [25-164,25-251,26-158,27-46,27-95,27-159,27-230]
e.g. "Cussed hearse-lass tanned" (Custer's last stand)
e.g. "Frank, Lynne Rue sa y veldts nude eel" (Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal)
letter conundrum (riddle on why a letter is like something, answered by a word that adding or removing the letter transforms) [24-31,24-123]
e.g. What makes a road broad? The letter B.
e.g. Why is C like a schoolmaster? It forms lasses into classes.
logomotive (famous name plus one word, forming a question that puns on the name) [28-104]
e.g. Was Robert Frost bitten? Did Captain Kidd nap? Is Doris Day light?
riddle and logoriddle (question with a puzzling answer: conundrum = pun riddle, enigma = verse riddle; logoriddle = riddle that turns on the letters of a word) [30-295]
e.g. What occurs once in a minute, twice in a moment? (the letter M)
Tom Swifty (quotation whose adverb or verb puns on it) [5-18,6-94,42-21,43-4,TJ1-6,IN3-56]
e.g. "I am certain this hand grenade is going to go off," Tom exploded.
herman (Tom Swifty whose pun is the speaker's name, not an adverb) [23-235,24-46]
e.g. "She's my woman," said Herman; "Step on it!" said Matt
daffynition (humorous redefinition by reparsing a word) [27-223,31-76,32-283,33-54,42-68,137,43-68,45-11,TJ2-12,TJ3-29,TJ3-57,TJ4-6,TJ6-6,TJ9-19,IN3-56,WW53.2-66,WW53.3-61,WW53.4-40]
e.g. pastels: subways of a bygone era; prelate: early
equivoque (text read two ways by changing punctuation, line breaks or syntax), incl. zeugma [26-17,33-54,42-170,TJ3-34,TJ3-90,TJ6-8,IN1-35,IN1-37]
e.g. Woman: without her, man is helpless. / Woman without her man is helpless.
e.g. She opened the door and her heart to the homeless boy (zeugma)
only-placement sentence (inserting ONLY at each position gives a different meaning), most meanings [4-238]
e.g. I helped your son straighten your horse's bridle today (10 meanings)
multiple switch (phrase read two ways, with several words changing part of speech at once) [48-180]
e.g. GIANT WAVES DOWN FUNNEL
accordion word (word whose sense widens or narrows with context) [44-88,44-261]
e.g. time: vast periods / a few hours / a moment ("What time is it?")
e.g. man: all humankind / male humans; country: nation / rural areas
hyphen-dependent meaning (meaning changes when a hyphen is added) [39-232,40-31,40-110]
e.g. resign / re-sign; recover / re-cover; recreation / re-creation
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