Taxonomy of Wordplay

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1. Verbs
1. Unusual past tense
1. add "d"
2. jocular strong past tense (humorous strong-verb past formed by analogy)
3. multiple past tense chain (a verb's past tense is homophonous with the present of another verb, and so on)
2. illusory verb forms (unrelated words that mimic a verb's principal parts)
3. tense exchange (present and past of a verb in the same position of two words)

Verbs

Unusual past tense

add "d"

        common word: heard (hear)
        uncommon word: deflead (deflea)
        uncommon word: kend (ken)

jocular strong past tense (humorous strong-verb past formed by analogy) [5-98]

        e.g. snooze-snoze; help-holp

multiple past tense chain (a verb's past tense is homophonous with the present of another verb, and so on) [46-203,46-247]

        e.g. fine: fined / find: found / found: founded

illusory verb forms (unrelated words that mimic a verb's principal parts) [42-97,43-237,44-91,45-166]

        e.g. take / toke / token; bind / bound / bounded

tense exchange (present and past of a verb in the same position of two words) [42-17]

        common words: fallow & fellow
        common words: seller & solder

Contents | previous: Meaning: Pronouns | next: Meaning: Adjectives and Adverbs