Interesting Literary
Devices
By Stephen M
Golden
Copyright © 6
May 2002
Paronomasia
Wordplay
of the punning kind, i.e., using similar-sounding (or identical-sounding) words
with different meanings in close proximity to each other, for an effect of
comedy, balance, or cleverness.
From:
The Superior Person's Book of Words - by Peter Bowler
Examples:
I like
working with duct tape… It’s tear-able.
You like
working with it, but it’s terrible?
I like
working with it because it’s tear-able.
—Stephen
M. Golden
"Denial
ain't just a river in Egypt." —Mark Twain
Essentially,
paronomasia is the use of a pun.
Paronomasia can be typographical or visual.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/paronomasia-definition-examples.html
Many
believe that paronomasia is the highest form of humor, and the Greeks who
invented the term would certainly agree. Derived from paronomadzein ('to
call by a slightly different name'), paronomasia is a
playing on words that sound or look similar, or more simply put, a
pun.
Puns
rely on a variety of word relations to create a humorous effect, including…
Homophones: words that are spelled differently but sound the
same ('boar' & 'bore')
Summary: same
sound, different meaning, origin, and spelling
Homographs: words that are spelled the same but pronounced
differently, often as a result of changing syllable stress ('defect'
& 'defect')
Summary: same
spelling, different meaning, different pronunciation
Homonyms: words that are spelled AND sound the same but have
different meanings ('fawn'-young deer & 'fawn'-to obsess over),
also called Heteronyms.
Summary: same
sound, same spelling, different meaning
Also
see https://www.smgolden.com/documents/htm/homograph.htm
Whether
or not someone gets the joke often greatly depends on highly localized and
idiomatic pronunciations and interpretations of the words used, so puns are not
always universal in their appeal.
However, the examples appearing below should be easy to understand.
Pangrammaton:
Sentences
that have every letter of the alphabet
Examples:
“John P.
Brady, gave me a black walnut-box of quite a small size.”
“The
quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’s back.”
Names in the past tense:
Doug
Ran
Drew
Ben
Red
(from Brad Guderian)