The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play
which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words,
or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect.
These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,
homographic, metonymic, or metaphorical language. A pun differs from a
malapropism in that a malapropism uses an incorrect expression that alludes to
another expression, but a pun uses a correct expression that alludes to another
expression.
Henri Bergson defined a pun as a sentence or utterance in
which "two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are confronted
with only one series of words". Puns may be regarded as in-jokes or
idiomatic constructions, given that their usage and meaning are entirely local
to a particular language and its culture. For example, camping is intense. Puns
are used to create humor and sometimes require a large vocabulary to
understand. Puns have long been used by comedy writers, such as William
Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, and George Carlin. The Roman playwright Plautus is
famous for his tendency to make up and change the meaning of words to create
puns in Latin.
