PUN

~ a play on words ~
three types:
 anataclasis
o words that sound alike but behave differently
o “The spoiled turkey meat was fowl most foul.”
 paronomasia
o words that sound alike but have different meanings
o “When Sybil’s two boyfriends started fighting, her friends referred to it as
‘The Sybil War,’ or ‘The War Between the Dates’.”
 syllepsis
o a word that modifies two other words differently
o “Bright lights attract flies and celebrity watchers.”

a pun is a trope because

it has to do with the
meaning of words,
not
the placement
Shakespeare wrote many plays on romance and on words. He must
have struggled because pun-writing is not fun writing. Tears and
blood very well may have been shed by him, as they are by me now.
If only it were possible to Tempest funny little sayings onto
this page, my assignment would be compleat and my life would be
complete.
Roskelly, Hephzibah, David A. Jolliffe; Everyday Use: Rhetoric at Work in Reading and
Writing; Pearson Education, Inc.: 2005