Fact: Another name for the pun is paronomasia.
The history of the pun supposedly started in 1577. The first pun in English is thought to be derived from translations of older literary texts, like Beowulf and Geoffrey Chaucer’s works. Puns clearly have had a long history in human writing. Sometimes, if one person makes a punny comment on Facebook, you’ll find a string of puns following the comment. This phenomenon is affectionately known as a “pun war”. Pun wars are rampant on many social media and sub social media platforms, like Tumblr, Youtube, and even in text conversations.
Beeming with greatness, puns have transcended to other forms of expression, like art and fashion. Here are some pieces of artwork that feature puns:
And of course, we didn’t leave out fashion. There are some brilliant idas for clothing pieces and costumes that were inspired by puns:
There has to one in every friend group who loves casually sliding in clever play-on words/phrases in conversation. Unfortunately, I was unable to find the most commonly used pun. (Perhaps there aren’t enough researchers looking into the matter?) Yet, I was able to find the ten finalists for the BEST PUN IN THE WORLD. MentalFloss hosted an online competition to find out which pun would earn this title. You can check them out at this link: http://mentalfloss.com/article/18262/best-pun-world-finalists.
Captions for pictures are the best places to drop in a pun or two. Maybe I’ve caused you to wince many times, I’m sorry. Personally, I love puns because I think they’re great tools to convey multiple messages at the same time! But I’ve saved you from a groan this time around.
Now can anyone tell me if and where the line is drawn between “dad jokes” and puns?