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Information about Play On Words

This article is about Word play. For other uses, see Wordplay (disambiguation).
Word play is a literary and narrative technique in which the nature of the words used themselves become part of the subject of the work. Puns, phonetic mixups such as spoonerisms, obscure words and meanings, clever rhetorical excursions, oddly formed sentences, and telling character names are common examples of word play.

Word play is quite common in oral cultures as a method of reinforcing meaning.

Interestingly enough, strictly visual orthographic word play is much less predominant than sound-based word play in alphabetically written literatures. This may be due to the fundamental orality of written communication in those literatures, as compared with word play in ideographically written literatures such as the Chinese.

Most writers engage in word play to some extent, but certain writers are particularly adept or committed to word play. Shakespeare's "quibbles" have made him a noted punster. P.G. Wodehouse was also hailed as a "comic genius recognized in his lifetime as a classic and an old master of farce" for his ingenious wordplay. James Joyce, author of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, is another noted word-player. For example, Joyce's phrase "they were yung and easily freudened" clearly conveys the meaning "young and easily frightened," but it also makes puns on the names of two famous psychoanalysts, Jung and Freud.

Other writers closely identified with word play include: The Apocryphal book of Susanna has elements of word play in its original Greek.

Plays can enter common usage as neologisms.

Word play is closely related to word games, that is, games in which the point is manipulating words. See also language game for a linguist's variation. The Hungarian term for wordplay, occasionally used in the circle for its diaeres is Szójáték.

A taxonomy of word play together with record-holding words in each category is available here: Taxonomy of Wordplay

See also

Wordplay can mean:
  • Word play, a literary technique in which the nature of the words used themselves become part of the subject of the work (e.g. puns, spoonerisms, etc.

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A literary technique or literary device may be used in works of literature in order to produce a specific effect on the reader.

Elements of fiction

Literary techniques are important aspects of an author's style, which is one of the five elements of fiction
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A pun (or paronomasia) is a phrase that deliberately exploits confusion between similar words for rhetorical effect, whether humorous or serious. For example, the sentence "the world is perspiring against me" is a pun on the paranoid's motto "
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    Rhetoric (from Greek ῥήτωρ, rhêtôr, orator, teacher) is generally understood to be the art or technique of persuasion through the use of oral, visual, or written language; however, this definition of rhetoric
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    Oral tradition or oral culture is a way for a society to transmit history, literature, law or other knowledge across generations without a writing system. An example that combined aspects of oral literature and oral history, before eventually being set down in writing, is
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    Spelling is the writing of a word or words with all necessary letters and diacritics present in an accepted standard order. It is one of the elements of orthography and a prescriptive element of language.
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    Orality can be defined as thought and its verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy (especially writing and print) are unfamiliar to most of the population. The study of orality is closely allied to the study of oral tradition.
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    ideogram or ideograph (from Greek ἰδέα idea "idea" + γράφω
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    Chinese literature spans back thousands of years, from the earliest recorded dynastic court archives to the matured fictional novel arising in the medieval period to entertain the masses of literate Chinese.
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    William Shakespeare

    The Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity unconfirmed. National Portrait Gallery, London.
    Born: April 1564 (exact date unknown)
    Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England
    Died: 23 March 1616
    Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England
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    P. G. Wodehouse

    Wodehouse in 1904 (aged 23).
    Born: September 15 1881(1881--)
    Guildford, Surrey, UK
    Died: January 14 1975 (aged 95)
    Southampton, NY, U.S.
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    James Joyce

    James Joyce, ca. 1918
    Born: 2 January 1884(1884--)
    Rathgar, Dublin, Ireland
    Died: 13 January 1941 (aged 60)
    Zürich, Switzerland
    Occupation: Novelist and Poet
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    Ulysses

    1922 first edition cover
    Author James Joyce
    Country  France
    Language English
    Genre(s) Novel
    Publisher Sylvia Beach
    Publication date 1922
    Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
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    Finnegans Wake

    Author James Joyce
    Country France/Switzerland
    Language English
    Genre(s) Novel
    Publisher Faber and Faber
    Publication date 1924 to 1939
    Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
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    Psychoanalysis

    Constructs
    Psychosexual development
    Psychosocial development
    Conscious • Preconscious • Unconscious
    Id, ego, and super-ego
    Libido • Drive
    Transference • Sublimation • Resistance
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    Carl Gustav Jung

    A recent edition of Jung's partially autobiographical work Memories, Dreams, Reflections.
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    Sigmund Freud

    Born May 6 1856(1856--)
    Freiberg, Moravia, now the Czech Republic
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    Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (IPA: /ˈdɒdsən/) (January 27 1832 – January 14 1898), better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll (/ˈkærəl/
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    Willard Richardson Espy (11 December 1910–20 February 1999) was a U.S. editor, philologist, writer, and poet. He is particularly remembered for his anthology of light verse and wordplay, An Almanac of Words at Play, and its two sequels.
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    Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

    Born: April 22 [O.S. April 10] 1899
    Saint Petersburg, Russia
    Died: July 2 1977 (aged 78)
    Montreux, Switzerland
    Occupation: novelist, lepidopterist, professor
    Literary movement: Modernism, Postmodernism
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    George Bernard Shaw

    Born: 26 July 1856(1856--)
    Dublin, Ireland
    Died: 2 November 1950 (aged 94)

    Occupation: Playwright, critic, political activist
    Nationality: Irish
    Genres: Comedy
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    The of this article or section may be compromised by "weasel words".
    You can help Wikipedia by removing weasel words. Ghoti is a constructed example word used to illustrate irregularities in English spelling.
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    Van Dyke Parks (born January 3, 1943) is an American composer, arranger, producer, musician, singer, and actor. His work spans six decades, and he has worked with luminaries from Grace Kelley to the Beach Boys and the Byrds.
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    Thomas Pynchon

    Thomas Pynchon in 1957, one of the few photographs of him ever to be published
    Born: May 8 1937 (1937--) (age 70)
    Glen Cove, New York
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    Brian O'Nolan
    Born: October 5, 1911
    Strabane, Ireland, UK
    Died: April 1, 1966
    Dublin City, Ireland
    Occupation: Author / Civil Servant
    Genres: Modernism
    Influences: James Joyce, Irish Mythology, André Gide
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    Jasper Fforde

    Jasper Fforde at a book signing in New York July 2007
    Born: 11 January 1961 (1961--) (age 46)
    London, England
    Occupation: novelist
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    Jack Kerouac

    Jack Kerouac circa 1950
    Born: March 12 1922(1922--)
    Lowell, Massachusetts
    Died: September 21 1969 (aged 47)
    St.
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    The biblical apocrypha includes texts written in the Jewish and Christian religious traditions that either:
    • were accepted into the biblical canon by some, but not all, Christian faiths, or
    • whose canonicity or lack thereof is not yet certain,[1] or

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    Susanna or Shoshana (Hebrew: שׁוֹשַׁנָּה, Standard  
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    neologism is a word, term, or phrase which has been recently created ("coined") — often to apply to new concepts, to synthesize pre-existing concepts, or to make older terminology sound more contemporary.
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