PUNS

Definition : A play on words, either on different senses of the same word or on the similar sense or sound of different words. Known in rhetoric as paronomasia. Puns can: make you laugh, make you think, increase clarity when you are trying to discern the meaning of the text, introduce ambiguity. A person who is fond of making puns is called a punster. Classification of puns : Homonym puns: they are created by substituting one word for a similar-sounding word. E.g: A good pun is its own reword. I bet the butcher the other day that he couldnt reach the meat that was on the top shelf. He refused to take the bet, saying that the steaks were too high. Homographic puns: they are crated in one of two ways: either by using a word that has 2 different meanings, or by substituting a word with the exact same spelling as the word for which it was substituted. E.g: Corduroy pillows are making headlines. Did you hear abou t the optometrist who fell into a lens grinder and made a spectacle of himself? Compound puns: They are made by using a string of two or more words that sound similar to a string of different words. E.g: Where do you find giant snails? On the end of giants fingers. Santas helpers are subordinate clauses. "To pun is to treat homonyms as synonyms." (Walter Redfern, Puns: More Senses Than One. John Wiley & Sons, 1986) We can generally find puns at jokes, slogans, poetry and literature.

Examples of puns : I would like to go to Holland someday. Wooden shoe? (People from all over the world still think that the Dutch wear clogs or wooden shoes every day. If youre one of those people, were sorry to disappoint you. Contrary to popular belief, most Dut ch people dont wear clogs anymore. The only group of people that still wear them are rural workers.) "When it rains, it pours." (slogan of Morton Salt since 1911) (The Spanish translation of this idiomatic expression is las desgracias no vienen solas or cuando llueve, truena but in this slogan is more literal the idea of a girl pouring the salt.

"Look deep into our ryes." (slogan of Wigler's Bakery) (The ideal phrase would be look deep into our eyes that can be translated into: miranos profundamente a los ojos and the meaning of ryes in Spanish is centeno. In

this case, the slogan is taken from a bakery.) The best way to communicate with a fish is drop them a line (This puns has a double effect. First: we communicate through letter when we say to drop somebody a line and in second place: this joke refers to go fishing.) One of the cleverest and most morbid poems comes as a joke from a fatally stabbed Mercutio, who stops joking to explain that Tomorrow you shall find me a grave man. (William Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet) (Grave means

serious, but here alludes to his imminent death.) Upon this rocks I will build my church. (Jesus Christ. The Bible.) (The name Peter or Cephas also meant rock.) Conclussion: Dificultades para traducir: Many people regard puns as untranslatable, although a perfect puns translation is impossible according to the three traditional principles of faithfulness, smoothness and elegance. However, it doesnt mean that puns are untranslatable. Its obvious that in puns translation, something has to be dropped in order to well preserve the other more important parts. We conclude that the two most widely used methods in puns translation, namely are, adding footnotes or rewriting. In spite of their respective disadvantages, the two methods do partly fulfill the purpose of conveying more and better the information from different angles.