Linguistic Humour,

Language Play,
and Metaphor

Functions of Language

1
 Linguistic joke/verbal humour
• In any linguistically based joke one can distinguish its
linguistic core, i.e. the linguistic item (ranging from a
letter to a sentence) the inherent feature of which is
made use of for humorous effect.
• As many as 25 types of jokes based on different language
phenomena have been identified (Raskin, 1987)
• Alphabetic jokes (based on individual letters), syllabics,
abbrev-ese, parts of speech, prefixes/suffixes,
compounds, lexical relations, gender, idioms, lexicon,
ambiguity, spelling, malapropisms, punctuation,
grammar, negation, rhyming, name play, questions, style,
numerical English, advert-ese and neologisms. 2
 Alphabet joke
• Question: When does a B come after U?
• Answer: When you steal some of its honey!
• Which two letters contain nothing? MT.

3
Punctuation jokes

4
5
6
7
The Semi-Colon: USES

8
 Phonetic
• One of the underlying principles in phonetic
jokes is ambiguity, caused by an identical or
very similar pattern of sounds conveying
different meanings and causing
misunderstanding:

9
• The ladies at the club were talking about a conversation they
overheard between a man and his wife.
• “They must have been at the Zoo”, said Mrs. A, “because I
heard her mention ‘a trained deer’.”
• “What queer hearing you must have”, laughed Mrs. B. “They
were talking about going away, and she said ‘Find about the
train, dear’.”
• “Well did anybody ever?” exclaimed Mrs. C. “I am sure they
were talking about musicians, for she said ‘a trained ear’ as
distinctly as could be.
• The discussion was beginning to warm up, when in the midst
of it the lady herself appeared and was asked for a
settlement.
• “Well, well, you do beat all!” she exclaimed after hearing the
story. “I’d been out to the country overnight, and I was asking
my husband if ‘it rained here’ last night.
10
 Phonetics and accent, segment play
• Remember Giles of Tottenham and the ale/eel
joke?
• American traveler (to a porter of an Irish country
hotel):
• “How many mails a day are there in this hotel?”
• Porter: “Three, sir; breakfast, dinner, and tea.”
• What is the difference between Shrek and a bowl
of carrots?
• One is a funny beast and the other a bunny feast!
• (Spoonerisms) 11
 Morphological jokes
• What kind of an animal only comes out on rainy
days? – A Reindeer

12
 Rachel is going to move to Paris and says goodbye to
everyone but Ross. It is too hard for her to say him
goodbye, so she leaves him out. Ross tries to
understand Rachel’s behaviour which upset him and
the others try to comfort him.
• Monica: Well, maybe she thought that with all of
your history it could be, you know, implicit
• Ross: Well, it needs to be plicit. (S10E16)
Ross wants to get a tan in a tanning salon. Ross is
supposed to count to five and turn, but he inserts the
word Mississippi between the individual numbers, and
is double-tanned
• Ross: Mississippi-less-ly? (S10E03) 13
1
4
 German and morphology
dog Barkenpantensniffer
dog catcher Barkenpantensniffersnatcher
dog catcher's truck Barkenpantensniffersnatcherwagen
mechanic for dog Barkenpantensniffensnatcherwagenm
catcher's truck echanikerwerker
mechanic's union Barkenpantensniffensnatcherwagenm
echanikerwerkerfeatherbeddengefixe
ngruppe

Barken-panten-sniffen-snatcher-wagen-
mechaniker-werker-feather-bedden-gefixen-gruppe 15
 Lexical semantics
• synonymy and antonymy, homonymy, polysemy and
paronymy …

• “Strange Alice should invite that horrid woman to her

wedding; she has such a disagreeable past.”
• “Yes, but she is rich enough to furnish a very agreeable
present.”

16
• The professor rapped on his desk and shouted:
“Gentlemen – order!”
• The entire class yelled: “Beer!”

17
• “An anecdote is a tale,” said the teacher.
“Now, Sidney, use it in a sentence.”
• “I tied a tin to the dog’s anecdote.”

• Guest: “And the flies are certainly thick around

here.”
• Hotel manager: “Thick? What can you expect
for two dollars a day? Educated ones?”

18
 Lexical semantics contd.
• She: “It’s no use bothering me, Jack. I shall marry whom I
please.”
He: “That’s all I am asking you to do, my dear. You please
me well enough.”

• The weather forecaster hadn’t been right in three months,

and his resignation caused little surprise. His alibi,
however, pleased the city council. “I can’t stand this town
any longer”, read his note. The climate does not agree
with me.”

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• Sonny: “Mother, Dolly is using fearful swear
words.”
• Mother: “Well, what did she say?”
• Sonny: “She said she wouldn’t wear those
darned stockings any more.”

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21
A Pun and a Polish Joke

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A Visual Pun

23
Double Meanings (Puns) Used to Market TIME
Magazine
• TIME flies (1924)
• TIME marches on (1932)
• TIME to get the facts (1932)
• It’s TIME (1944)
• TIME to get it straight (1951)
• A man hardly ever had TIME all to
himself (1954)
• This is the time to start reading TIME
(1960)
• Make time for TIME (1989)
• Understanding comes with TIME 24
(1994)
A man walked into a bar and
ordered a beer. He started to
drink when he heard a female
voice seductively say “You’ve got
nice hair”. He turned around
and didn’t see anyone near. He
took another sip and again What’s the first
heard the voice tell him “You’re thing that usually
a very handsome man”. Still with strikes a first-
no one near, he asked the time visitor to
bartender what was going on. New York? A
The bartender replied, “It’s the
speeding taxi!
nuts, they’re complementary”.
25
 Double Vision
• We usually need to be surprised
to find something funny.
• In texts that have two
contradictory meanings, our
minds are happily surprised to
resolve the “problem” by figuring
out that it is an intentional joke as
with these vegetables cut to look
like animals.
• Visual puns are examples of
incongruous imagery that will
amuse viewers. But so are verbal
puns. 26
 ALLUSION
• “Allusion”, Noun form of the
Verb “to allude”, from Latin
“ad-” plus “ludere” meaning
“to play.”
• Modern English is filled with
allusions, thanks partly to
modern media, where
“instant” allusions can be
filled out in the readers’ or
listeners’ minds into full
stories.
27
 JIMINY CRICKET AS AN ALLUSION
• The expression “By Jiminy” used to be a swear
word (sailors used it). In fact it was a double
swearword, because it was swearing by the
constellation “Gemini” which represented the
twins (Castor and Pollux) from Greek mythology.
• In America, the expression changed to “Jiminy
Christmas” and later to “Jiminy Cricket” after the
Walt Disney version of Carlo Collodi’s 1882 The
Adventures of Pinocchio.
28
• In Collodi’s original Pinocchio there is a “talking
cricket,” who offers advice to the naughty little
puppet who has miraculously been changed into a
boy. However, the boy doesn’t like taking advice
and throws a hammer, killing the cricket. The
cricket’s ghost later appears as a minor character,
but it was the genius of the Walt Disney makers of
the 1940 Pinocchio film, to name the cricket and
give him a major role as the little boy’s
conscience. (Same initials as Jesus Christ!) 29
 The Humor in Confused Allusions
George Burns and Gracie Allen
On the “George Burns and
Gracie Allen” television show,
Gracie often got her allusions
wrong.
GEORGE: If you keep saying
funny things, people are going
to laugh at you.
GRACIE: That’s OK. Look at
Joan of Arc. People laughed
at her, but she went ahead
and built it anyway.
30
31
32
33
Math-allusions

34
 ANTITHESIS
• When opposite concepts are connected in a surprising
way

• A MasterCard advertisement shows a picture of a tall man

looking at a shirt. The caption reads
• “You found a 50 long. But you’re $17 short.”

• The World Book Encyclopedia ran a summertime

advertising campaign under the slogan,
“Schools are closed…Minds are open.”

• The Hoover Company advertised its irons with

“The iron with the bottom that makes it tops.”
35
 CHIASMUS
• Word order inversion

• Aging is a matter of mind:

If you don’t mind, it
doesn’t matter.”
• Marijuana is not a
question of “Hi, how are
you” but of “How high
are you?”
• The IRS: We’ve got what
it takes to take what
you’ve got.” 36
CLIPPING

37
 EPONYMs
• During the first Gulf War, American soldiers complained
about JOHNNY WEISSMULLER showers where the cold
water made them scream like Tarzan.
Based on “generic” first names: Lazy SusanTo Peter out
Great Scot By George
Rhyming names: Even Steven Flap Jack Ready for
Freddie
Alliteration: Gloomy Gus Dumb Dora Nervous Nellie
Assonance: Alibi Ike Fancy Dan Sneaky Pete
Long Johns

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Irony: Chuckles is not a happy clown.
Neither is Pagliacci

39
 Irony
• Johnny Carson kept a toilet company from using
the “Here’s Johnny” as a trademark.
• They had the slogan,
“The World’s Foremost Commodian.”
• The judge decided in favor of Carson not because
of an invasion of privacy, or because the plaintiff’s
reputation could be demeaned, but because the
“Here’s Johnny” toilets might be confused with the
“Here’s Johnny” clothing and restaurants.
(From Nilsen & Nilsen)
40
Metaphor: “Raining Cats and Dogs”
This saying originated
when London had such
poor sewer drainage
that in city streets
small animals could
easily drown. After a
heavy rainstorm, dead
cats and dogs were
lying in the gutters.
Today it is just a
humorous
exaggeration.
41
Metaphors We Live By

George Lakoff & Mark Johnston,

The University of Chicago Press, 1980
 What is?
• The essence of metaphor is understanding and
experiencing one kind of thing in terms of
another.
• Metaphor is for most people device of the
poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish--a
matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary
language. Moreover, metaphor is typically
viewed as characteristic of language alone, a
matter of words rather than thought or action.
43
“argument is • Your claims are indefensible.
• He attacked every weak
war” point in my argument.
• His criticisms were right on
target.
• I demolished his argument.
• I've never won an argument
with him.
• you disagree? Okay, shoot!
• If you use that strategy, he'll
wipe you out.
• He shot down all of my
argumens.
 Time is money
• You're wasting my time.
• This gadget will save you hours.
• I've invested a lot of time in her.
• How do you spend your time these days? That
flat tire cost me an hour.
• I don't have enough time to spare for that.
You're running out of time.
• You need to budget your time.
• Put aside some time for ping pong.
• Is that worth your while?
• Do you have much time left?
• He's living on I borrowed time.
• You don't use your time, profitably.
• I lost a lot of time when I got sick.
• Thank you for your time. 45
 IDEAS
• Consider the “conduit metaphor,” a complex
metaphor for language about language.

– Ideas (or meanings) are objects.

– Linguistic expressions are containers.

– Communication is sending.
• It's hard to get that idea across to him.
• I gave you that idea.
• Your reasons came through to us.
• It's difficult to put my ideas into words.
• When you have a good idea, try to capture it immediately in
words.
• Try to pack more thought into fewer words.
• You can't simply stuff ideas into a sentence any old way.
• The meaning is right there in the words.
• Don't force your meanings into the wrong words.
• His words carry little meaning.
• The introduction has a great deal of thought content.
• Your words seem hollow.
• The sentence is without meaning.
• The idea is buried in terribly dense paragraphs.
 Orientational metaphors
• Happy is up; sad is down.
• I'm feeling up. That boosted my spirits. My spirits rose.
you're in high spirits. Thinking about her always gives me
a lift. I'm feeling down. I'm depressed. He's really low
these days. I fell into a depression. My spirits sank.
• Conscious is up; unconscious is down.
• Wake up Wake up. I'm up already. He rises early in the
morning. He fell asleep. He dropped off to sleep. He's
under hypnosis. He's under hypnosis. He sank into a
coma.
• Virtue vs depravity
• He is high-minded. She has high standards.
She is up right. She is an up-standing citizen.
• That was a low trick. Don't be underhanded. I
wouldn't stoop to that. That would be
beneath me. He fell into the abyss of
depravity. That was a low-down thing to do.

49
The thunder of our two brave cannon announced the Fourth of July, at
daylight, to all who were awake. But many of us got our information at a
later hour, from the almanac. All the flags were sent aloft except half a
dozen that were needed to decorate portions of the ship below, and in a
short time the vessel assumed a holiday appearance. During the morning,
meetings were held and all manner of committees set to work on the
celebration ceremonies. In the afternoon the ship’s company assembled
aft, on deck, under the awnings; the flute, the asthmatic melodeon, and
the consumptive clarinet crippled "The Star-Spangled Banner," the choir
chased it to cover, and George came in with a peculiarly lacerating screech
on the final note and slaughtered it. Nobody mourned. We carried out the
corpse on three cheers (that joke was not intentional and I do not endorse
it), and then the President, throned behind a cable locker with a national
flag spread over it, announced the "Reader," who rose up and read that
same old Declaration of Independence which we have all listened to so
often without paying any attention to what it said; and after that the
President piped the Orator of the Day to quarters and he made that same
old speech about our national greatness which we so religiously believe
and so fervently applaud. Now came the choir into court again, with the
complaining instruments, and assaulted "Hail Columbia"; and when victory
hung wavering in the scale, George returned with his dreadful wild-goose
stop turned on and the choir won, of course. A minister pronounced the
benediction, and the patriotic little gathering disbanded. The Fourth of July
was safe, as far as the Mediterranean was concerned. 50
 Ontological metaphors –
the nature of being

The mind is a machine.

The wheels turning now!

The mind is a brittle object.

He’s cracking up!
 Personification -
animating an object or entity
• This paper will demonstrate my
theory.
• Inflation is eating up our profits.

• We don't just borrow words; on

occasion, English has pursued
other languages down alleyways
to beat them unconscious and
rifle their pockets for new
vocabulary.
METONYMY = Being named for an associated
quality

This full-page ad in USA Today

was protesting a decision made
by Direct TV to no longer offer
Nickelodeon, as well as other
channels.

What different kinds of

metonymy are related to the
word “Square?”

53
 Which human characteristics
will you give your object?
• Inflation has attacked the
foundation of our economy.
• Inflation has pinned us to
the wall.
• Inflation has robbed me of
my savings.
• Our biggest enemy right
now is inflation.
 OXYMORON=Contradictory or Paradoxical
Terms
Oxymoron comes from two
Greek words oxys meaning
“sharp” and moros meaning
“foolish or dull.”
• All deliberate speed
• Civil War
• deafening silence
• A peace offensive
• Friendly fire
• pretty ugly
• original copy
• Virtual reality 55
 Syntactic humour
• A census clerk, in scanning over the form to see if it had
been properly filled up, noticed the figures 120 and 112
under the headings “Age of Father, if living” and “Age of
Mother, if living.”
• “But your parents were never so old, were they?” asked
the astonished clerk.
• “No”, was the reply, “but they would have been, if
living.”
If living = if they are alive
If living = if they were alive
• This is not a novel to be tossed lightly aside. It should
be thrown with great force. (Dorothy Parker, 94) 56
 Ambiguous headlines
British Left Waffles on Falkland Islands
Lung Cancer in Women Mushrooms
Teacher Strikes Idle Kids
Reagan Wins on Budget, but More Lies Ahead
Enraged Cow Injures Farmer with Axe
Miners Refuse to Work after Death
Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim
Juvenile Court Tries Shooting Defendant
Stolen Painting Found by Tree
Killer Sentenced to Die for Second Time in 10 Years
Grandmother of Eight Makes Hole in One
Two Convicts Evade Noose, Jury Hung
Dealers will Hear Car Talk at Noon
We will sell gasoline to anyone in a glass
container 57
Yoko Ono will talk about her husband John Lennon who
was killed in an interview with Barbara Walters.
On a billboard for an electric company:
"New Delhi Electricity Limited"
Last week Toronto policemen buried one of their own - a
22-year-old constable shot with his own revolver in a
solemn display of police solidarity rarely seen in Canada.
What did the Zen master say to the guy at the hotdog
stand?
Make me one with everything

58
 More syntax
• Maintenance complaints by US Air Force pilots, with
responses by maintenance crews:
• A: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
B: Almost replaced left inside main tire.
• A: Something loose in cockpit.
B: Something tightened in cockpit.
• A: DME volume unbelievably loud.
B: Volume set to more believable level.
• A: Evidence of hydraulic leak on right main landing gear.
B: Evidence removed.
• A: Dead bugs on windshield.
B: Live bugs on order. 59
 Idioms
• Take my advice—I'm not using it.
• I'm over the hill, but the climb was terrific!
• Choose your words with taste. You may have to eat them.
• Talk is cheap. Until you hire a lawyer.
• To err is human but it feels divine. (Mae West)
• I hate to spread rumours, but what else can one do with them?
(Amanda Lear)
• You can't judge a book by its movie.
• A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country.
• Bureaucrats cut red tape—lengthwise.
• My reality check just bounced.
• The problem with trouble shooting is that trouble shoots back.
• They say you shouldn't say nothing about the dead unless it's
good. He's dead. Good.
60
 Grammar rules
• Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration.
• Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
• And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
• Avoid cliches like the plague. They're old hat.
• A writer must not shift your point of view.
• Be more or less specific.
• Contractions aren't necessary.
• Corect spelling is esential.
• If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking
verb is.
• If you reread your work, you can find on rereading that a
great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and
editing.
61
• Do not put statements in the negative form.
• Don't overuse exclamation marks!!
• Don't use no double negatives.
• Don't write run-on sentences, they are hard to read.
• Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said,
"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
• Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
• Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun
with singular nouns in their writing.
• Exaggeration is a billion times worse than
• Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
• Go around the barn at high noon to avoid
colloquialisms.
62
• Its important to use your apostrophe's correctly.
• Just between you and I, case is important.
• Never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
• Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
• One should never generalize.
• One-word sentences? Eliminate.
• Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are
unnecessary.
• Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long
sentences, as of ten or more words, to their
antecedents.

63
• Prepositions are terrible words to end sentences with.
• Proofread your writing to see if any words out and to
avoid misteaks.
• Remember to never split an infinitive.
• Take the bull by the hand, and avoid mixing metaphors.
• The adverb always follows the verb.
• The passive voice is to be avoided.
• Understatement is absolutely, positively best.
• Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
• Verbs has to agree with their subject.
• Who needs rhetorical questions?
• Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
understatement.
64
 Semantics - reference
• All my life I've always wanted to be somebody. But I see
now I should have been more specific.
• When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become
president. I'm beginning to believe it.
• Q: Where was the Declaration of Independence signed?
A: At the bottom of the page.
• Q: What can you never eat for breakfast?
A: Lunch or dinner.
• Q: If it took eight men ten hours to build a wall, how long
would it take four men to build it?
A: No time at all, the wall is already built.
• Q: How can you drop a raw egg onto a concrete floor
without cracking it?
A: Any way you want, concrete floors are very hard to crack.
65
 Semantics
For an employee who is
not worth further
consideration as a job
candidate
For an employee who is
so unproductive that the
job is better left unfilled
I can [not say…]
All in all, I cannot say
enough good things about
this candidate or
recommend him too
highly.
I can assure you that no
person would be better
for the job.
66
 Wodehouse – reference, quantity
• "Where's my umbrella?" demanded the pink one. "The cloak-room waiter
says you took my umbrella. I mean, a joke's a joke, but that was a dashed
good umbrella."
• "It was, indeed," Psmith agreed cordially. "It may be of interest to you to
know that I selected it as the only possible one from among a number of
competitors. I fear this club is becoming very mixed, Comrade Walderwick.
You with your pure mind would hardly believe the rottenness of some of
the umbrellas I inspected in the cloak-room."
• "Where is it?"
• "The cloak-room? You turn to the left as you go in at the main entrance
and ..."
• "My umbrella, dash it! Where's my umbrella?"
(P.G. Wodehouse. 1923. Leave it to Psmith)
• She said it sounded as if Jeeves must be something like her father---she
had never met him---Jeeves, I mean, not her father, whom of course she
had met frequently.
(P.G. Wodehouse. 1963. Stiff upper lip, Jeeves)
67
• "Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice,
very earnestly. "I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an
offended tone, "so I can't take more." "You mean you
can't take less," said the Hatter: “It's very easy to take
more than nothing." "Nobody asked your opinion," said
Alice.” (quantifiers)

• Mr. Gandhi, what do you think of Western Civilization?

• I think that it would be a very good idea.
• (presupposition canceled)
68
 Pragmatics (implicatures)
• The ladies of the county medical society auxiliary plan to publish
a cookbook. Part of the money will go to the Samaritan Hospital
to purchase a stomach pump. (Relevance)
• My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was
sixty. She's ninety-three today and we don't know where the hell
she is. (Ellen Degeneres) (Quality)
• This recipe is certainly silly. It says to separate two eggs, but it
doesn't say how far to separate them. (Gracie Allen)
• My grandmother was a very tough woman. She buried three
husbands. Two of them were just napping. (Rita Rudner)
• Don't hate yourself in the morning—sleep till noon.
• A woman came to ask the doctor if a woman should have
children after 35. I said 35 children is enough for any woman!
(Gracie Allen)
69
 Co-operative principles violated
• Q: If you had three apples and four oranges in one hand and four
apples and three oranges in the other hand, what would you have?
A: Very large hands.

• Q: In which battle did Napoleon die?

A: His last battle.

• Q: What is the main reason for divorce?

A: Marriage.

• Q: What is the main reason for failure?

A: Exams.
70
71
 More Wodehouse, implicatures
• "I think you're terribly conceited."
• "Not at all," said Psmith. "Conceited? No, no. Success has
not spoiled me."
• "Have you had any success?"
• "None whatever." The car stopped. "We get down here,"
said Psmith, opening the door.
(P.G. Wodehouse. 1923. Leave it to Psmith.)
• "Then I'll be going," said Ukridge, moodily. "I suppose," he
added, pausing at the door, "you couldn't lend me five
bob?"
• "How did you guess?"
(P.G. Wodehouse. 1924. Ukridge.) 72
• A: A lobster bit off my toe!
• B: Which one?
• A: What do you mean, which one? Who can tell one
lobster from another?
(Maxim of Relation, be relevant)
• How do you make a small fortune in Israel?
• Come with a large one.
(Maxim of manner, clear, brief and orderly)
• Herman: What do you think Grandpa, will it be a boy or a
girl?
• Grandpa: Probably.
(Maxim of quantity, be as informative as possible)
• Tourist: Have you lived in Maine all your life?
• Mainer: Not yet.
• (Maxim of Quality, truthful, no false information)
73