Episode 156: Puns, You Either Love Them or Hate Them

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Paige: You are listening to “Coffee with Gringos.” I’m Paige Sutherland.

Ian: And I'm Ian Kennedy.

Paige: And today we're going to have a light and fun episode. We’re going to talk about puns and puns are a rhetorical device that you use often as a joke. It's when you use something in a way that it has a dual meaning and so it's a word that may sound the same but it's spelled different and so it has two meanings. And the idea is, it's a play on words and so you get a joke out of it, a trick, they’re often used by dads. They're pretty, as we say in English, cheesy, which means that they're, they're pretty light, fun, that you say “Oh, that's a good trick but it's pretty cheesy.” Aka lame, I would say. And I think as puns go, people hate them or love them. It has that effect and so today we're going to go over a few classic puns. Like we said, they going to be tricky to hear because they have dual meanings which you can't really get in conversation. It's easier to see it on paper or they're spelled differently and so it's really going to be helpful to look at that audio guide and transcript as you follow along today. So, as always, listeners, check out that guide. Ian—puns. We all love them or hate them. What are your thoughts on them?

Ian: It’s funny, you took the words right out of my mouth when you were giving an introduction and you mentioned dad jokes. That was the first thing I was going to mention is I just have mostly memories or thoughts of either my dad or maybe an older person saying a joke that the last word leaves you with sort of that cheesy connection that you were talking about. And it causes you to be like, “Geeze, Dad. What a stupid joke or good pun…” So, I think that word “cheesy” uses perfect to describe these but you hear them all the time when you're talking with friends, with family, like we mentioned, especially dads. I don't know. Sometimes you don't always catch them. Sometimes they're obvious, sometimes they're not so obvious. So, it'll be fun for us to go through some of these today because there are a lot of different ones that we could cover.

Paige: Absolutely. So, I guess to start off, one of the classic ones is called homophonic puns and what that means is it relies on the way words sound. And so, they sound alike but they have different meanings and different spellings and so that's called a homophonic pun. And so, I'll just give an example of one and then Ian will continue on with some other ones. Okay, so first example—"a bicycle can't stand on its own, because it is too tired”. And so that one is playing off the word “tire”, which is the wheel of a bicycle and “tired”, which is sleepy. And it's also playing off the word “too”, which is “too”, which means excessive, and then “two”, which is the number two. So “too tired”—double meaning, different spelling. Really hard to get if you didn't read it.

Ian: Totally. That's a double whammy there on that one—"too tired”. Yeah, and that's why it'll be useful to follow along with that transcript. But exactly, right off the bat, I think of one of these coming out of the mouth of my dad. It’s so funny. So, one that I can think of the next one is, “No matter how much you push the envelope, it will still be stationery.” So, the play on the word here at the end is “stationary”. So, having two meanings— “stationary” as in staying still—not moving at all. So, if you're pushing the envelope, it's not going to go anywhere. It’s going to stay still and “stationary” is another word in English that we use for writing materials and for writing letters. So, we see the connection in this one as well.

Paige: It is one of those where you hear it, you get it, it clicks, and then you're like, “Okay, that was lame.”

Ian: Exactly.

Paige: Okay, next one. Just to note, a “pessimist” is someone who's the opposite of an optimist, meaning we know an optimist is someone who thinks positive and so, a pessimist is the opposite of that. So, “a pessimist’s blood type is always B-negative.” And so that one is also, as Ian said, a double whammy because B-negative is a blood type but also be is the verb “to be” there and then negative is someone who's not positive—it's someone who's pessimistic—so it's a good one there.

Ian: Yeah, I like that. Nice.

Paige: Hey, Ian. Did you know besides the podcast, Dynamic English offers one-on-one classes with native teachers from all over the world?

Ian: Really? But isn't it just a bunch of grammar lessons?

Paige: Nope, it's completely discussion-based and focuses on topics the student is interested in.

Ian: That's amazing. But what if I'm not living in Chile?

Paige: No problem. Dynamic (English) does online classes. You can be living anywhere.

Ian: Great, but I'm a little intimidated to take the class alone. Can I join with a friend?

Paige: Of course. Dynamic (English) offers group classes of up to four. Plus, for the next month, Coffee with Gringos listeners get 10% off individual or group classes. So go online to www.dynamicenglish.cl and mention that you are a listener and get your discount.

Ian: Well, I'm sold. Sign me up.

Ian: Alright, this next one, bear with me. It's very cheesy. “Two peanuts walk into a bar and one was a-salted.” Man, some of these. Okay, so the managing here for those who are listening, “a-salted”, we have two different meanings here— “assault” is the verb that we can use in English to say to be attacked or maybe to get in a fight. And also, “salt”, or “salted” we're talking about salt that you cover peanuts with to give them that taste. So, it's spelled in that way, but we're talking about more of an attack or a fight there. So, “Two peanuts walk into a bar and one was a-salted.”

Paige: I feel like that one is one that I would read on a popsicle stick. When you were a kid and you would eat a popsicle and it would have a funny joke or in this case on the popsicle stick that would be on-brand.

Ian: Yeah, I think of the Laffy Taffy wrappers of those candies as well. You’d always see these kinds of jokes so it's bringing me back to that memory as well.  

Paige: Okay, the last one for homophonic puns— “Reading while sunbathing, makes you well-red.” So that once again is very cheesy because “well-read” means that you read a lot of books so it's playing off the reading and then “well-red” means you're going to be red which means you're going to be sunburn.

Ian: Yeah, that’s another one really sticking out there visually. See something really red reading a book, it really invokes a lot of images in your mind as well. These puns, so now we've gone through the homophonic puns, let's move on to our homographic puns. Homographic puns are basically known as the “same name” puns. They're funny because they're true in both the interpretation of the word and when they are read. A lot of these have incorporation also of idioms, these phrases, these sayings, that we have in English. So, they might be a little bit confusing as well in this section so please bear with us listeners and follow along as best you can. But the first one I'll read out here is, “After hours of waiting for the bowling alley to open, we finally got the ball rolling.” This one here is a classic example of incorporating a pun with that idiom I was describing to get the ball rolling describes to start something, to get something going. And so, we see it in that sense, but we look at it here in a literal sense that we're at a bowling alley using a bowling ball when you're playing the sport. So, you're literally getting the ball rolling in this way, but you're also referring to the idiom. So, it's another one here for us.

Paige: Yeah, that was, again, cheesy where you're like, okay….

Ian: Yeah, I get it.

Paige: Okay, another cheesy one— “Always trust a glue salesman, they tend to stick to their word.” So, that one is playing off “salesman” who sells a lot of words to get you to buy something. So, they're saying stick because he's selling glue, so sticks to his word. He’s good on his promise, but it's also playing off that he's selling glue that sticks.

Ian: Okay, the next one we have here. “Every calendar’s days are numbered.” So, this is a really short one. I don't think it is that funny, but essentially, we're saying when you say that someone's days are numbered, this a phrase to say that they are getting towards the end of their time or the end of their life, maybe, in a lot of cases. And obviously, for a calendar, we're counting all of the days in a year. So here we're incorporating those two together saying that “the calendar’s days are numbered.” They're literally numbered, they have the dates, but also may be that we're coming to the end of the year or the end of this current calendar’s life we could say, I guess.

Paige: Yeah, so the calendar is dying. Okay, next one— “A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.” So, that one is playing off the word “litter”, because littering is to throw away something, usually trash on the side of the road, which you get a fine, you're cited. But then a litter is a birth of puppies and so that one's funny but silly.

Ian: Yeah, I like that one a little bit more. I might remember that one. Okay and the last one we have for our homographic puns we have— “If you don't pay your exorcist, you will get repossessed.” So, in this one, we're talking about this incorporation of exorcist. I’m sure a lot of people here listening, they've seen the movie “The Exorcist” or an exorcism but that's basically when you are getting a demon out of somebody. And so, when someone is possessed by a demon, that's when the demon goes into the person. So basically, we're saying, the demon will come back into you, but we're also talking about if you don't pay a bill, in English, we say you might have something repossessed. You might have your house repossessed, your car repossessed, and that means it's taken away from you. So, in this case, we're talking about that repossession of items but we're talking about souls in the case of a demon as well.

Paige: Okay so we just listed a few. Again, check out the audio guide and transcript too because they're a little confusing just hearing them, but we wanted to close with offering a silly one for both Ian and I that's again, very silly. So, the one I chose is, Ian “how do construction workers party?”

Ian: I don't know. How do they?

Paige: They “raise the roof”. Again, it’s a dad joke. It's playing off the words that the phrase “raise the roof” is to make a lot of noise, you're having fun, you're dancing. And then construction workers literally raise roofs when they build buildings. So again, dad joke.

Ian: I like it. Alright for mine, there are many we could do but I'm going to close it out with our theme of English, learning a new language, and say that. Okay, here it is— “The grammar was very logical and that's because it had a lot of comma sense.” And so really dumb one there for all our listeners, but obviously, “comma” we use to separate thoughts in English and we tie in that in with common sense, something that hopefully you have and hopefully that it had. So, sorry for these really dumb ones to close it up, but we felt compelled to do it. So, like we said, there are many more that we could do.

Paige: Yeah, and maybe we'll do another episode about them, who knows? But yeah, look at the guide, try to use them. They're silly but they always get a laugh and they're good conversation starters if you throw them in. So, as always, listeners, check out that audio guide and transcript. Thanks for listening.

Ian: We'll see you next time.

Ian: “Coffee with Gringos” officially has over one hundred episodes and we are among the “Top Podcasts in Chile”. And that’s thanks to you. But we are always working to grow our audience so make sure to rate sure to rate, review and share us.  

Key Vocabulary, Phrases & Slang:

 1.     a.k.a (acronym): also known as.

a.     This is our new director Richard, a.k.a Ricky.

2.     lame (adjective): boring; uncool; disappointing.

a.     The movie was really lame. We should have seen something else.

3.     on paper (idiom): in theory rather than reality.

a.     They were the better team, on paper at least.

4.     double whammy (noun): two things happening at once.

a.     The double whammy of unemployment and inflation has made for a difficult economy.

5.     right off the bat (idiom): at the very beginning.

a.     He told me how much he liked you right off the bat.

6.     to click (verb): to realize or understand something.

a.     The joke clicked with the audience and they started laughing.

7.     to bear (with) something (idiom): to have patience and understanding.

a.     This next pun is a little weird so please bear with me.

8.     to invoke (verb): to inspire; to cause certain feelings.

a.     The song invokes feelings of love and desire.

9.     to cite (verb): to be given a ticket or fine for doing something illegal.

a.     The police cited the man for illegal parking.

10.  to tie in (phrasal verb): to connect or incorporate with something else.  

a.     This is a great way to tie in the message that we discussed last week.

11.  to compel (verb): to force or oblige to do something.

a.     The police compelled the suspects to tell them everything.

12.  to throw in (phrasal verb): to include.

a.     Go ahead and throw in any other information that could help us.