leonig01wrote:
A pun is a joke that makes a play on words. A pun makes use of words that have more than one meaning, or words that sound similar but have different meanings, to humorous effect. The rhetorical term for punning is paronomasia, which literally means "to call a different name."
Puns rely on several types of words to work, words that are similar in spelling, sound or meaning, such as homophones, homonyms, and homographs.
Here is an example:
I was struggling to figure out how lightning works, but then it struck me.
Usually puns cannot be translated due to the incompatibility between the double meaning that lies in the essence of the pun.
I guess cross-language puns are available to bilinguals and higher, but here is what I found:
В чём разница между слоном и роялем? В том, что к роялю можно прислониться, а к слону нельзя прироялиться.
מה ההבדל בין פיל לפסנתר? שאת הפסנתר אפשר להפיל, אבל את הפיל אי אפשר לפסנתר
What is the difference between an elephant and a piano? The piano can be elephanted, but the elephant cannot be pianoed.
Sounds weird when translated to English. But these are puns. Apply locally.
P.S. It is "lean on" in Russian and "drop down" in Hebrew, but the game of words works in both languages
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