Pun: an example. Pun in Russian. The meaning of the word "pun"

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The Russian language is multifaceted. This means that, like a semi-precious stone under the rays of the sun, some words in it can be made to "play" with new, unexpected shades of meaning. One of the literary devices that reveal the richness of the language, its creative potential, is a pun. Examples of this interesting and unique phenomenon will be demonstrated in this article.

Etymology

The meaning of the word "pun" still causes lively debate. There were different options for designating this concept: calembourg, calambour. It probably comes from the German word Kalauer, the origin of which also raises questions. There are several historical anecdotes that link the origin of the word "pun" with various historical realities and personalities:

• According to one version, Weigand von Theben, a pastor famous for his witty jokes, once lived in the German city of Kalemberg.
• According to another theory, the literary device was named after Count Kalanber (Kalemberg), who lived during the reign of Louis XIV in Paris.
• There is also an assumption that the lexeme "pun" goes back to the Italian expression "calamo burlare", which means "to joke with a pen".

Definition

A pun is a literary device intended for comic effect. It is achieved using in one context:

• different meanings of one word, for example: Matter is infinite, but it is always not enough for someone's pants. (G. Malkin);
• similar-sounding phrases and words that have different meanings, for example: To grow up to a hundred years / we are without old age (V. Mayakovsky).

This definition needs a few clarifications.

Firstly, sometimes it is based not on the sound, but on the semantic similarity of the words pun. An example is the phrase coined by A. Knyshev: "Everything in the house was stolen, and even the air was somehow stale."

Secondly, this technique does not always imply a comic effect. Sometimes it is used to create a satirical and tragic coloring of the text. Examples of a pun in Russian, composed for a similar purpose:

Are you

Don't howl from the cold

Together in a dugout?

And didn't fall from fatigue?

Didn't you sleep full on warm carrion? (V. Khlebnikov).

Or:

I thought he was a friend, And he is only a despicable creature (N. Glazkov).

Cesura of culture

Pun is used at all times to circumvent existing censorship and express meanings that are under the strictest ban. There are four varieties of this use of literary device.

1. Pun suggests ambiguity. Sometimes one of these meanings is indecent. The author of the apt expression seems to be hiding behind a witty combination of words, saying: "And where am I? This is how our language works!"
2. Instructive sayings fell out of fashion after the 18th century. To disguise the didactic tone, cheerful aphorisms are often used in our time. And here the pun is of invaluable help. An example of a witty and instructive phrase is the words coined by N. Glazkov: Criminals are also attracted to good, but, unfortunately, to someone else's. The old commandment "Thou sh alt not steal" takes on a fashionable twist here.
3. Sometimes a pun disguises a trivial, hackneyed truth. For example, in an old joke, invented during the period of stagnation, the idea is presented in a new way that people live better abroad than in the USSR. A foreigner asks the people standing in line what they are selling. And they answer him: "they threw the shoes away." After carefully examining the goods, a resident of another country agrees: "We also throw them away."
4. The literary device we are considering sometimes allows us to express strange, sometimes absurd thoughts: Dawn is like a diligent student: she studies every morning (magazine"Satyricon").

Types of puns

A pun is always based on a "play on words", similar in sound or meaning. Therefore, it is natural to divide the methods of creating this literary device into three large groups according to the nature of the semantic links between the language units used. Conventionally, they can be called: "neighbors", "mask" and "family".

1. "Neighbours". The author confines himself to the usual summation of the meaning of consonant words. This creates the most "primitive" pun. Poems by D. Minaev are a good example: At a picnic, under the shade of a spruce / We drank more than we ate.
2. "Mask". Words and expressions in such puns collide in their most polar meaning: I have well mastered the feeling of the elbow, which was thrust under my ribs (V. Vysotsky). The suddenness with which the mask is removed from the original meaning provides the greatest comic effect: He loved and suffered. He loved money and suffered from a lack of it (E. Petrov, I. Ilf).
3. "Family". This is a type of literary device that combines the features of the two above groups. Here the meanings of the words collide sharply, but the second, hidden meaning, does not cancel the first at all. Russian puns that belong to this type are very diverse. For example: And in non-flying weather, you can fly out of service (Meek Emil); We bring spots and clients out of ourselves (Announcement. Magazine "Satyricon").

Mechanism of action

Tryto analyze the richness of shades of semantic meaning in a pun is a difficult task, but very interesting. Let's take the simplest example. The phrase: "She was curled like a sheep, and just as developed" belongs to Emil Krotkoy. Perceiving it, a person first encounters a frank contradiction, is in the stage of "comic shock" from the combination of the words "curled" and "developed" in one sentence. Then he understands that the second lexeme, unlike the first, does not mean the state of the hairstyle, but a very low level of intelligence in the represented subject. In the end, the described person in the mind of a person is discredited, and he himself experiences the pleasure of being devoid of this shortcoming.

Pun and homonyms

Usually homonyms, that is, words similar in sound but different in meaning, are rarely found in the same context. A pun is an example of the interaction of this linguistic phenomenon within a single utterance. According to the apt expression of A. Shcherbina, in this literary device, homonyms "collide head-on" and it is always interesting which meaning will "win". In puns - "masks" this fight is the most interesting. After all, one of the presented meanings completely destroys the other. For example: The car was assembled … in a bag and brought by other people (Zhvanetsky Mikhail). Or: Cadres decide everything, but without us (Malkin Gennady).

Types of homonyms used in puns

The sparkling wordplay uses various types of homonyms.

Fullhomonyms. When they are used, a very witty pun often occurs. Example: Dancing is the friction of two sexes against the third.

Homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently). In one of the lyceum epigrams, there are such lines: Everyone says: He is W alter Scott / But I, a poet, am not hypocritical: / I agree, he is just cattle / But I don’t believe that he is W alter Scott.

Homographs (words with the same spelling but different stress). For example:

Can't be

Reliable soldering, As long as there is

Rations and rations (V. Orlov).

Homoforms (words that only match in some forms). Such cases are quite common in jokes: There was a barrel from the window. Stirlitz fired. The muzzle disappeared (the words "blow" and "muzzle").

Homonymy of phrases. For example: The area of rhymes is my element, / And I write poetry easily (Dmitry Minaev).

Speech beat

The polysemy of words used in a pun can create awkward situations. It is not for nothing that speakers are sometimes forced to apologize for an involuntary pun. There are several cases when an inappropriate "play on words" occurs.

1. Sometimes they are associated with the individual characteristics of the interlocutor. Agree that it is very tactless to offer a crooked person to talk face to face, and to tell a lame person that he is lame in some area of knowledge. There is an annoying pun. Joking about this may offend the listener.
2. It happens that an annoying and inappropriate play on wordsarises from the nature of the situation, its drama or tragedy. For example, the phrase "The earthquake in Armenia shocked all Soviet people" seems blasphemous these days.

Unconscious puns in creativity

Sometimes, neutral expressions can be banned due to insidious ambiguity. An awkward situation can be created by an unconscious pun. Examples from the literature testify to this. A. Kruchenykh, for example, argued that the phrase: "And your step weighed down the earth" (Bryusov) loses all its drama due to the fact that the word "donkey" is heard in it.

In Nabokov's novel "The Gift" Konstantin Fedorovich (poet) rejects a flashed line in his head: "for a pure and winged gift". In his opinion, the associations with "wings" and "armor" that involuntarily arise when listening to this phrase are inappropriate. Such is the indefatigable scrupulousness of some connoisseurs of the Russian language.

Form and content

Speakers make certain demands on the language. One of them is the correspondence of form and content. People believe that different meanings should be clothed in a different language form. That is why the ambiguity of phrases and words gives rise to a paradoxical effect in the mind of a person and turns for him into one of the forms of an exciting mental game. For example, speakers are always amused by the fact that minimal changes in a lexeme completely distort its original meaning. Word-puns are always popular. Here are some ofthem: a monument to the first printer and a monument to the first printer (I. Ilf); staff captain and schnapps captain (A. Chekhov). Such fun experiments give familiar expressions a whole new meaning.

Lead Authors

Pun in Russian was often used to create a satirical and comic effect. The recognized masters of this art are Dmitry Minaev (in the 19th century) and Emil Krotkiy (Soviet era). Among the puns of the latter there are genuine masterpieces. For example, in one of them he plays on the tautology of an old Russian proverb: "Learning is light, unlearned is darkness." In another, he aptly characterizes the narcissism, bordering on megalomania, of some literary figures: "The poet familiarly patted the Caucasus on its backbone." In the third, he is ironic about the state in which people find themselves under the influence of the first warm rays of the sun: "Spring will drive anyone crazy. Ice - and he started to move." The recognized master of the pun was Kozma Prutkov. His witty aphorisms are still fresh and relevant: "It is easier to hold the reins in your hands than the reins of government."

History of Russian pun

Playing with words was not such a rarity even in Ancient Russia. In the handwritten collection of Russian proverbs, created in the 18th century by P. Simone, there are several puns. Here is one of them: "They drank at Fili's, but they beat Fili."

This literary device became fashionable in the second half of the 19th century. For example, puns and jokes about the nose in Russia thisperiod were so numerous that the researcher VV Vinogradov in his "Naturalistic Grotesque" speaks of "nosological" literature. Moreover, the expressions "leave with the nose", "lead by the nose", "hang the nose" are actively used today.

Examples of puns in Russian indicate that they were distinguished by thematic richness and diversity. He occupied an important place in the work of Chekhov, Burenin, S altykov-Shchedrin, Leskov, Pushkin.

Talented comedians appeared during the "silver age of Russian literature". The authors of the Satyricon magazine - Teffi, Orsher, Dymov, Averchenko - often used puns to create a comic effect in their works.

After the revolution, this literary device is found in the works of Zakhoder, Vysotsky, Knyshev, Mayakovsky, Meek, Glazkov, Krivin, Ilf, Petrov and other writers. In addition, most of the invented jokes contain "punning leaven".

A witty and talented pun is able to rise to a large-scale philosophical generalization and make people think about the meaning of life. Using this literary technique is a real art, which will be very useful and exciting for anyone to master.