Definition:
Punning, playing with words. See also:
Etymology:
From the Greek, "word-shunting"Examples:
- "A good farmer is nothing more nor less than a handyman with a sense of humus."
(E.B. White, "The Practical Farmer") - "Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends."
(credited to Tom Waits) - I used to be a tap dancer until I fell in the sink.
- "Get that bird a glass of water--he’s perched!"
(Magilla Gorilla on Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law) - "The Lone Hydrangea"
(name of a flower shop in Melbourne, Australia) - "Curl Up and Dye"
(a beauty salon in London) - "Al’s Clip Joint"
(a barber shop in London) - "Rock and Sole Plaice"
(a fish & chip shop in London) - "Best Little Hair House in Denver"
(a barber shop in Denver, Colorado) - "Award Wieners"
(a "Hollywood hot dog stand" in Disneyland) - "The Weiner’s Circle"
(a restaurant in Chicago) - "Thai Me Up"
(a Thai restaurant in Manhattan) - "I have a mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it."
(Groucho Marx) - "Well, I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."
(Tom Waits on Fernwood2Night, 1977) - "Dishgusted, dishgusted, dishgusted."
(commercial for Lux dishwashing liquid) - "We're tobacco men . . . not medicine men. Old Gold cures just one thing. The World's Best Tobacco."
(advertising slogan for Old Gold cigarettes) - "Peace is much more precious than a piece of land."
(Anwar al-Sadat, speech in Cairo on March 8, 1978) - "Don't be a tosser."
(New South Wales anti-litter campaign) - "Oh look--it has B-12 in it. I didn’t know that B-4."
(television commercial for Kelloggs Bran) - "Your children need your presence more than your presents."
(Jesse Jackson) - "Horse Lovers are Stable People."
(saying on a pillow in the Potpourri gift catalog) - "Every bubble's passed its fizzical"
(advertising slogan for Corona)
Pronunciation: par-oh-no-MAZE-jah
Also Known As: pun
