Paronomasia.
Hard is the job to launch the desperate pun;
A pun-job dangerous as the Indian one.—Holmes.
Life and language are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide—that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life—are alike forbidden. Manslaughter, which is the meaning of the one, is the same as man’s laughter, which is the end of the other.—Ibid.
The quaint Cardan thus defineth:—“Punning is an art of harmonious jingling upon words, which, passing in at the ears and falling upon the diaphragma, excites a titillary motion in those parts; and this, being conveyed by the animal spirits into the muscles of the face, raises the cockles of the heart.”
“He who would make a pun would pick a pocket,” is the stereotyped dogma fulminated by laugh-lynchers from time immemorial; or, as the Autocrat hath it, “To trifle with the vocabulary which is the vehicle of social intercourse is to tamper with the currency of human intelligence. He who would violate the sanctities of his mother tongue would invade the recesses of the paternal till without remorse, and repeat the banquet of Saturn without an indigestion.” The “inanities of this working-day world” cannot perceive any wittiness or grace in punning; and yet, according to the comprehensive definition of wit by Dr. Barrow, the eminent divine, it occupies a very considerable portion of the realm of wit. He says, “Wit is a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and judgments, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notion thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define the figure of the fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in pat allusions to a known story, or in seasonable application of a trivial saying, or in feigning an apposite tale; sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage of the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of their sound; sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of humorous expression, sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude; sometimes it is lodged in a sly question, in a smart answer, in a quirkish reason, in a shrewd intimation, in cunningly, divertingly, or cleverly retorting an objection; sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in a lusty hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense; sometimes a scenic representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimic look or gesture, passeth for it. Sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness, giveth it being. Sometimes it riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange; sometimes from a crafty wresting of obvious matter to the purpose. Often it consisteth of one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unaccountable and inexplicable, being answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy and windings of language.”
If this definition be true, there is truth as well as wit in the punster’s reply to the taunt of the rhetorician that “punning is the lowest species of wit.” “Yes,” said he, “for it is the foundation of all wit.” But, whatever may be said of the practice by those who affect to despise it, it has been much in vogue in all ages. Horne, in his Introduction to the Critical Study of the Holy Scriptures, tells us that it was a very favorite figure of rhetoric among the Hebrews, and is yet common among most of the Oriental nations. Professor Stuart, in his Hebrew grammar, gives numerous examples of it in the Old Testament, and Winer and Horne point out others in the New Testament, especially in the writings of St. Paul. These cannot, of course, be equivalently expressed in English.
Many of the Greek authors exhibit a fondness for this rhetorical figure, and some of the most excellent puns extant are to be found in the Greek Anthologies. As a specimen, the following is given from Wesseling’s Diodorus Siculus:—
Dioscurus, an Egyptian bishop, before he began the service, had the common custom of saying ειρηνη πασιν, (irene pasin,) peace be to all. It was notorious that the pious churchman had at home a favorite mistress, whose name was Irene, which incident produced the following smart epigram:—
Ειρηνη παντεσσιν επισκοπος ειπεν εχελθων
Πως δυναται πασιν, ἡν μονος ενδον εχει;
(The good bishop wishes peace—Irene—to all;
But how can he give that to all, which he keeps to himself at home?)