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Laughing and Learning : An intro to Puns

Should I write to, two, or too? Well, that depends on whether the word you want is a preposition, a number, or a synonym of also.

How do I pronounce the word tear? It rhymes with ear if you are talking about crying and air if you are talking about ripping.

What did he mean when he said fine? Depending on the context, he could mean that everything is good or that someone had to pay some money.

Did someone just say tense or tents? It’s tense if they want to say they aren’t relaxed and tents if they just got back from a camping trip.

As you can see, English isn’t always easy to learn. It contains many homophones (words that are pronounced the same but spelled differently and have different meanings), homographs (words that are spelled the same but have a different pronunciation and meaning), and homonyms (words that are spelled and pronounced the same but have different meanings). While this makes learning more difficult, it also gives us the opportunity to have some fun with the language.

How does it do that? With puns! Put simply, a pun is a joke that plays with words and their meanings to be funny. And English is full of them. There are other types of puns, but the simplest ones involve homophones, homographs, and homonyms. So let’s focus on these first.

Here’s a quick example:
Why did the spider go to the computer?
To check his website.

Since you are reading this online, I think you know what a website is. However, web and site have their own definitions. A web is something that a spider makes to catch insects. And site is another word for location. So is the spider checking his homepage or the location of his web? The double meaning and confusion is what makes it funny.

HOMONYM PUNS

Let’s take a closer look at some homonyms and then go over some puns that use them. These words have the same spelling and pronunciation, but multiple meanings:

saw – the past tense of see
saw – a tool used for cutting
The blind man picked up a hammer and saw.
Did he begin to see after picking up the magical hammer? Or did he pick up two tools?

sentence – in grammar, a set of words that express a complete idea
sentence – the punishment given to a criminal for breaking the law
A prisoner’s favorite punctuation mark is the period. It marks the end of his sentence.
Does the period mean that he will be released from prison, or does he just like periods in grammar?

interest – caring about something
interest – the extra money you have to pay back when you borrow money
I used to be a banker, but I lost interest.
Was he a bad banker and lost money for the bank? Or does he just not find the job interesting anymore?

HOMOPHONE PUNS

And here are a few homophones. The two words are pronounced the same and can be used in the following puns:

profit – the money that a person or company earns
prophet – a person who delivers messages from God
Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
Atheists don’t believe in God, so they also don’t believe in prophets. But atheism also doesn’t earn any money, so there aren’t any profits.

whine – to cry
wine – an alcoholic beverage made from grapes
What did the grape say when it got stepped on? Nothing, but it let out a little whine.
Was the grape crying? Or did crushing it produce a delicious beverage for us to enjoy?

steak – a piece of meat
stake – a wooden post with a point on one end
You kill vegetarian vampires with a steak to the heart.
Vegetarians don’t like to eat meat, and one way to kill a vampire is to nail a wooden stake into his heart.

ADDITIONAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

So now that you know a little bit about puns, how can you use them to improve your English? Here are a few ways:

Read some more puns (along with explanations) here:
http://www.englishwithnick.de/en/humor/basic-puns-with-explanations/

Or, you can increase your vocabulary by reading through these lists of homophones and homographs. To test your new knowledge, write a single sentence that includes both meanings of the. For example:
Fall (to drop to the ground) / Fall (Autumn) – The leaves will fall off the trees in the fall.
Homophone List – https://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/homophones-list.htm
Homograph List –
http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-homographs.html

Once you’ve got a bit more experience reading and understanding puns, try to write your own! Take a word with multiple meanings and see if you can construct a situation where both meanings make sense. Normally we try to make our sentences as clear as possible, but when writing jokes, the humor comes from the ambiguity.

NICK’S PROFILE

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STRESS and EMPHASIS

“I didn’t say we should kill him!”

When you speak English do you ever consider your tone?  To be really good at speaking English you must not only understand the grammar and the vocabulary and perfect how you communicate. You must also understand the conversational tone and tactics that native speakers use. A simple example for you is to consider when your voice rises and falls in a phrase. However in English adding additional STRESS or EMPHASIS can change the significance entirely. Look at these examples, stress the words in bold:

  1. I didn’t say we should kill him.  = Someone else said we should kill him.
  2. I didn’t say we should kill him. = I am denying saying it.
  3. I didn’t say we should kill him. = I implied it / whispered it / wrote it down.
  4. I didn’t say we should kill him. = I said someone else should kill him /you should kill him, etc.
  5. I didn’t say we should kill him. = I said we shouldn’t kill him / we must kill him, etc.
  6. I didn’t say we should kill him. = I said we should take him to dinner /take care of him / send him on a diving holiday.
  7. I didn’t say we should kill him. = We should kill someone else.

So, be careful when you talk about killing someone!

Contact Rachel today > http://www.italki.com/teacher/1394345

 

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Using WHOM properly

WHO and WHOM are two very commonly confused words.  To be honest, most native speakers don’t even know how to use them properly 😀   I think this is a great info/comic explaining the proper usage of WHOM (and WHO).  > http://theoatmeal.com/comics/who_vs_whom  Enjoy and laugh a little!

 

 

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Kung Fu Skills Not Essential

So you love English, love social media, are open to relocating, perhaps to China, specially if you also have a keen interest in Kung Fu, yes? Then we have seen the perfect job opportunity for you!

You know that English has truly become the global language of choice when you see a situations vacant advertisement posted online by an ancient Chinese Buddhist temple seeking a Brand Builder who is fluent in English!
Such is the fame of the 1,500 year old Shoalin temple, where the monks are known for their skills in martial arts such as Kung Fu, that the temple has become an shrine to martial arts lovers from across the globe.
Even though the temple is located in an isolated position, deep inside the mountains of Henan province, visitors are drawn to the site in order to experience for themselves the special form of Kung Fu practiced by the monks. Whilst most of the monks themselves do not speak English, in order to market and secure the temples brand globally, English has been chosen as the preferred language for the position advertised.
It just goes to show that the reach of English as an international language is still growing strong and is reaching even the most unexpected places.
The Guardian newspaper has more on this story. Have a read, it will certainly make you laugh yet they are totally serious. Could you, or someone you know, fit the bill?
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The Word Detectives

In the Scripps National Spelling Bee championship held in the USA, the joint teenage champions had to spell words such assdrucciola, holluschick, thymelici, encaenia, terreplein and stichomythia in order to win. Whether or not they understood the meanings of the words, it is an impressive feat indeed that they managed to spell words such as these correctly upon hearing them used only once.
 
Traditionally, especially when I was at school, spelling was taught by our teachers giving us a list of words on Monday, which was followed by a spelling test on Friday. This has been the case with spelling for many years, but I bet the teenage champions at the 2014 National Spelling Bee learned spelling in a completely different way.
Most spelling follows expected patterns, teaching how and why certain patterns are used helps you to develop your spelling. For example, various words containing the /ay/ sound are grouped by their spelling pattern into lists:
List 1 would contain the ‘ai’ words (rain, bait, brain, wait, grain, aim, aid…).
List 2 would give the ‘ay’ words (play, away, stay, pay, pray…).
List 3 would give the a-consonant-e spelling pattern (gate, trade, game, make, grade…).
List 4 would contain the single vowel ‘a’ spellings (rang, bank, thank, sang…).
List 5 would contain the ‘unexpected’ spellings of /ay/ (eight, weigh, great …).
 
Another way to investigate and understand the patterns is to group words beginning with the same letter. For example, the letter ‘C’ would contain words beginning with a ‘hard-c’ such as cat, or a ‘soft-c’ as in cell, and once these words are grouped together you will start to discover that ‘c’ is usually hard when followed by consonants and the vowels ‘a, o & u’ (cat, cot, cut etc…), whilst it is usually soft when followed by ‘i. e & y’ (circus, celery, cycle etc.).
 
There are always exceptions to these rules, but it’s a good way to learn spelling patterns which will eventually help amplify your vocabulary and improve your English!
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Click

This cartoon is based on the double meaning of click.
click_idiom
A click is a short, sharp sound.
“The door closed with a click.”
“Turn the handle until you hear a click.”In informal English, click is used to describe what happens when you suddenly understand or remember something.
“When she started talking about Boston, it suddenly clicked where I had met her before.”
“I had to read the report a couple of times before it clicked.”A seat belt fastens around someone travelling in a vehicle or aircraft and holds them in their seat if there is an accident.

more helpful vocabulary from …
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TONGUE TWISTERS

Try reading this out loud…

TONGUE TWISTERSDearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation — think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough –
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

 

JANET’S PROFILE

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It’s only English, how many accents could there be!?

While English has become the most widely used language in the world, the definition of “Standard English” is not always so clear.

This video is one of my favorites for helping English students see the variations between accents and dialects in spoken English. Surprisingly, English accents vary greatly; and if a student has learned American English in school, for example, he/she could have a very hard time understanding someone speaking Australian English.

Because listening to various English accents is “easier said than done,” I recommend learning the fun way- with movies! Here is a great website that can help you learn all kinds of English accents by watching movie trailers and clips. Watch and re-watch until you can understand, and don’t hesitate to ask questions or look up some of the phrases being said. Also, I would advise taking on one accent at a time until you can better understand it, then moving on to the next one. Good luck, and don’t give up!

http://kelseysensei.wordpress.com/2013/12/23/its-only-english-how-many-accents-could-there-be/ 

 

 

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One Direction

Pronunciation

British: One Dye-rection

American: One Der-ection

Australian: One Da-rection

Chinese: Wan Da-re-shun

Irish: Wonder-Action

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