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

The Russian language is multifaceted. This means that like a gemstone 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 techniques that allow us to discover the richness of the language, its creativity, 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 disputes. There were different variants of designation of this concept: calembourg, calambour. Probably, it originated from the German word Kalauer, whose origin also raises questions. There are several historical anecdotes that link the emergence of the word "pun" with various historical realities and personalities:

• According to one version, in the German city of Kalemberga once lived Weygand von Teben, a pastor who was famous for his witty jokes.
• According to another theory, the literary reception was named after Count Calanber (Kalemberga), who lived during the reign of Louis the Fourteenth in Paris.
• There is also the assumption that the lexeme "pun" goes back to the Italian expression "calamo burlare", which means "joking with a pen."

Definition

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

• Different meanings of one word, for example: Matter is infinite, but it's always missing someone's pants. (G. Malkin);
• Similar in sounding word combinations and words that have different meanings, for example: Years to a hundred to grow / to us without old age (V. Mayakovsky).

This definition needs several refinements.

Firstly, sometimes it is based not on the sound, but on the semantic proximity of words pun. An example can serve as a phrase invented by A. Knyshev: " In the house everything was stolen, and even the air is somehow stale."

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

Are you

From the cold did not howl

Together in the dugout?

And they did not fall from fatigue?

Did not sleep well fed on a warm carrion? (V. Khlebnikov).

Or:

I thought he was a friend,

But he is a despicable creature only (N. Glazkov).

Caesar culture

A pun at all times is used to bypass the existing censorship and express meanings that are under the strictest prohibition. There are four varieties of this use of literary techniques.

1. The pun implies ambiguity. Sometimes one of these meanings is indecent. The author of a well-defined expression seems to hide behind an ingenious combination of words, saying: "And where am I? This is our language is so arranged!"
2. The edifying statements went out of fashion after the 18th century. To disguise didactic tone, in our time cheerful aphorisms are often used. And here an invaluable help has a pun. An example of a witty and instructive phrase can serve as the words invented by N. Glazkov: Criminals, too, attracts to good, but, unfortunately, to a stranger. The ancient commandment "do not steal" here acquires a fashionable packaging.
3. Sometimes a pun disguises a trivial truth, stuffed with mischief. For example, in a long-standing anecdote invented during a period of stagnation, the idea that abroad people live better than in the USSR is re-introduced. In people standing in line, a foreigner is interested in what they are selling. And they answer him: "they threw away their shoes." Having carefully examined the goods, a resident of another country agrees: "We also throw out such things."
4. The literary device that we are considering sometimes allows us to make strange, at times absurd thoughts: Dawn is like a diligent student: she studies every morning (Satyricon magazine).

Types of puns

In the basis of the pun always lies the "play of words", similar in sound or meaning. Therefore, it is natural to divide the methods of creating this literary reception into three large groups according to the nature of the semantic links between the used linguistic units. Conditionally they can be called: "neighbors", "mask" and "family".

1. "Neighbors". The author confines himself to the usual summation of the meaning of consonant words. This creates the most "primitive" pun. D. Minaev's poems are a good example: At a picnic, under the shade of a fir / We drank more than we ate .
2. "Mask". The words and expressions in these puns come across in the most polar sense: I have well mastered the feeling of the elbow that I was pinned to the rib (V.Vysotsky). The suddenness with which, with the original meaning, the mask is reset, provides the greatest comic effect: He loved and suffered. He loved money and suffered from their lack (E. Petrov, I. Ilf).
3. "A family". This is a type of literary technique, combining the characteristics of the two above-mentioned groups. Here the meanings of words clash sharply, but the second, hidden meaning, does not at all abolish the first. Russian puns, which are of this type, are very diverse. For example: And in non-flying weather you can fly out of service (Mild Emil); Display stains and customers of themselves (Ad., Journal "Satyricon").

Mechanism of influence

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

Pun and homonyms

Usually homonyms, that is, words that are similar in sound but different in meaning, are rarely found in one context. A pun is an example of the interaction of this linguistic phenomenon within the framework of a single utterance. According to the apt expression of A. Scherbina in this literary reception, homonyms "collide foreheads" and it is always interesting what meaning "will win". In puns - "masks" this fight is most interesting. After all, one of the presented meanings completely destroys the other. For example: The car was ... collected in a sack and brought by other people (Zhvanetsky Michael). Or: Cadres decide everything, but without us (Malkin Gennadiy).

Types of homonyms used in the pun

In the sparkling "game of words," a variety of types of homonyms are used.

Complete homonyms . When they are used often there is a very clever pun. Example: Dancing is the friction of two sexes about the third.

Homophones (words that sound the same, but written in different ways). In one of the lyceum epigrams there are lines: Everyone says: He is Walter Scott / But I, the poet, are not hypocritical: / I agree, he is just cattle / But he does not believe that he is Walter Scott.

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

Can not be

Reliable adhesion,

As long as there is

Rations and rations (V. Orlov).

Omoforms (words that coincide only in some forms). Such cases are often found in anecdotes: From the window there was a muzzle. Stirlitz shot. The muzzle disappeared (the words "blow" and "muzzle").

Homonymy of word combinations . For example: The rhyme region is my element, / And I easily write poetry I (Dmitry Minaev).

Speech measure

The ambiguity of the words used in the pun can create awkward situations. No wonder the speakers are sometimes forced to apologize for the involuntary pun. Cases when there is an inappropriate "play of words", a few.

1. Sometimes they are associated with the individual characteristics of the interlocutor. Agree, what to offer a curve to communicate face to face, and lame to report that in some area of knowledge he is limping, very tactless. There is an annoying pun. Jokes about this can offend the listener.
2. It happens that an annoying and inappropriate play of words arises because of the nature of the situation, its drama or tragedy. For example, the phrase "Earthquake in Armenia shocked all Soviet people" in our days seems blasphemous.

Unconscious puns in creativity

Sometimes neutral expressions can be banned due to the emergence of insidious ambiguity. An awkward situation can create an unconscious pun. Examples from the literature testify to this. A. Kruchenykh, for example, argued that the phrase: "And your land tended to weigh heavily" (Bryusov) loses all its drama due to the fact that the word "ass" is heard in it.

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

Form and content

Speakers present to the language certain requirements. One of them is the conformity of form and content. People believe that different meanings must be clothed in a different language form. That is why the ambiguity of word combinations and words gives rise to a paradoxical effect in the human mind and turns for him into one of the forms of an exciting mental game. For example, speakers are always amused that minimal changes in the lexeme completely distort its original meaning. The word puns are very popular. Here are some of them: a monument to the first printer and a monument to the primary printer (I. Ilf); Captain and schnapps-captain (A.Chekhov). Such cheerful experiments give completely new meaning to the familiar expressions.

Lead Authors

A 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 Mild (Soviet era). Among the puns of the latter there are genuine masterpieces. For example, in one of them he beats the tautological nature of the old Russian proverb: "Learning is light, ignoramuses are darkness." In another, aptly describes narcissism, bordering on the mania of greatness, of some literary figures: "The poet famously patted the Caucasus along his ridge." In the third, he sneers at the state in which people find themselves under the influence of the first warm rays of the sun: "Spring will drive anyone crazy." The ice - and that has moved. " Kozma Prutkov was considered to be the master of the pun. His witty aphorisms are still fresh and relevant: "It is easier to hold the reins in their hands than the reins of government."

History of the Russian pun

Beating up words was not that rare even in Ancient Rus. In the manuscript collection of Russian proverbs, created in the 18th century by P. Simone, there are several puns. Here is one of them: "They drank Phil and they beat him."

This literary technique became fashionable in the second half of the 19th century. For example, puns and anecdotes about the nose in Russia during this period were so numerous that the researcher V. V. Vinogradov in the "Naturalistic grotesque" speaks of "nosological" literature. And the expressions "leave with a nose", "drive for a nose", "hang a nose" are actively used today.

Examples of the pun in Russian indicate that they differed in thematic wealth and diversity. He occupied an important place in the works of Chekhov, Burenin, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Leskov, Pushkin.

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

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

An ingenious and talented pun is able to rise to a large-scale philosophical generalization and make people think about the meaning of being. The use of this literary technique is a real art, which will be very useful and enjoyable for anyone.