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 causesanimated 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 lacking in someone's pants. (G. Malkin);
• similar in sounding word combinations and words that have different meanings, for example: Years to a hundred to grow / 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 was somehow stale. "

Secondly, this method does not always implycomic 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 fatigue did not fall?

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

Or:

I thought he was a friend,

And he's a despicable creature only (N. Glazkov).

Caesar culture

A pun at all times is used to,to circumvent the existing censorship and express meanings that are under the strictest ban. 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 18century. To disguise the didactic tone, nowadays cheerful aphorisms are often used. And here an invaluable help has a pun. An example of a witty and instructive phrase can serve as words invented by N. Glazkov: Criminals, too, attracts to good, but, unfortunately, to someone else's. The ancient commandment "do not steal" here acquires a fashionable packaging.
3. Sometimes a pun disguises a trivial, stuffedI feel the truth. 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. At the people standing in line, the 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 we are considering sometimes allows us to make strange, sometimes absurd thoughts: Dawn is like a diligent student: she studies every morning (the magazine "Satyricon").

Types of puns

The basis of the pun always lies in 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 language units used. 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 vivid example: On a picnic, under the shade of a fir / We drank more than ate.
2. "Mask". The words and expressions in such 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 the mask is reset with the original meaning, provides the greatest comic effect: He loved and suffered. He loved money and suffered from their shortage (E. Petrov, I. Ilf).
3. "A family". This type of literary reception, 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., The Satyricon Magazine).

Mechanism of action

Try to analyze the richness of shadessemantic meaning in the pun - 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 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 understands 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 similar tosound, 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. Shcherbina 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 packed ... into a sack and other people brought in (Zhvanetsky Michael). Or: Cadres decide everything, but without us (Malkin Gennadiy).

Types of homonyms used in the pun

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

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

Homophones (words that sound the same but are written differently). In one of the lyceum epigrams there are such lines: Everyone says: He is Walter Scott / But I, the poet, are not hypocritical: / I agree, he is just a beast / But that he is Walter Scott - I do not believe.

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

Can not be

Reliable spikes,

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 poems I (Dmitry Minaev).

Speech measure

The ambiguity of the words used in the puncan 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 individualfeatures of the interlocutor. Agree, what to offer the curve to communicate face to face, and lame to inform 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 wordsarises because of the nature of the situation, its dramatic or tragic nature. For example, the phrase "Earthquake in Armenia has shocked all Soviet people" in our days seems blasphemous.

Unconscious puns in creativity

Sometimes neutral expressions can beforbidden because of the onset of insidious ambiguity. An awkward situation can create an unconscious pun. Examples from the literature indicate 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.

In Nabokov's novel "The Gift" Konstantin Fedorovich(poet) rejects the 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 certainrequirements. 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 forthe creation of a satirical and comic effect. The acknowledged masters of this art are Dmitry Minaev (in the 19th century) and Emil Krotky (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, uneducated is darkness." In another it aptly characterizes narcissism, bordering on the mania of the 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

The playing of words was not so rare in theAncient 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 Phil and they beat him."

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

Examples of the pun in Russian testifythat they were distinguished by thematic wealth and diversity. He occupied an important place in the works of Chekhov, Burenin, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Leskov, Pushkin.

Talented humorists appeared in the period"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 receptionoccurs in the works of Zakhoder, Vysotsky, Knyshev, Mayakovsky, Mitrovy, Glazkov, Krivin, Ilf, Petrov and other writers. In addition, most of the invented anecdotes contain a "punning leaven".

An ingenious and talented pun is capable ofrise up 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.