
Why English is such a great language for puns - sohkamyung
https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21726054-gamers-now-even-take-part-world-champunships-why-english-such-great-language
======
simplicio
Vietnamese humour is remarkably focused around puns and other word-play, much
more so than American humour. The reason is presumably because Vietnamese has
a ton of homophones, and even more words that differ by only one vowel or
tone.

(this makes learning Vietnamese a kind of trying experience, as every
mispronunciation is a source of hilarity for native speakers :) )

~~~
japanforever
Not only Vietnamese but a lot of languages all over the world, if not most or
all. Puns and wordplay exist in any language, and people who say "why
English/German/Swahili/whatever is so great for Y" merely have no deeper
understanding of linguistics aside folk etymologies and lists of "untranslated
words" (which are a joke to people actually into linguistics) and things like
that.

Japanese comedians can't go 10 minutes without making a pun, and a lay person
could strongly agree that it is the language that uses them the most due to
all common similar-sounding words, frequent games with kanji and their
different meanings etc. It's common for even business names to be puns in
Japan.

~~~
samstave
Examples please. I love puns.

~~~
mattchamb
There is a sushi shop near me called "Sushi Yah!" the japanese for "sushi
shop" is "すし屋" pronounced "sushi ya"

~~~
Rumudiez
There's a sushi restaurant near me called "SushiMe," a pun of "sashimi" I've
always assumed.

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steadicat
As an Italian native speaker I wholeheartedly agree. It's one of the reasons I
love English more.

Not only does English have many more homophones, and nouns can be used as
verbs and vice versa, but English also has a much higher “word density” (for
lack of a better term). The vocabulary is larger, and words tend to be
shorter. The combination of the two means that you can take any short word,
and odds are many other words with completely different meanings are just one
letter-change away. On top of that, pronunciation is very inexact, which means
many vowels and consonants sound alike.

These things make English pretty bad for oral comprehension, but great for
puns.

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yhavr
> Why English is such a great language for puns

Because one doesn't know other languages :-)

I know a guy who generates them constantly, in Russian. I even started
wondering why Russian is so great language for puns?

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alphydan
The article provides no evidence about why English, specifically, is great for
puns.

>> . It has a large vocabulary and a rich stock of homophones from which puns
can be made

Ok. What about the other 6000 languages? Do they have more/less homophones.
French sure has a ton of them.

>> It is constantly evolving, with new words being invented and old ones given
fresh meanings

Yes, like any other language.

>> And it is mostly uninflected, allowing for verbs and nouns to switch places

Good. But other languages, like German, can keep the suspense until the end of
the sentence (where the verb is located), ending the sentence in an unexpected
twist. So is this a distinct advantage? Is it so unique?

>> it has no gendered nouns

You would think languages with lots of declinations allow for smart puns too,
right?

It seems it has been written by an English speaker with little knowledge of
any other language.

~~~
jasonjei
Chinese also is a great language for puns. I was in Taipei a few weeks ago and
saw a restaurant named 糖朝 ( _tangchao_ , Sugar Dynasty), when most people
would expect to see 唐朝 ( _tangchao_ , Tang Dynasty).

In addition, many cultural sayings are based off "puns." For example, 年年有餘 (
_nian nian you yu_ , year after year there will be a surplus) is a common
saying during the Chinese New Year. However, many families eat fish (魚, _yu_ ,
fish) during the Chinese New Year because it sounds like surplus. And so, 年年有餘
is sometimes rendered 年年有魚 ( _nian nian you yu_ , year after year there will
be fish).

~~~
dmoy
There's an entire type of Chinese comedy which is roughly translatable as
homophone puns (相声). Few non native speakers ever get good enough to do it.

In fact when I was watching the CCTV New year broadcast in English 7 or so
years back, the translation and subtitles basically just gave up for all of
the crosstalk segments. They just put a banner underneath saying basically
"this is crosstalk now, sorry we can't translate it because it's too hard".

~~~
jpatokal
The one famous non-native xiangsheng master being Dashan:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iailMSUVenA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iailMSUVenA)

~~~
dmoy
Oh yeah that dude I recognize him, didn't know he could do crosstalk, that's
impressive.

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stretchwithme
I'd like to see the biggest losers at these punning competitions give a talk
at the Pun Ted conference.

~~~
statictype
I see what you did there

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cletus
Look, I don't pretend to be an expert here but I've dabbled in learning some
other languages, most recently spanish.

One thing that keeps coming up is how _economical_ English seems to be
compared to at least the other languages I've encountered. By "economical" I
mean in terms of syllables. This seems to be a particularly useful property
when it comes rhyming and lyrics and the like.

A few examples from Spanish:

nosotros/nosotras = we

demasiado = too

bastante = quite

primavera = spring

verano = summer

invierno = winter

bebemos = (we) drink

Also, as seems to be common in western European languages (other than English)
is that more articles are required. Also, English fits the German pattern
(being of that family linguistically speaking, this is unsurprising) of
appending nouns together to form new words. In English these are separated by
spaces still. In German they are not but it is the same construct/idea.

So English: Independence Day

Spanish: El dia de la independencia

Now this is more complicated because the verb forms in Spanish tend to be so
distinct you can drop the subject eg (Yo) estoy tarde (I am late). But still
"estoy" is two syllables compared to one in English ("am"). Also, some
pronouns are so indistinct that they need to be qualified (eg with "a usted"
or "a ella").

I'm by no means a linguistics expert so can't say what affect this has on,
say, the speed of information transfer (which I expect is _roughly_ the same
across languages but variances probably exist) or on poetry, songs or even
puns. But I find it interesting.

Another point: what people find funny, even with those that have the same
native tongue, varies culturally. There have been studies on this. For
example, Americans tend to prefer humour where people get hurt (ostensibly)
and just slapstick in general. This seems to explain things like The Three
Stooges. Speaking as an Australian, I've never understood the appeal. But as
an Australian, our humour is much closer to English humour.

Again, I make no claims about English compared to other languages.

~~~
umanwizard
Examples from colloquial French with number of syllables:

on (1) = we (1)

trop (1) = too (1)

assez (2) = quite (1) (this one you could translate a few different ways
including plutôt, pas mal, très, etc...)

printemps (2) = spring (1)

été (2) = summer (2)

hiver (2) = winter (2)

on boit (2) = we drink (2) [1]

It's also easy to come up with examples where French requires fewer syllables:

hier (2) = yesterday (3)

demain (2) = tomorrow (3)

on se voit (2, possibly 3 if you enunciate carefully) = we see each other (5)

So I think your examples from Spanish are kinda cherry-picked.

At any rate, I'm not convinced that "number of syllables" is a very useful
metric, since English syllables are more complicated and take longer to utter
than Spanish ones.

[1]: In the formal/standard register this would be "nous buvons" (3
syllables), but in colloquial speech you would hear "on boit" 99% of the time.

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hibbelig
English grammar is too simple :-) Elaborate grammar gives you a lot of
substance to play with. I root for German :-)

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VeejayRampay
Because the audience of the Economist is mostly English-speaking and who
doesn't like a good ego-stroke, eh?

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TheRealPomax
Yeah, let's start with "why English is such a great language for puns", but
then explain that it's not actually going to be about puns at all (an
extremely difficult kind of joke to make because real puns are either
grammatically incorrect, or nonsense without a strong established context or
audience) but simply about any kind of play on words.

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exabrial
I was hoping the comment section would be a bit more witty! Was looking
forward to a few groans

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jwilk
Can someone explain the pun in "LIBOR pains"?

~~~
hawkice
Labor pains, I think.

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ojosilva
I disagree that puns require exact homophones. Each language (group) has
different tools for building puns. English, Chinese, etc. use mostly
homophones since they are abundant.

Romance languages, in particular Portuguese and Spanish, and Italian to some
extent, use many types of pun-building techniques that do not depend solely on
homophones: clever rhymes, heteronyms, homographs and other quasi-homonyms.
Having longer words means you can embed and concatenate into portmanteaus and
puns. Latin and Greek word root prefix and suffix are also rich and an
infinite source of puns.

Portuguese speakers are very found of puns and specially word play. So I think
pun is a more of a cultural thing, as noted in this thread by some people,
than a language feature.

Here's a few Brazilian "trocadilhos" (puns and word play).

\- "Fora Dilma vez!", instead of "fora de uma vez" \- meaning "Oust
[president] Dilma now".

\- "Lula: Presidente da Silva", for "President for sure" where "da Silva" is
Lula's last name but also colloquially means "for sure".

\- "Filhos da Fruta", fruit shop in São Paulo. Word play with "sons of a
bitch/fruit"

\- "Rock in Rio", rock festival.

Spanish word play culture goes back centuries. Francisco de Quevedo for
instance used this device often in his poems, and word play have been present
in popular culture ever since. Here's a sample:

\- "El calvario de la alopecia", a title to an article ("the calvary of hair
loss"). Word play with "calvo" (bald) and "calvario" (calvary).

\- "Digamelón", instead of "Dígamelo" ("hello?") when picking up the phone, a
pun meaning "hello you moron".

\- "Timofónica", portmanteau of "timo" (scam) and "Telefónica" (phone
company).

\- "Yo loco, loco, y ella loquita", (I'm crazy, she's crazier) which sounds
like "Yo lo coloco, ella lo quita" (I put it in, she takes it out).

\- "La Tapilla Sixtina", a tapas bar, word play with "Capilla Sixtina"
(Sistine Chapel).

Hopefully that gives an idea of the possibilities that make Romance languages
pun rich.

But I have to say the English and Chinese press (and readers presumably) love
puns more than anyone else for even serious articles, like the OP mentions.
The former gets in trouble sometimes [1], and the latter was even outlawed
[2]!

[1] [http://www.espn.co.uk/football/uefa-champions-
league/story/1...](http://www.espn.co.uk/football/uefa-champions-
league/story/1773354/bayern-munich-ban-daily-mirror-and-sun-journalists-for-
manchester-united-return-clash)

[2] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/28/china-media-
wa...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/28/china-media-watchdog-
bans-wordplay-puns)

------
ryanmarsh
tl;dr Homophones considered charmful

~~~
sseth
tl;dr English is a punny language

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jcoffland
The pun is the lowest form of humor. There is a tendency, especially among
educated males of a certain age, to start to feel themselves quite clever.
These fellows, in order to demonstrate their cleverness to the world, being to
subject their friends and family with an onslaught of puns. If you know such a
punner, and you probably do, don't encourage them by saying things like, "I
just love how your mind works" or "I never would have thought of that." Such
encouragement can lead to years of future punning. These men need your help. I
recommend a good hard slap.

~~~
nostromo95
To quote a better man than me:

>The assumption that puns are _per se_ contemptible, betrayed by the habit of
describing every pun not as a _pun_ , but as a _bad pun_ or a _feeble pun_ ,
is a sign at once of sheepish docility and desire to seem superior. Puns are
good, bad, and indifferent, and only those who lack the wit to make them are
unaware of the fact. [0]

[0] Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage, 2nd Edition

~~~
jcoffland
Those who possess the wit but refrain, are the most admirable.

~~~
nostromo95
Ha, who said that? Stating your opinion as aphorism doesn't make it true.

The application of wit seems to me to only be a positive. Humor brings joy.
Adding wit to a conversation makes it _strictly_ better.

~~~
gbgtgsenki
Fowler stated his opinion in his book and you used that as an aphorism. Do you
accept that as truth just because you know who said that, but don't even
consider something that a pseudonymous user wrote? I have to say that you are
a dumb sheep, even though I agree with you in the pun/humor matter.

~~~
nostromo95
First off, Fowler's lines aren't an aphorism. If they are, then all quotes are
aphorisms. Was it an appeal to authority? Sure. Fowler was a genius. I'll more
readily accept his authority than some pseudonymous user's.

Secondly, I did consider our grandparent's comment (see the second half of my
reply). Should consideration be measured in word count or something? Should I
have written him a paper?

I called him out on the comment because I see such pithy writing as
fundamentally intellectually dishonest. Writing your (unsupported) conclusion
with the trappings of a well-known adage misrepresents your (possibly
personal) opinion as something already widely believed, staving off further
argument.

