Read the following advertisements and explain the use of pun.

Model: When you decide to give her a ring, give us a ring (Advertisement for a jeweler’s shop)

Here pun is based on the interaction of 2 meanings of the phrase to ‘give a

ring’; the first meaning is ‘to present somebody with a ring’ and the second

‘to phone somebody”.

1 For a few pounds you can lose a few (Ad for a slimming course).

2 Go up in the world (ad to recruit air attendants).

3 We’ll give you sound advice (Hi-fi shop ad).

4 We offer you a good deal (Bank ad to attract new customers).

5 Your views are reflected in the Mirror (Ad for the Mirror newspaper).

6 Make a snap decision (Ad for a new camera).

7 Money matters (Title of the financial section of a newspaper).

8 It’s good for you, naturally (Ad for fruit juice).

9 Go by air. It’s plane common sense (Ad for air travel).

10 We’ll give you red carpet treatment (or blue, or green, or brown, or yellow…

(Carpet shop ad).

11 Sea for yourself (Ad to attract recruits to the Royal Navy).

12 Try our glue once and you’ll always stick with us (Ad for a brand of glue).

13 Christmas is a time to think of family ties. Buy ours (Ad for men’s ties).

14 The weather-men can’t guarantee you an Indian summer, but we can (Travel agency ad).

144 Hackneyed similes are ‘ready-made’ comparisons that are registered in the language and are set expressions or idioms. Below there are more of them. Make sure you understand their meanings. Try and find their Belarusian/Russian equivalents.

1 Why did you speak to him? You usually avoid him like the plague.

………………………………………………………………………

2 Are you OK? You're white as a sheet. …………………………………………….

3 He phones us every Sunday at six, regular as clockwork

………………………………………………………………………

4 Dan Brown’s books are going now like hotcakes. ………………………………..

5 He is dead, as sure as death ………………………………………………………..

6 Ads pull customers in like bees to a honeypot …………………………………….

7 I didn't get on with her at work either - we fought like cat and dog

………………………………………………………………………

8 He turned up one morning, drunk as a lord……………………………………….

9 He was like cat on a hot tin roof before his exam…………………………………

10 I turned a corner and there was Joe, as large as life ……………………………..

11 She's a fantastic girl, as good as gold ……………………………………………

12 The bay’s skin is as smooth as silk. ……………………………………………….

13 All three of them were there and had finished lunch when Maxi, cool as a cucumber, took out some cigarette paper and started rolling a joint in front of them………………………………………………………………

14 We follow their every word like lamb to the slaughter …………………………….

15 It’s not as simple as ABC ……………………………

145 Quite often pun or a play on words happens unexpectedly and unintentionally resulting from mistakes that students or non-native speakers of English make. These are caused either by verbal misuse or misspelling or both. The excerpts illustrate such cases.

Study them carefully and correct the mistakes. Explain how humourous effect is achieved in each case. Pay attention to the words in italics.

resolve

1 Higher prices don’t dissolve the problem of alcoholism.

2 The bedroom was very small but the living room had a medium side.

3 At your connivance, I can be reached at the above number.

4 You always new when he come in the room because of the smell of his strange colon.

5 Next, break the eggs into two bowels.

6 Teachers harassing students will continue because the authorities don't care about the students body.

7 I felt as if I had been trown into a room of hungry loins.

8 We were so poor that we had to share a bathroom and a chicken with two other families.

9 In the end he was a rear image of his grandfather.

10 He slipped into a comma and died.

11 We read three sad stories, but the second one was the sadist.

12 "The pleasures of youth are nothing to the pleasures of adultery. "

13 Ernest Hemingway was a really, really, good righter. He was so good that he won the pull it surprise for his book The Old Man and The Sea."(in a ninth-grader's paper)

14 Dear Dr. Osborne, I pushed Jennifer and my paper under your door." (note left on a professor's door,)

15 I was so hungry I ate a whole mill.

146 Traditionally, a euphemism is defined as a milder way of naming something that seems rough or

unpleasant. However, research shows that euphemisms have developed other tendencies and

acquired other uses. The passage below may serve as an example.

Read it and say what generalizations one can make about their uses.

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