Plays on words
Here are entered works on the act or instance of playing upon words or speech sounds, especially to achieve a humorous or rhetorical effect. Works on games in which players compete in forming, thinking of, or guessing words according to a set of rules are entered under Word games.
See also what's at your library, or elsewhere.
Broader terms:Narrower term:Used for:- Play of words
- Play on words
- Word play
- Wordplay
![[Info]](https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/info.gif)
The New Pun Book: Collected, Edited and Arranged From the Notes of Two Learned Pundits (New York: Frank Vernon and Co., c1906), ed. by Thomas A. Brown and T. J. Carey (multiple formats at archive.org)
- On Puns: The Foundation of Letters (originally published 1988), ed. by Jonathan D. Culler (PDF at Cornell)
Items below (if any) are from related and broader terms.
Filed under: Semantics- The Semantics of Metaphor (originally published 1977; open access edition Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019), by Samuel R. Levin (multiple formats with commentary at Project MUSE)
- Resisting Texts: Authority and Submission in Constructions of Meaning (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c1997), by Peter L. Shillingsburg (page images at HathiTrust)
- Design for Thinking: A First Book in Semantics (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1961), by Albert Upton (page images at HathiTrust)
- Charles S. Peirce's Letters to Lady Welby (New Haven: Pub. by Whitlock for the Graduate Philosophy Club of Yale University, 1953), by Charles S. Peirce, ed. by Irwin C. Lieb (page images at HathiTrust)
- Anaphora and Quantification in Situation Semantics, by Jean Mark Gawron and Stanley Peters (PDF at Stanford)
- Linguistic Individuals, by Almerindo E. Ojeda (PDF at Stanford)
- The Psycho-Biology of Language: An Introduction to Dynamic Philology (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1935), by George Kingsley Zipf (page images at HathiTrust)
- Speech Understanding Research (final technical report; Menlo Park, CA: Stanford Research Institute, 1976), ed. by Donald E. Walker (PDF at dtic.mil)
- Semantics: Theory and Application (Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1976; Washington: Georgetown University Press, c1976), ed. by Cléa Rameh, contrib. by Winfred P. Lehmann, Jorge Hankamer, Ray Jackendoff, Geoffrey N. Leech, Barbara Hall Partee, Oswald Werner, Martin D. Topper, Chuck Rieger, Gilbert Harman, Alfonso Caramazza, Ellen Grober, Frances M. Aid, Milton Mariano Azevedo, Christopher Candlin, and Ragnhild Söderbergh (PDF at Georgetown)
- Meaning, Form, and Use in Context: Linguistic Applications (Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1984; Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1984), ed. by Deborah Schiffrin (PDF at Georgetown)
- Report of the Sixth Annual Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Teaching (Washington: Georgetown University Press, c1955), ed. by Ruth Hirsch (PDF at Georgetown)
- Semantics and Pragmatics (2007-) (full serial archives)
- Galeni Libellus de Captionibus Quae per Dictionem Fiunt, ad Fidem Unius Qui Superest Codicis Editus (main text in Greek, commentary in Latin; Rostock, Germany: C. Hinstorff, 1903), by Galen, ed. by Karl Gabler
- Textual Dynamics of the Professions: Historical and Contemporary Studies of Writing in Professional Communities (c1991), ed. by Charles Bazerman and James G. Paradis (PDF files with commentary at Colorado State)
- Prejudice in Discourse: An Analysis of Ethnic Prejudice in Cognition and Conversation (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: J. Benjamins Pub. Co., 1984), by Teun A. van Dijk (PDF at discourses.org)
- Ideology and Discourse: A Multidisciplinary Introduction (ca. 2007), by Teun A. van Dijk (PDF at discourses.org)
- Text and Context: Explorations in the Semantics and Pragmatics of Discourse (London and New York: Longman, c1977), by Teun A. van Dijk (PDF at Wayback Machine)
- An Applied Linguistic Approach To Discourse Analysis (1973), by H. G. Widdowson (PDF files in the UK)
- News Analysis: Case Studies of International and National News in the Press (Hillsdale, NJ et al: L. Erlbaum Associates, 1988), by Teun A. van Dijk (PDF at Wayback Machine)
- News as Discourse (Hillsdale, NJ et al: L. Erlbaum Associates, 1988), by Teun A. van Dijk (PDF at discourses.org)
- Stylistic Use of Phraseological Units in Discourse (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. Co., c2010), by Anita Naciscione (PDF at John Benjamins e-Platform)
- Resisting Texts: Authority and Submission in Constructions of Meaning (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c1997), by Peter L. Shillingsburg (page images at HathiTrust)
- Speech Understanding Research (final technical report; Menlo Park, CA: Stanford Research Institute, 1976), ed. by Donald E. Walker (PDF at dtic.mil)
- Thoughts on Grammaticalization (third edition; Berlin: Language Science Press, 2015), by Christian Lehmann (PDF with commentary at langsci-press.org)
- Connecting Grammaticalisation (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. Co., c2011), by Jens Nørgård-Sørensen, Lars Heltoft, and Lene Schøsler (PDF at John Benjamins e-Platform)
- Semantics With Applications: A Formal Introduction (revised online edition, 1999), by Hanne Riis Nielson and Flemming Nielson (PDF and Postscript with commentary at Wayback Machine)
- Interfaces and Domains of Quantification (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, c2014), by Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach (PDF at Ohio State)
- Semiotics of Poetry (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, c1978), by Michael Riffaterre (HTML with commentary at Indiana)
- Culture and Cognition: The Boundaries of Literary and Scientific Inquiry (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, c1992), by Ronald Schleifer, Robert Con Davis, and Nancy Mergler (PDF and Epub with commentary at Cornell Open)
- Anthropology of Color: Interdisciplinary Multilevel Modeling (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. Co., c2007), ed. by Robert E. MacLaury, Galina V. Paramei, and Don Dedrick (PDF files with commentary at John Benjamins e-Platform)
- Christian Metz and the Codes of Cinema: Film Semiology and Beyond (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, c2018), ed. by Margrit Tröhler and Guido Kirsten (PDF with commentary at OAPEN)
- Semiotics for Beginners, by Daniel Chandler (frame-dependent illustrated HTML in the UK)
- In the Labyrinths of Language: A Mathematician's Journey (Philadelphia: ISI Press, c1981), by V. V. Nalimov, ed. by Robert Garland Colodny (linked PDF files here at Penn)
- The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language Upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism (second edition revised; New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co.; London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., 1927), by C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, contrib. by Bronislaw Malinowski and F. G. Crookshank (page images at HathiTrust)
- For-Giving: A Feminist Criticism of Exchange, by Genevieve Vaughan (illustrated HTML at for-giving.com)
- Arabic in Context: Essays on Language, Dialects, and Culture in Honour of Martin R. Zammit (Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2025), ed. by Anthony J. Frendo and Kurstin Gatt (multiple formats with commentary at Open Book Publisher)
- Rambles Among Words: Their Poetry, History and Wisdom (revised edition; New York and Chicago: Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor and Co., 1872), by William Swinton
- A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present (New York: Redfield, 1859), by Richard Chenevix Trench
- A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present (second edition, revised and improved; London: J. W. Parker and Son, 1859), by Richard Chenevix Trench (HTML with commentary at fiftywordsforsnow.ocmo)
- Words and Idioms: Studies in the English Language (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1925), by Logan Pearsall Smith (page images at HathiTrust)
- On the Study of Words, by Richard Chenevix Trench (Gutenberg text)
- "Deus": Logische Syntax und Semantik (second edition, in German; 2009), by Christoph Zimmer (PDF at zmm.cc)
- A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (International Critical Commentary volume; New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1920), by Ernest DeWitt Burton (multiple formats at archive.org)
- The Greek Word Aion-Aionios, by J. W. Hanson (HTML at tentmaker.org)
- A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (International Critical Commentary volume; New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1920), by Ernest DeWitt Burton (multiple formats at archive.org)
- Anti-Chamberlain: Betrachtungen Eines Linguisten Über Houston Stewart Chamberlains "Kriegsaufsätze" und die Sprachbewertung im Allgemeinen (in German; Leipzig: O. R. Reisland, 1918), by Leo Spitzer (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
- Commentary to the Germanic Laws and Mediaeval Documents (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1915), by Leo Wiener (multiple formats at archive.org)
- Commentary to the Germanic Laws and Mediaeval Documents (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1915), by Leo Wiener (multiple formats at archive.org)
- Interfaces and Domains of Quantification (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, c2014), by Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach (PDF at Ohio State)
More items available under broader and related terms at left.