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Merce Cardus

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The 7 Most Important Play On Words Techniques

in Reads on Writing & Self-Publishing on 28/08/15

Mel Helitzer on Laughing

With Comedy Writing Secrets, 2nd edition, you can master the fundamentals of humor writing and turn your comedic talent into a well-paying pursuit.

More than 50 percent of all humor is based on plays on words (POWs). The POW is a device usd by all humor writers. Plays on words are the basis of practically all puns, limericks, and clever witticisms.

Here are 7 Most Important POW Techniques:

1. A double entendre

Is the use of an ambiguous word or phrase that allows for a second–usually racy–interpretation.

Doubles entendres are 40 percent of all cliché humor because they’re so easy to construct.

Example:

We call our maid a commercial cleaner, because she cleans only during commercials.

2. A malatrop

Is the unintentional misstatement or misure of a word or phrase, or the accidental substitution of an incorrect word for the correct one, with humorous results.

Example:

Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.–Yogi Berra.

3. An oxymoron

Is a joining of two incompatible ideas in one phrase.

Examples:

Found missing; living dead; good grief; working vacation; Microsoft works; alone together, etc.

4. A pun

Is a word used in such a way that two or more of the word’s possible meanings are active simultaneously.

Example:

What’s ‘detail’? The act of removing a tail.

5. Reforming

Is a process that adds a twist or a surprise ending to a cliché ( a predictable, hackneyed phrase) or a common word, phrase, or expression.

Example:

Plagiarism: the unoriginal sin.–Roy Peter Clark.

6. The Simple Truth

Is the opposite of a double entendre.

Example:

A girl phoned me the other day and said, “Come on over, there’s nobody home.” I went over. Nobody was home.–Rodney Dangerfield.

7. The Take-off

Is a statement of the standard version of a cliché or expression, followed by a realistic but highly exaggerated commentary, frequently a double entendre.

Example:

Animals may be our friends. But they won’t pick you up at the airport.–Bobcat Goldthwait.

 

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