Russian language is multifaceted. This means that, like a semiprecious stone under the sun, some of the words in it can be made to “play” with new, unexpected shades of meaning. One of the literary techniques that reveal the richness of the language, its creative potential, is a pun. Examples of this interesting and unique phenomenon will be demonstrated in this article.
Etymology
The meaning of the word "pun" still causes lively debate. There were different options for designating this concept: calembourg, calambour. It probably came from the German word Kalauer, whose origin also raises questions. There are several historical jokes that connect the emergence of the word "pun" with various historical realities and personalities:
- According to one version, Weigand von Theben, a pastor famous for his witty jokes, once lived in the German city of Kalemberg.
- According to another theory, the literary device was named in honor of Count Kalanber (Kalemberg), who lived during the reign of Louis the Fourteenth in Paris.
- There is also the suggestion that the pun intended comes from the Italian expression calamo burlare, which means joking with a pen.
Definition
A pun is a literary device that provides for a comic effect. It is achieved by using in one context:
- different meanings of one word, for example: Matter is infinite, but it is always missing on someone's pants. (G. Malkin);
- phrases similar in sound and words with different meanings, for example: years to one hundred grow / we are not old (V. Mayakovsky).
This definition needs some refinement.
First, sometimes it is based not on the sound, but on the semantic proximity of the words pun. An example is the phrase coined by A. Knyshev: " Everything was stolen in the house, and even some stale air."
Secondly, this technique does not always imply a comic effect. Sometimes it is used to create satirical and tragic coloring of the text. Examples of puns in Russian, composed for a similar purpose:
Are you
They did not howl from the cold
Together in a dugout?
And didn’t fall from fatigue?
Didn’t sleep well fed on a warm fall? (V. Khlebnikov).
Or:
I thought he was a friend
But he is a despicable creature only (N. Glazkov).
Caesura culture
The pun is used at all times in order to circumvent existing censorship and express the meanings that are under the strictest ban. There are four varieties of this use of literature.
- A pun suggests ambiguity. Sometimes one of these meanings is indecent. The author of an apt expression, as it were, hides behind a witty combination of words, saying: "And where do I come from? This is our language so arranged!"
- Edifying remarks went out of fashion after the 18th century. To mask the didactic tone, funny aphorisms are often used nowadays. And here the pun is invaluable. An example of a witty and instructive phrase is the words invented by N. Glazkov: Criminals are also attracted to good, but, unfortunately, to someone else's. The ancient commandment "do not steal" here takes on fashionable packaging.
- Sometimes a quibble disguises a trivial truth that has gotten sore. For example, in a long-standing joke invented during the period of stagnation, the idea that people live better abroad than in the USSR is presented in a new way. In people standing in line, a foreigner is interested in what they are selling. And they answer him: "they threw off the shoes." Having carefully examined the goods, a resident of another country agrees: "We are also thrown away."
- The literary device considered by us sometimes allows us to express strange, sometimes absurd thoughts: Dawn is like a diligent student: she engages every morning (Satyricon magazine).
Types of puns
The pun is always based on a "pun," similar in sound or meaning. Therefore, it is natural to divide the methods of creating this literary device into three large groups according to the nature of semantic relations between the used language units. Conventionally, they can be called: "neighbors", "mask" and "family".
- "Neighbors". The author is limited to the usual summation of the meaning of consonant words. This creates the most "primitive" pun. The poems of D. Minaev are a good example: At a picnic, under the shadow of spruce / We drank more than we ate .
- "Mask". Words and expressions in such puns collide in their most polar sense: I well understood the feeling of an elbow that I poked under my rib (V. Vysotsky). The suddenness with which the mask is reset from its original meaning provides the greatest comic effect: He loved and suffered. He loved money and suffered from their lack (E. Petrov, I. Ilf).
- "A family". This is a type of literary device that combines the features of the two above-mentioned groups. Here the meanings of the words collide sharply, but the second, hidden meaning, does not at all cancel the first. Russian puns that belong to this type are very diverse. For example: And in non-flying weather you can fly out of service (Mild Emil); We remove spots and customers from ourselves (Announcement. Satyricon Magazine).
Mechanism of action
Trying to analyze the richness of the shades of semantic meaning in a pun is a difficult, but very interesting occupation. Take the simplest example. The phrase: "She was curled like a sheep, and also developed," belongs to Emil Krotkoy. Perceiving it, a person first encounters an open contradiction, is in the stage of "comic shock" from the combination of the words "curled" and "developed" in one sentence. Then he understands that the second token, unlike the first, does not mean the state of the hairstyle, but a very low level of intelligence in the presented subject. In the end, the person being described is discredited in the human mind, and he himself enjoys being deprived of this shortcoming.
Pun and homonyms
Usually homonyms, that is, words that are similar in sound but different in meaning, are rarely found in the same 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 device, homonyms “clash their foreheads” and it is always interesting what meaning “will win”. In puns - "masks" this fight is most interesting. Indeed, one of the presented meanings completely destroys the other. For example: They collected a car ... in a bag and brought other people (Mikhail Zhvanetsky). Or: Cadres decide everything, but without us (Malkin Gennady).
Types of homonyms used in puns
The sparkling "pun" uses a variety of types of homonyms.
Complete homonyms . When used, a very witty quibble often occurs. Example: Dancing is the friction of two sexes on a third.
Homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently). In one of the lyceum epigrams there are such lines: Everyone says: He is Walter Scott / But I, a poet, do not hypocrite: / I agree, he is just cattle / But that he is Walter Scott - I do not believe.
Homographs (words with the same spelling but different emphasis). For instance:
Can not be
Reliable soldering,
As long as there is
Soldering and soldering (V. Orlov).
Homoforms (words that coincide only in some forms). Such cases are quite common in jokes: From the window blew. Stirlitz fired. The barrel has disappeared (the words "blow" and "barrel").
Homonymy of collocations . For example: The field of rhyme is my element, / And I easily write poetry (Dmitry Minaev).
Speech Beat
The ambiguity of words used in puns can create awkward situations. No wonder speakers sometimes have to apologize for an involuntary pun. There are several cases where an inappropriate "pun" occurs.
- Sometimes they are associated with the individual characteristics of the interlocutor. Agree that it’s very tactless to invite a curve to talk face to face, and to tell a lame one that he is lame in a certain field of knowledge. There is an annoying pun. Jokes about this can offend the listener.
- It happens that an annoying and inappropriate pun is due to the nature of the situation, its drama or tragedy. For example, the phrase "Earthquake in Armenia shocked all Soviet people" today seems blasphemous.
Unconscious puns in creativity
Sometimes neutral expressions may be prohibited due to the emergence of insidious ambiguity. An awkward situation can create an unconscious pun. Examples from the literature testify to this. A. Kruchenykh, for example, argued that the phrase: "And your step has burdened your land" (Bryusov) loses all its drama due to the fact that the word "donkey" is heard in it.
In Nabokov, in the novel "Gift", Konstantin Fedorovich (poet) rejects a flashing line in his head: "for a pure and winged gift." In his opinion, associations with "wings" and "armor" involuntarily arising when listening to this phrase are inappropriate. Such is the indefatigable scrupulousness of some connoisseurs of the Russian language.
Form and content
Speakers make certain demands on the language. One of them is the correspondence of form and content. People believe that different meanings should be clothed in a different linguistic form. That is why the ambiguity of phrases 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 token completely distort its original meaning. Pun words are always popular. Here are some of them: a monument to the first printer and a monument to the first printer (I. Ilf); staff captain and schnapps captain (A. Chekhov). Such fun experiments give familiar expressions completely new semantic connotations.
Lead Authors
A pun in Russian was often used to create a satirical and comic effect. Recognized 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 plays out the tautology of an old Russian proverb: "Learning is light, unlearned is darkness." In another, it is aptly characterized by narcissism, bordering on delusions of grandeur, of some literary figures: "The poet famously patted the Caucasus on his ridge." In the third, he is ironic about 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 has broken." The recognized master of pun was considered Kozma Prutkov. His witty aphorisms are still fresh and relevant: "It is easier to hold the reins in your hands than the reins of government."
History of Russian pun
Beating words was not so rare even in Ancient Russia. In the manuscript collection of Russian proverbs created in the 18th century by P. Simone, there are several puns. Here is one of them: "They drank Fili, but they beat Phil."
This literary device became fashionable in the second half of the 19th century. For example, puns and jokes about the nose in Russia during this period were so numerous that researcher V.V. Vinogradov in the "Naturalistic Grotesque" speaks of "nosological" literature. Moreover, the expressions "leave with the nose", "drive by the nose", "hang the nose" are actively used today.
Examples of puns in the Russian language indicate that they differed in thematic richness and diversity. He occupied an important place in the works of Chekhov, Burenin, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Leskov, Pushkin.
Talented comedians appeared during the “silver age of Russian literature”. The authors of Satyricon magazine - Teffi, Orsher, Dymov, Averchenko - often used puns to create a comic effect in their works.
After the revolution, this literary device is found in the works of Zakhoder, Vysotsky, Knyshev, Mayakovsky, Krotsky, Glazkov, Krivin, Ilf, Petrov and other writers. In addition, most invented jokes contain a "pun punishment".
Witty and talented pun is able to rise to a large-scale philosophical generalization and make people think about the meaning of life. The use of this literary device is a real art, mastering which will be very useful and exciting for any person.