Question

Which are examples of puns? Check all that apply.

1It’s pointless to write with a broken pencil.
2Early to bed means early to rise.
3The poor, old cow was udderly exhausted.
4A penny saved is a penny earned.
5That lightning storm was just shocking.

Answer 1

One three and Five are all puns

Answer 2

Sentences 3 and 5 are puns due to the words "udderly" and "shocking".

Step-by-step explanation:

A pun is a word play or joke that exploits words that have multiple meanings or words that sound alike but present different meanings. We have both examples in this question, since sentence 3 presents a word that sounds like a different one, and sentence 5 presents a word that has more than just one meaning.

Sentence 3 uses the adverb "udderly" instead of the correct one "utterly". Since the two words would sound exactly the same - at least if pronounced with an American accent -, this pun only works when read out of somewhere. The word "udderly" is making a reference to a cow's udders, which are their mamary glands. It's substituting "utterly", which is a synonym for "completely".

Sentence 5 uses the word shocking in a fun way due to its different meanings. Shocking may be used to refer to a lightning storm because it means:

- something surprising;

- the action of giving/receiving an electrical discharge.

Lightnings are nothing but electrostatic discharges and can, thus, shock people; also, if a storm is surprising for some reason, it can also shock people.