“We need to live simply so that others can simply live,” Mahatma Gandhi
The notion of pun comes from retrocar : to change again. The term is used to refer to the play on words that is generated from a repetition .
In rhetoric
For rhetoric , the pun specifically consists of presenting the terms of one proposition and then inverting them in the next , in such a way that the meaning of the second clause is opposite or produces a contrast.
In this case, the pun is constructed with a chiasmus , which involves arranging the members of consecutive sequences in reverse order. Therefore the pun rearranges the components of an expression in the following sentence.
Some examples
We can find many puns in the field of music . In the song “Pedro Navaja” , to mention one case, the Panamanian Rubén Blades uses the pun when expressing: “Life gives you surprises / surprises gives you life.”
Another phrase constructed with a pun is “One for all, all for one” , which comes from the Latin “Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno” . Alexandre Dumas , for example, uses it in his famous work “The Three Musketeers” .
There are aphorisms that also appeal to puns. “We seek the beauty of life. But life is already beauty” is an aphorism by the Argentine writer José Narosky that is based on this type of word play.
Let's see more examples below, whose authors are not always obvious or known: "Live to work, don't work to live"; «My love for you is unique, but it is not my only love»; "There are great books in the world, and great worlds in books"; “We need to live simply so that others can simply live”; "Working in art for love is not the same as working for the love of art."
More direct ideas
Sometimes, the pun allows us to simplify an idea or make it explicit. In this way, this resource can appear in colloquial language , even spontaneously: “I work to live, I don't live to work,” “I'm tired of being fed up.”
In everyday speech, the pun usually appears in the form of ready-made phrases, quotes from various sources (which have often been distorted over time ), and gives the communication a relatively categorical tone, that is, it does not give place for discussion. Let's take another of the many examples that we can find in an informal conversation: "He who does not live to serve, is not useful to live." This is a very questionable statement, which usually generates objections, even if this opposes the intention of the issuer.
"One for all, all for one", which Alexander Dumas took from Latin.
While it is true that we can interpret this pun in various ways, there are many people who reject a vision of life that focuses so much on "giving" and sanctions, in some way, the decision to enjoy. Of course, this phrase is not always said to judge other people's behavior; sometimes it is simply used to refer to oneself. However, even in these cases the recipient may feel touched because of the aforementioned categorical nature of puns like this.
We return to the beginning of this section and return to words like "direct" and "simple", which can be very useful concepts in certain contexts but dangerous in others, when the complexity is too great to be reduced to a ready-made phrase. Our interlocutor is a living being, with thousands of experiences, with fears, with traumas and also with his own ideas; We cannot face him with rigid ideas and expect him to simply accept them. It is not wrong to use playful language to liven up a conversation, as long as we remember that our intention does not always reach the other party clearly.