"Punning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... oath, it would be quite sufficient; and he objects, when he is at the public table, to the conduct of his neighbor who carelessly took up "Simeon's" fork and used it as a tooth-pick. All this, no doubt, passed for wit in the beginning of the century. Punning, broad satire, exaggerated compliment, verse which has love for its theme and the "sweet bird of Venus" for its object, an affectation of gallantry and of ennui, with anecdotes of distinguished visitors, out of which ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... support of Salmasius, he says: "There is one More, part Frenchman and part Scot, so that one country or one people cannot be quite overwhelmed with the whole infamy of his extraction"; and he indulges himself in a debauch of punning on Morus, the Latin word for a mulberry. In the prelatical controversy, after discussing with his opponent the meaning of the word "angel," he continues: "It is not ordination nor jurisdiction that is angelical, but the heavenly message of the Gospel, which ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... lawyer, He knows his "Barthole" as well as a Cordelier his "Dormi" (an anonymous compilation of sermons for the use of the Cordelier monks). Another common French expression, Resolu comme Barthole ("as decided as Barthole"), is a sort of punning allusion to his Resolutiones Bartoli, a work in which the knottiest questions are solved ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... in Baden, Bavaria, and Alsace-Lorraine. In the past these religious differences have entailed all the most repulsive features of war, waged to the point of extermination. "Lieber Rom als Liberal," is still a punning war-cry marking the dislike of Rome and ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... the word "bull," for a verbal blunder, involving a contradiction in terms, is of doubtful origin. In this sense it is used with a possible punning reference to papal bulls in Milton's True Religion, "and whereas the Papist boasts himself to be a Roman Catholick, it is a mere contradiction, one of the Pope's Bulls, as if he should say a universal particular, a Catholick schismatick." ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... hat all drooped, one of his shoes had lost an heel. In short, he was in his whole person and dress so extremely soused, that there did not appear one inch or single thread about him unmarried.[140] Pardon me, that the melancholy object still dwells upon me so far, as to reduce me to punning. However, we attended to the chapel, where we stayed to hear the irrevocable words pronounced upon our old servant, and made the best of our way to town. I took a resolution to forbear all married persons, or any, in danger of being ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... at the same time that I improv'd in virtue, and considering that in conversation it was obtain'd rather by the use of the ears than of the tongue, and therefore wishing to break a habit I was getting into of prattling, punning, and joking, which only made me acceptable to trifling company, I gave Silence the second place. This and the next, Order, I expected would allow me more time for attending to my project and my studies. Resolution, once ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... history of Philosophy by Diogenes Laertius, being written in Greek, is a classic. Such ambiguities are sometimes serious enough; sometimes are little better than jokes. For jokes, as Whately observes, are often fallacies; and considered as a propaedeutic to the art of sophistry, punning deserves the ignominy that ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... Lord Treasurer never to speak for either of them again. Sir Andrew Fountaine and I dined to-day at Mrs. Vanhomrigh's. Dilly Ashe has been in town this fortnight: I saw him twice; he was four days at Lord Pembroke's in the country, punning with him; his face is very well. I was this evening two or three hours at Lord Treasurer's, who called me Dr. Thomas Swift twenty times; that's his way of teasing. I left him at nine, and got home here by ten, like a gentleman; ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... fun, eternal jesting, buffoonery, punning absolutely kills me. Such things derive all their value from being made to intervene well ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... than this boyish love of punning is the undeniable vein of coarseness which here and there disfigures Sydney Smith's controversial method. In 1810 he wrote, very characteristically, about his friend Lord Grey—"His deficiency is a want of executive coarseness." This is a fault with which he could ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... confessed, very much as it really happened. And Devereux first grew so pale as almost to frighten Toole, and then broke into a savage fury—and did not spare hard words, oaths, or maledictions. Then off went Toole, when things grew quieter, upon some other theme, giggling and punning, spouting scandal and all sorts of news—and Devereux was looking full at him with large stern eyes, not hearing a word more. His soul was cursing old Mrs. Glynn, of Palmerstown—that mother of lies and what not—and remonstrating with ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... battre la campagne[Fr][obs3]; <gr/ hanemolia bazein/gr>; be - absurd &c. adj. Adj. absurd, nonsensical, preposterous, egregious, senseless, inconsistent, ridiculous, extravagant, quibbling; self-annulling, self- contradictory; macaronic[obs3], punning. foolish &c. 499; sophistical &c. 477; unmeaning &c. 517; without rhyme or reason; fantastic. Int. fiddlededee! pish! pho[obs3]! "in the name of the Prophet—figs!" [Horace Smith]. Phr. credat Judaeus Apella [Lat][Horace]; tell it ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... which you shall know as soon as we receive a true and faithful account of your adventures in just as many pages as you can afford; but Tom must in the meantime send me a long letter ... Tell Tom I have half resolved to give up punning and take to repartee. A young fellow said to me the other day, 'Ah! Mr. Consul (as I am always called), I wish I could discover a new pleasure.' 'Try virtue!' was my reply. A pompous ex-Governor said swaggeringly to me at the last dinner party ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... but simple statement. Offensive action—not defensive—determines the issues of war. "The best defence against the enemy's fire is a rapid fire from our own guns," was a pithy phrase of our Admiral Farragut; and in no mere punning sense it may be added that it is for this reason that the rapid-fire gun of the present day made such big strides in professional favor, the instant it was brought to the test of battle. The rapid-fire gun ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... They turned upon the thought, and not the rime. Thus in all parts disorders did abate; Yet quibblers in the court had leave to prate, Insipid jesters and unpleasant fools, A corporation of dull, punning drolls. 'Tis not but that sometimes a dextrous muse May with advantage a turned sense abuse, And on a word may trifle with address; But above all, avoid the fond excess, And think not, when your verse and sense are lame, With a dull ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... della Muda is the Piazza da Ponte, so called after the Podesta Lorenzo da Ponte, who in 1666 had the very curious fountain erected, in which he imagined a further memorial of himself by the punning design of the bridge, so unsuitable for its position. In front of the Palazzo Tacco is a column with a statue of S. Giustina, set up to commemorate the battle of Lepanto, at which Domenico di Tacco commanded a ship fitted ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... verse. One should add, too, that there is another disadvantage in puns, that they are so imbedded in their own language that they cannot be translated into another. For these reasons we have admitted few punning epigrams into this anthology, and those only as examples of ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... was distinguished for his sincerity and truthfulness. His was a docile and a serious nature. "Hadrian's bad and sinful habits left him," says Niebuhr, "when he gazed on the sweetness of that innocent child. Punning on the boy's paternal name of Verus, he called him Verissimus, 'the most true.'" Among the many statues of Marcus extant is one representing him at the tender age of eight years offering sacrifice. He was even ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... that her chiding of herself is 'too flat,' meaning, that neither is in 'concord' with the spirit of the love-letter. Lucetta recommends the middle course, or 'mean' (alto voice, midway between treble and bass), 'to fill the song,' i.e., to perfect the harmony. Finally, there is a punning reference (somewhat prophetic) by Lucetta, to the 'base' conduct of Proteus, in forsaking Julia for Silvia. Another play upon words should not be missed, viz., in ll. 78 and 79, ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... all of them male, To BORRIA doubled the knee, They were once on a far larger scale, But he'd eaten the balance, you see ("Scale" and "balance" is punning, you see). ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... together at Yule, with charades and punning contests, and music on the piano which Lincoln Lang had brought out through the gumbo against all the protests of nature. Mrs. Lang was an admirable cook and a liberal and hospitable hostess, which was an added ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... the schoolmistress. This was not an accident: the two are never mistaken, though some land-ladies appear as if they did not know the difference. The whole of the company were even more respectfully attentive to my remarks than usual. There was no idle punning, and very little winking on the part of that lively young gentleman who, as the reader may remember, occasionally interposed some playful question or remark, which could hardly be considered relevant,—except when the least allusion was made to matrimony, when he would look at the landlady's daughter, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... qualification of 'Belit of the palace' (or temple) escapes us. Ninib's consort, as we know from other sources, was Gula.[201] This name is in some way connected with an Assyrian stem signifying 'great,' and it is at least worthy of note that the word for palace is written by a species of punning etymology with two signs, ehouse and gallularge. The question suggests itself whether the title 'Belit-ekalli' may not have its rise in a further desire to play upon the goddess's name, just as her title Kallat-Eshara (bride of Eshara, or earth) ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... look through the catalogue of a Royal Academy exhibition, we notice the preponderance of scenes illustrative of English or other literature—of canvases that tell a story or point a moral or bear a punning or a sentimental title. And we notice the great number of quotations introduced into the catalogue without any actual explanatory necessity. Even landscapes are dragged into the domain of sentiment, and Mr. Millais, who copies Nature with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... refined in the very midst of grief and passion; to represent death, not merely as awful, but graceful and pathetic; and never condescended to degrade the majesty of the Tragic Muse by the ludicrous apposition of buffoonery and familiar punning, such as the elder playwright certainly had resort to. Besides, Mr. Home's performance had been admired in quarters so high, and by personages whose taste was known to be as elevated as their rank, that ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Stock Exchange, is probably the "childlike, pastoral M——" of a later paragraph. Small politics are for the most part kept out of Man's volumes, which are high-spirited rather than witty, but this punning epigram (of which Lamb was an admirer) on Lord Spencer and Lord ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... vii., p. 529.).—"Though this author's name be spelt Teate, there is great reason to believe that he was the father of Nahum Tate, translator of the Psalms."—Bibl. Anglopoetica, p. 361. In the punning copy of verses preceding the "Ter ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 194, July 16, 1853 • Various
... Ishbel and Margaret only indicate a non-Highlander being implicated, but it seems possible that the latter name, for which there was no particular cause, may have been a punning appellation. Mar-garret, as the grey woman, attacked the servants in the attics. Such a joke is characteristic of such villains, and shows that they are tolerably educated people. Their avoiding Mr. Z. may indicate ...
— Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men • John Harris
... balls for a pellet bow, usually made out of clay. Bruno and Buffalmacco were punning upon the double meaning, land and earth (or clay), of the ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Genoa; to Siro who became its apostle, to Romolo who was destined to give his name to the territory of the town. San Romolo is indeed its invariable designation till the fifteenth century, and it has been conjectured that its present name is owing to no fanciful punning on Romulus and Remus but to a popular contraction of its full ecclesiastical title, "Sancti Romuli in eremo." It was in this "waste," left without inhabitants by the Saracenic inroads, that Theodulf, bishop of Genoa, settled a little agricultural colony round the Carolingian fort and lands which, ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... the writer well recollects; and Rivaz, an underwriter at Lloyd's, his told him that he remembered when the merchants of London would parade these walks on a summer evening with their wives and daughters. But now, as a punning brother ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... made about the Abbe Miolan!" said he. "He was to go up with Janninet and Bredin. During the filling their balloon caught fire, and the ignorant populace tore it in pieces! Then this caricature of 'curious animals' appeared, giving each of them a punning nickname." ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This consists of a partridge with an ear of wheat in its bill; on an annexed scroll is the word Gooder; on the capital of one of the pillars are two partridges with ears of corn in the mouth, an evident repetition of the same punning device, and it is probable the Gooder's were considerable benefactors towards ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... Again, a punning title. "La de San Quintn" means "a hard-fought battle" (from a Spanish victory outside the French ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... Lamb's gave a thoughtful host not only the means of swaying the conversation of the entire table to a subject of universal interest, but as well the means of drawing out a well-informed yet timid girl. Guiding his talk with his near neighbor into a discussion of the pros and cons of punning, he attracted the attention of all his guests by addressing some one at the further end of the table: "Mr. White, we were speaking of punning as a form of wit, and it reminded me that I have heard ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... of the parliament, when the abuses and prodigality of the court were denounced, a member, punning upon the word etats, (statements,) exclaimed, "It is not statements but States General ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... of Letter, a while ago, styled himself Philobrune. Dear Sir, as you are by Character a profest Well-wisher to Speculation, you will excuse a Remark which this Gentleman's Passion for the Brunette has suggested to a Brother Theorist; 'tis an Offer towards a mechanical Account of his Lapse to Punning, for he belongs to a Set of Mortals who value themselves upon an uncommon Mastery in the more humane and polite Part of Letters. A Conquest by one of this Species of Females gives a very odd Turn to the Intellectuals ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... potissimum quae simul sunt biophelae, [10] et delectent potius, ut id quoque videatur non superfuisse. Bellaria ea maxime sunt mellita, quae mellita non sunt, pemmasin entra et pepsei societas infida." In this piece we see the fondness for punning, which even in his eightieth year had not left him. The last pun is not at first obvious; the meaning is that the nicest sweetmeats are those which are not too sweet, for made dishes are hostile to digestion; or, as we may say, paraphrasing his diction, "Delicacies are ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... altogether," said Legrand. "You may have heard of one Captain Kidd. I at once looked upon the figure of the animal as a kind of punning or hieroglyphical signature. I say signature; because its position upon the vellum suggested this idea. The death's-head at the corner diagonally opposite, had, in the same manner, the air of a stamp, or seal. But I was sorely put out by the absence of all else—of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the sudden break-up of political tranquillity, and by the sense of a coming struggle between opponents of whom as yet neither had fully its sympathies. There were mobs, riots, bonfires in the streets, and disturbances which culminated—in a rough spirit of punning upon the name of the minister—in the solemn burning of a jack-boot. The journals, which were now becoming numerous, made themselves organs for this outburst of popular hatred; and it was in the North-Briton that Wilkes ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... captivating dresser, and her parasols are stunning; Her fads will take your breath away, her hats are dreams of style; She is not so very bookish, but with repartee and punning She can set the savants laughing and make ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... correspondence with Grimm! He lives in Paris, factotum and confidant, passes his life in executing her commissions. To him she talks, rather than writes, as she talks to her intimates, in overwhelming voluble fashion, gossiping, punning, often playing the buffoon, as she does with that little set of hers at her retreat of the "Hermitage." Persons, even places, have their nicknames. St. Petersburg is the "Duck-pond"; Grimm himself the "Fag," "Souffredouleur," George ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... The best punning poem from a woman's pen was written by Miss Caroline B. Le Row, of Brooklyn, N.Y., a teacher of elocution, and the writer of many charming stories and verses. It was suggested by a study in butter of "The Dreaming Iolanthe," moulded by Caroline S. Brooks on a ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... keystone of the arched entrance, on the inner side of the court, is the cap (cappello) which gives its name to the street, and is supposed to be the heraldic badge of the family, armoiries parlantes, or punning devices, being a favorite fashion in old times all over Europe. If the balcony which remains was Juliet's, Romeo must have had a long ladder and a cooler head than he showed under other circumstances. There is a stone projection at the window of a lower story which once ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... were good and nothing evil in the world save its deniers. To live according to nature he built, in his story, the abbey of Theleme, a sort of hedonist's or anarchist's Utopia where men and women dwell together under the rule, "Do what thou wilt," and which has over its gates the punning invitation: "Cy entrez, vous, qui le saint evangile en sens agile annoncez, quoy qu'on gronde." For Rabelais there was nothing sacred, or even serious in "revealed religion," and God was "that intellectual sphere the center of ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... Richard Synge, preacher at the Savoy in 1715? The name appears to have been indifferently spelt, Sing, Singe, and Synge. And I believe an older branch than the baronet's still exists at Bridgenorth, writing themselves Sing. The punning motto of this family is worth noticing: ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... tort et a travess [Fr.]; battre la campagne [Fr.]; hanemolia bazein [Gr.]; be absurd &c adj.. Adj. absurd, nonsensical, preposterous, egregious, senseless, inconsistent, ridiculous, extravagant, quibbling; self-annulling, self- contradictory; macaronic^, punning. foolish &c 499; sophistical &c 477; unmeaning &c 517; without rhyme or reason; fantastic. Int. fiddlededee!, pish!, pho!^, in the name of the Prophet—figs! [Horace Smith]. Phr. credat Judaeus Apella [Lat.] [Horace]; tell ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... 'Punning is a power,' according to somebody, and, like most power, is sadly abused. Take, for illustration, the following specimen of the ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... I say, Tom. I'm only a plain man, and my tongue will say what comes uppermost! But it ain't from the soul, Tom, it ain't from the soul," said Peter, punning feebly, and letting a mirthless smile play over his sallow features. "You know Mr. ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... the N., from the elbow-like shape of which (Gk. agkon) the ancient town, founded by Syracusan refugees about 390 B.C., took the name which it still holds. Greek merchants established a purple factory here (Sil. Ital. viii. 438). Even in Roman times it kept its own coinage with the punning device of the bent arm holding a palm branch, and the head of Aphrodite on the reverse, and continued the use of the Greek language. When it became a Roman colony is doubtful.1 It was occupied as a naval ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... orators, and philosophers that ever appeared in the world—an author who composed a perfect specimen of military annals in his travelling carriage—at one time in a controversy with Cato, at another writing a treatise on punning, and collecting a set of good sayings—fighting and making love at the same moment, and willing to abandon both his empire and his mistress for a sight of the Fountains of the Nile. Such did Julius Caesar appear to his contemporaries, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... easily as there may be stupidity in a man of genius if you take him unawares on the wrong subject, or as many a man who has the best will to advance the social millennium might be ill-inspired in imagining its lighter pleasures; unable to go beyond Offenbach's music, or the brilliant punning in the last burlesque. Lydgate's spots of commonness lay in the complexion of his prejudices, which, in spite of noble intention and sympathy, were half of them such as are found in ordinary men of the world: that distinction ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... of American invention, can be an interesting change from ordinary games. In some the company are all asked to contribute, as in "Book Teas," where a punning symbolic title of a book is worn by each guest, and a prize is given to the person who guesses most, and to the person whose title is considered the best. Thus, a person wearing a card having the letter R represented Middlemarch, and a person with ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... before the time of Aristophanes, and we read that there was a certain ventriloquist named Eurycles; but Aristophanes must be content to bear the reproach of having been the first to introduce punning. He probably had accomplices among his contemporaries, but they have been lost in obscurity. Playing with words seems to have commenced very early. The organs of speech are not able to produce any great number ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... hills girdling the old city go waving in gradations of blue to an opal horizon. There's an old Well House in the garden, which is one of its chief ornaments, and has adorned it since the fifteenth century. Bishop Beckington—the Beckington of the punning rebus (Beacon and Tun) built it to supply water to the city. But there were plenty of other springs, always—seven famous ones—which suggested the name, Wells; and had they not existed, perhaps King Ina (who flourished in the eighth century, and was mixed up in Glastonbury history) would not ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... certainly the most carefully written. We could almost quarrel with him for defacing his second volume with perpetual and not very successful attempts at wit. We have rarely met with more outrageous specimens of punning run mad, than are to be found in its pages. Barring that fault, we have nothing but what is favourable to say of the book. Its tone is manly, and soldier-like, and it is creditable both to the writer and to the service, by which, during the last thirty ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... punning Epitaphs have recently appeared in the Times a propos of "BOB LOWE," that I am sure you will now allow me to produce and publish what was rejected by your Editor, long before the decease of the above-mentioned ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... lie on both sides, whom am I to believe?" In Elizabethan England the pun was as great a power in the jocularity of the law-courts as it is at present; the few surviving witticisms that are supposed to exemplify Egerton's lighter mood on the bench, being for the most part feeble attempts at punning. For instance, when he was asked, during his tenure of the Mastership of the Rolls, to commit a cause, i.e., to refer it to a Master in Chancery, he used to answer, "What has the cause done that it ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... land for cattle. The exile felt himself all out of joint with his surroundings, and so he called the little child that came to him 'Gershom,' which, according to one explanation, means 'banishment,' and, according to another (a kind of punning etymology), means 'a stranger here'; in the other case expressing the same sense of homelessness and want of harmony with his surroundings. But as the years went on, Moses began to acclimatise himself, and to become more reconciled to his position and to see things ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... career as a wag; he rejoiced in being a fun-maker. He discarded the weird spellings and crude punning of his American forerunners; his object was not play upon words, but play upon ideas. He offered his public, as Frank R. Stockton pointed out, the pure ore of fun. "If he puts his private mark on it, it will pass ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... understood, transgressing the bounds of decency or good manners!) against the lady of the poet's affection; there are stories, in which love and virtue triumph over temptation and evil-doing; there is, of course, at least one story of a blind girl, and one of a consumptive; there is much harmless punning, and in the acrostics which the ladies of 1820 so much loved are fantastically woven the names of the handsome young women of Barnstaple whose only other record is now upon ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... garlands of immortelles, wreaths of ivy-jasmin (punning upon the name), laurel, and so forth, utterly astonished me. Jasmin preserved a perfect shrubbery of such tokens; and each symbol had, of course, its pleasant associative remembrance. One was given by the ladies of such a town; another was the gift of the prefect's wife of such ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... stating what came up. Anything may be planted, though the questioner must have in mind something that could come up from what he writes. He must sign his initials. The names of the plants that come up must bear some direct relation, punning or otherwise, to ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... of his wit is the mere filth-throwing of a naughty boy; or at best the underbred jocularity of the "funny column," the topical song, or the minstrel show. There are puns on the names of notable personages; a grotesque, fantastic, punning fauna, flora, and geography of Greece; a constant succession of surprises effected by the sudden substitution of low or incongruous terms in proverbs, quotations, and legal or religious formulas; scenes in dialect, scenes of excellent ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... founded on a very simple fact. It is merely a poetical method of accounting for the Latin name of that bird, which was very plentiful in the vicinity of the city of Ardea, and, perhaps, thence derived its name of 'ardea.' The story may have been the more readily suggested to the punning mind of Ovid, from the resemblance of the Latin verb 'ardeo,' signifying 'to ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... Gloucester: but I have too much respect for every appendage of wit, to quarrel even with the lowest buffoonery; and therefore I hope Mansel and I shall always be good friends. I cannot, however, approve of his drowning my poor dog Ponto, on purpose to convert Ovid's pleonasm into a punning epitaph, — deerant quoque Littora Ponto: for, that he threw him into the Isis, when it was so high and impetuous, with no other view than to kill the fleas, is an excuse that will not hold water — But I leave poor Ponto to ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... the dull and witless, that he has established a class for the acquirement of an elegant and ready style of punning, on the pure Joe-millerian principle. The very worst hands are improved in six short and mirthful lessons. As a specimen of his capability, he begs to subjoin two conundrums ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... list of summits visible from the Goernergrat without being penetrated with any keen sense of sublimity. And there are mountaineers who are capable of making a pun on the top of Mont Blanc—and capable of nothing more. Still I venture to deny that even punning is incompatible with poetry, or that those who make the pun can have no deeper feeling in their bosoms which they are perhaps too shamefaced ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... To begin to {flame}. The punning reference to Marvel Comics's Human Torch is no longer widely recognized. 2. To continue to ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... He said, "the fellows of my college wished to have an organ in the chapel, but I put a stop to it;" whether for the sake of the pun, or because he disliked music, is uncertain. He invited, for the love of punning, Mr. Crowe and Mr. Rooke to dine with him; and having given Mr. Birdmore, another guest, a hint to be rather after the time, on his appearing, said, "Mr. Rook! Mr. Crowe! I beg leave to introduce one Bird more." He married his niece to a gentleman of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various
... the members producing it. The actual result is an immateriate graphic representation of visible objects and qualities which, invested with substance, has become familiar to us as the rebus, and also appears in the form of heraldic blazonry styled punning or "canting." ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... surface of the river, except as some inquisitive zephyr came curling along the stream, filling us with hope, and then, having satisfied its curiosity, suddenly disappeared, as though in mockery of our distress. The name of the yacht afforded ample field for punning, which was cruelly taken advantage of by all of us; and if our cruise was not a long one, at all events it was very pleasant, and full of fun and frolic. Pale Cinthia was throwing her soft and silvery light over the eastern horizon ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... other allied genera by such cognate names as Urania and Heliconia. If, therefore, the father of botany knew that his own word was originally Arabic, we cannot acquit him of the high crime and misdemeanour of deliberate punning. Should the Royal Society get wind of this, something serious would doubtless happen; for it is well known that the possession of a sense of humour is absolutely fatal to the pretensions of a man ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... recurring must tend to lessen his idea of the sanctity of symbols. Meanwhile the dog is clear in his own conscience, and draws, with a human nicety, the distinction between formal and essential truth. Of his punning perversions, his legitimate dexterity with symbols, he is even vain; but when he has told and been detected in a lie, there is not a hair upon his body but confesses guilt. To a dog of gentlemanly feeling theft and falsehood are disgraceful vices. The canine, like the human, gentleman demands in ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Moel-Siabod; and we find Ross continually showing its Celtic origin where there is a promontory, as Ross on the Moray-frith, and Ross in Herefordshire from a winding of the Wye. But some old sculptor, on a stone still preserved in the village, has made a punning derivation for it, by carving a mell, or mallet, and a rose over it. This stone was part of a wall of the old prison, long ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... stopping work came round, but the workers were not released from the factory. The crowd used its wits to keep itself warm; punning remarks concerning strike-breakers and capitalists buzzed through the air. But suddenly an alarm ran through the crowd. The street urchins, who are always the first to know everything, were whistling between their fingers and running down the side streets. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... brother George and his sister-in-law occurs the following passage[16], dated towards the end of 1818: 'Hunt has asked me to meet Tom Moore some day—so you shall hear of him. The night we went to Novello's there was a complete set-to of Mozart and punning. I was so completely tired of it that, if I were to follow my own inclinations, I should never meet any one of that set again; not even Hunt, who is certainly a pleasant fellow in the main, when you are with him—but in reality he is vain, ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... the Smiths that we think we have heard that name before somewhere. Such is human nature. We cannot alter this. It is God that made us so for some good and wise purpose. Let us not repine. But though I may seem strange, may seem eccentric, I mean to refrain from punning upon the name of this club, though I could make a very good one if I had time to think ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Professed story-tellers are sometimes introduced, who are raised on a little stage and during several hours arrest the attention of their audience by the relation of wonderful and interesting adventures. There are also characters of humour amongst them who, by buffoonery, mimicry, punning, repartee, and satire (rather of the sardonic kind) are able to keep the company in laughter at intervals during the course of a night's entertainment. The assembly seldom breaks up before daylight, and these bimbangs are often continued for several days and nights together till their stock of ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... but the mocking spirit is so prevailingly present that we are often left in doubt as to his design, and what is in Harold an outrage is in this case only a flaw. His command over the verse itself is almost miraculous: he glides from extreme to extreme, from punning to pathos, from melancholy to mad merriment, sighing or laughing by the way at his readers or at himself or at the stanzas. Into them he can fling anything under the sun, from a doctor's prescription to ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... any trifling expressions, any plays on words, even the duplication of such plays as can be found in the Hebrew or the Greek. You seldom find any turn of a word in the King James version, though you do occasionally find it in the Hebrew. One such punning expression occurs in the story of Samson (Judges xv:16), where our version reads: "With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of an ass have I slain a thousand men." In the Hebrew the ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... said one, who pretended to take my part. "Ruat coelum, Let them rush to heaven," replied the other. "Parse coelum, please, sir," said my boy in the Academy. "Yes, past the ceiling," said the lawyer, pretending to misunderstand him; "that's right, my son;"—and more wretched punning of the same sort. Hence Mrs. North's pretended supplication about the window-sashes. She has been in excellent spirits ever since I stopped the papers. She says that she wonders at herself so calm and happy. I heard her yesterday calling at the stairs to a little lisping English ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... favourite, but, in order to guard himself against the risk of becoming a convert, refused to go to see her act. I endeavoured sometimes to persuade him into witnessing, at least, one of her performances; but his answer was, (punning upon Shakspeare's word, "unanealed,") ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... is the township vortex where all assemble to "swap stories" and deal out the news. Lincoln, from behind the counter—his pulpit—not merely repeated items of information which he had heard, but also recited doggerel satire of his own concoction, punning and emitting sparks of wit. Lincoln was hailed as the "capper" of any ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... there was one of the name of Clerk, who seemed ambitious to pass for a great wit, which he attempted by starting sundry objections to the Bible. I should have liked him better if he had confined himself to punning and playing on his own name, by telling us again and again, that he should still be at least a Clerk, even though he should never become a clergyman. Upon the whole, however, he was, in his way, a man of some humour, ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... state, exhibits a very favourable specimen of the artist's abilities; the wainscot is in compartments, ornamented with cross crosslets and fleurs de-lis charges, in the arms of Rich and Cope, whose coats are introduced, entire, at the corner of the room, with a punning motto, alluding to the name of Rich, Ditior est qui se. Over the chimneys are some emblematical paintings, done (as the Earl of Orford observes) in a style and not unworthy of Parmegiane. The Earl of Holland was twice made a prisoner in his own house, first by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... attended with a great deal of noisy pleasantry, flavoured every now and then with a dash of irritation. There was a young man of whom I made a note; he was such a beautiful specimen of his class. Sometimes he was very facetious, chattering, joking, punning, showing off; then, as the game went on and he lost and had to pay the consommation, he dropped his amiability, slanged his partner, declared he wouldn't play any more, and went away in a fury. Nothing could be more perfect or more amusing than the ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... her prime when she came to New York, though she had not reached the meridian of her reputation. Her features were irregular, and she was not comely. Richard Grant White claims credit for having given her the punning sobriquet "Beaux Yeux," by which she was widely known on account of her luminous and expressive eyes. "Her ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... can't hold the cabin any longer," continued Old Jock, who seemed to be in a punning vein this afternoon, "we'll go below to the hold, and hold that ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... himself an able discoverer, could join in the cry, it is no wonder if a lower soul, like that of Sylvius, led it open-mouthed. He was a mean, covetous, bad man, as George Buchanan well knew; and, according to his nature, he wrote a furious book, 'Ad Vesani calumnias depulsandas.' The punning change of Vesalius into Vesanus (madman) was but a fair and gentle stroke for a polemic, in days in which those who could not kill their enemies with steel or powder, held themselves justified in doing so, if possible, by ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... bend gules and or, a bezant and crab counterchanged," cried Rastignac, "display that ancient escutcheon of Picardy on the panels of a carriage? You have thirty thousand francs a year, and the proceeds of your pen; you have justified your motto: Ars thesaurusque virtus, that punning device our ancestors were always seeking, and yet you never appear in the Bois de Boulogne! We live in times when virtue ought ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... metrical law, introduced at the end of lines, and at times in the middle; the last word of the line is often a weak and unemphatic conjunction or preposition. {49} To the latest plays fantastic and punning conceits which abound in early work are rarely accorded admission. But, while Shakespeare's achievement from the beginning to the end of his career offers clearer evidence than that of any other writer of genius of the steady and orderly ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... old punning Latin line, illustrating various meanings of the word malus, an apple, seems appropriate, as a commencement, to writing about apples; it is I think very little known, and too good to be forgotten. Malo, malo, malo, ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... body of the church is of later dates. Here are some fine brasses; one is supposed to commemorate a de Warenne who died about 1380; another is to John Bradford, rector, dated 1457. The monument to Sir Nicholas Pelham (1559) has an oft-quoted punning verse— ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... [c]akbatzulu. The punning explanation of this name refers to its similarity to [c]ak, to place in front of another; also to shoot with arrows, or to stone. Its real derivation seems to be [c]akba, from [c]akaba, to reveal, disclose, and tzulu, to embrace, sleep together. ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton
... will you renounce that vile habit of punning?" said De Courcy with an earnestness of adjuration that excited a general laugh at his end of the table— "Come, Villiers, never mind his nonsense, for your premises, although a little long, are not without deep interest—but what has all this to do ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... puns: Heaven's lily - "Coeli lilium"; The way of blind - "Caeci via"; Heaven and Lia - from "Coeli", heaven, and "Ligo," to bind; Heaven and Leos - from Coeli and "Laos," (Ionian Greek) or "Leos" (Attic Greek), the people. Such punning derivations of proper names were very much in favour in the Middle Ages. The explanations of St Cecilia's name are literally taken from the prologue ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... these insignificant errata, but for the purpose of showing Printer's errors do and will occur, and that Shakspeare's text may often be amended by their correction. You will recollect honest George's punning inscription round his ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 54, November 9, 1850 • Various
... Lord of the Admiralty he was utterly inefficient. Month after month the fleet which should have been the terror of the seas lay in harbour while he was diverting himself in London. The sailors, punning upon his new title, gave him the name of Lord Tarry-in-town. When he came on shipboard he was accompanied by a bevy of courtesans. There was scarcely an hour of the day or of the night when he was not under the influence ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... their jealousy for the common law, took the harsher view, that any children born of parents who are not married at the time they are born shall be illegitimate, although their parents may marry afterward. Beaumont and Fletcher, in one of their plays, make a punning reference to that. It seems to have struck Beaumont and Fletcher as it does us, that it was a cruel law for the Parliament to make; when the church for once was liberal, it was queer that the Parliament ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... day observed to Henry Erskine, that punning was the lowest of wit. "It is," answered Erskine, "and therefore the foundation ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... replys, nay you are bent enough in conscience, but I have a bent Fist for Boxing; Here says he (smartly) you have a brace of quibbles started in a line and a half [Footnote: Collier, p. 170.]—Very true, you have so—But suppose quibbling or punning—but I think this is call'd punning—Is this Gentlemans humour—if so, being a Soldier, I don't see it calls his sense in question at all—but now pray let's see, how our Critick manages a quibble, with a blunder tack'd to the Tail on't, in the page before, there, in the ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... and clapped his hand with such a smack as made us maidens start, and he cried: "That's it, that is the way of it! Zounds, ye knaves! Then the Sow—[Eber, his name, means a boar. This is a sort of punning insult]—of Wichsenstein was himself your leader yesterday, and it was only by devilish ill-hap that the knave was not with you when I took you! You ragged ruffians would never have given over the tops in this marsh ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... (1) stone pulpit, entered through the wall by a staircase which formerly led to the rood-loft, (2) curious carving on the capitals of the arcade, (3) piscina, (4) monument to Richard Cole and his family, with its punning Latin epitaph and free translation. Some way from the village is Nailsea Court, a manor house of partly ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... (1818-1903), Scottish philosopher and educationalist, was born on the 11th of June 1818 in Aberdeen, where he received his first schooling. In early life he was a weaver, hence the punning description of him as Weevir, rex philosophorum. In 1836 he entered Marischal College, and came under the influence of John Cruickshank, professor of mathematics, Thomas Clark, professor of chemistry, and William Knight, professor of natural ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... they are punsters; but punning is not a standard of authorship; or, perhaps, there may be other second-rate authors present, and if so, they know that they are in the company ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... seems quite unknown. Nothing can be more captious or unfair, for instance, than the method by which Aristotle criticised the ideal state of Plato in his ethical works, and the passages quoted by Polybius from Timaeus show that the latter historian fully deserved the punning name given to him. But in Polybius there is, I think, little of that bitterness and pettiness of spirit which characterises most other writers, and an incidental story he tells of his relations ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... Its characteristics are a gracefulness of thought and style, a fluency in expression, a vein of delicate humor or sentiment and a subject which falls within the limits of "polite conversation." It sparkles or should sparkle with clever turns of thought and at times even descends to a sort of punning. No attempt is made to reach the sublime, but serious vers de societe is often written and is the more effective because of its contrasted setting. The ballade, rondeau and triolet are favorite expressions ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow
... The punning, duel-fighting, hanging judge, Lord Norbury, of whom the country people still say, "He'd hang a man as soon as knock the head off a rush," often dispensed with an escort in the most exciting times, and rode here on circuit with a brace ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... bunt—I mean you blamed little runt!" exclaimed Rattleton, catching Danny by the neck. "If you keep up this reckless punning you'll receive a check ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... only suffered him to land in Ithaca, 'alone, in evil case, to find troubles in his house.' This is a very remarkable point in the plot. The story of the crafty adventurer and the blinding of the giant, with the punning device by which the hero escaped, exists in the shape of a detached marchen or fairy-tale among races who never heard of Homer. And when we find the story among Oghuzians, Esthonians, Basques, and Celts, it seems natural to suppose that these people did not break a fragment ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... Napier is credited with a far more laconic despatch, on making himself master of Scinde, in 1843. Taking possession of Hyderabad, and outflanking Shere Mohammed by a series of most brilliant manoeuvres, he is said to have written home this punning despatch: ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... to take!" (I fired up like a rocket). "He did it just for punning's sake: 'The man,' says Johnson, 'that would make A ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... Ollanta is defeated and brought, a prisoner, to the capital. Mindful, however, of his merits, the magnanimous victor pardons him, restores him to his honors, and returns to his arms Cusi Coyllur and her child. Minor characters are a facetious youth, who is constantly punning and joking; and the dignified figure of the High Priest of the Sun, who endeavors to dissuade the hero ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton
... was common to an avowedly smart and comic paper—far different from what is suggested by the word "Charivari;" and the public admitted that here was a novel school of comic writing, by a motley moralist and punning philosopher, and hailed with pleasure the advent of ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... symbolic, mere virtues and vices materialised as personages of the anecdote. Real nonsense such as Lear concocted, real wit such as that which sparkles from Lewis Carroll's pages, find their parallel in the pictures which accompany each text. It is the feeble effort to be funny, the mildly punning humour of the imitators, which makes the text tedious, and one fancies the artist is also infected, for in such books the drawings very rarely rise to a ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... time degraded him, grew and throve, and at last invaded the domains of pantomime. "Openings" fell into the hands of burlesque-writers, their share in the pantomime work ceasing with the transformation scene; punning rhymes and parodies, and comic dances, delayed the entrance of clown and harlequin, till at last their significance and occupation seem almost to have gone from them. The old language of gesture, with perhaps the occasional resort ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... one habit,—I said to our company a day or two afterwards—worse than that of punning. It is the gradual substitution of cant or flash terms for words which truly characterize their objects. I have known several very genteel idiots whose whole vocabulary had deliquesced into some half dozen expressions. All things fell into ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... "Come, Mr. Gregory, punning is a very bad symptom. You must go to sleep at once." And soon her mellow voice was finding its way into a labyrinth of hard scientific terms, as a mountain brook might murmur among the stones. After a little time she asked of ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... hija, qu criado el tuyo tan mal criado!: What an ill-bred fellow, that servant of yours, my dear! Note the untranslatable play on criado, an example of a sort of punning in which the ...
— Ms vale maa que fuerza • Manuel Tamayo y Baus
... black as night; and the king's had been, and his daughter's was golden as morning. But it was not this reflection on his hair that troubled him; it was the doubled use of the word light. For the king hated all witticisms, and punning especially. And besides he could not tell whether the queen meant light-haired or light-heired; for why might she not aspirate her vowels when she ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... changed to Abraham, and that of his wife to Sarah.4 A covenant was concluded with him for all time, and as a sign thereof the rite of circumcision was instituted (xvii. P). The promise of a son to Sarah made Abraham "laugh'', a punning allusion to the name Isaac (q.v.) which appears again in other forms. Thus, it is Sarah herself who "laughs'' at the idea, when Yahweh appears to Abraham at Mamre (xviii. 1-15, J), or who, when the child is horn cries "God hath made me laugh; every one that heareth will laugh at me'' ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia |
