"Pun" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one priest draggling up, poor devil, through the wet grass to the deserted altar with his solitary goose under his arm, he would have had every goose in Antioch—forgive my stealing a pun from Aristophanes—running open-mouthed to worship any god known or unknown—and ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... foolish at the same time fits him for modern society. He enters it as a pepper-caster, a feathered bonbonniere, a pickle- holder (in china), and is drawn, painted, and photographed in every style. A pun is made on his name: "Should owled acquaintance be forgot?" etc. He is a favorite in jewellery, and is often carved in jade. Indeed, the owl is having his day, having had the ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... is yet unsolved; but it is believed that Peter was trying to build up the woman's name, Emma, into a pun upon the word "dilemma." The secret, however, is buried ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... 'last ditch' which the North have so long derided. Should I reach her in safety, and find it true, I will proudly beg permission to triumph or die in that same 'ditch' by her side." The swamp near which he died may be called, without unseemly pun—a truth, not a bon mot—the ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... stick to roam to jostle the pun shameless to drive away it is not her fault gradually or little by little he was talking loudly, with his glass ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... epistolary efforts of that "baby-faced" Caroline beauty who was accustomed to sign herself "L duchesse de Portsmout." It is better still in the letter from Walpole to General Conway in chap. xl. of The Virginians, which is perfect, even to the indifferent pun of sleepy (and overrated) George Selwyn. But the crown and top of these pastiches is certainly the delightful paper, which pretends to be No. 341 of the Spectator for All Fools' Day, 1712, in which Colonel Esmond treats "Mistress ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... father, mother, wife and brother. They were thus distinguished in the playbills: Baptiste, aine, Baptiste pere, Baptiste cadet, Madame Baptiste mere, Madame Baptiste bru. This resulted in the pun of calling a play in which they all appeared une piece de baptistes. Nicolas soon obtained the public favour, specially in La Martelliere's mediocre Robert, chef de [v.03 p.0370] brigands, and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... Overtop's pun, but not himself, and she was about to say that she should put him on the list for her next conversazione, when another awkward ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... we have a practical pun now naturalised in our language, in the word "tandem." Are any of your correspondents ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 24. Saturday, April 13. 1850 • Various
... representative of a nation which held my master Garrick in peculiar respect. He was a great actor, sir; a wonderful man! Your Lekain, or any other Cain, could not come up to him, for he was Able, Pardon the pun. Oh, la!—but he was vain, sir; vain as a peacock; it could not be of his person. Had he been, as Richard has it, 'a marvellous proper man' like myself, one might have said something. He used to say, I was too lean for Suett. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... pl. phraseology; vocabulary. Associated Words: glossary, glossarist, glossography, glossology, glossologist, lexicology, lexicologist, etymology, etymologist, etymologize, neology, lexicography, terminology, paronomasia, pun, punning, onomatopoeoea, syncope, syncopation, literal, literally, literalism, transliteration, verbal, verbalist, verbalism, battology, logomachy, logomachist, verbarium, apocope, kyriology, metonomy, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... he sketched a huge mouth about to swallow a bull. This, done with a fine show of color, became the sign of the tavern. Martin never tired of explaining the pun to those who asked. Even before the guest-rooms were finished, travelers began arriving, drawn by the fame of Martin's savory and succulent dishes. Pilgrims, merchants, knights, squires, showmen, soldiers, minstrels, scholars, sea-captains—they ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... point of writing that Mr Burn was burning with ardour. I see it written—it is something worse than a pun—therefore, per omnes modos et casus—heretical and damnable—consequently I beg the reader to consign it to the oblivion with which we cover our bad actions, and read thus:—The gunner was burning with impatience to show the captain what a valuable officer he commanded. The ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... sort of beauty, voluptuous yet cold, which, the more it is contemplated, the more it troubles and haunts the mind. Round the lady's neck is a gold chain with little gold lozenges at intervals, on which is engraved the posy or pun (the fashion of French devices is common in those days), "Amour Dure—Dure Amour." The same posy is inscribed in the hollow of the bust, and, thanks to it, I have been able to identify the latter ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... comedy to Jane,—her blind Garth at the piano, his dear beautiful head bent over the keys, his fingers feeling for that pathetic little notch, to be made by herself, below middle C. She loathed this individual who could make a pun on the subject of Garth's blindness, and, in the back of her mind, Tommy seemed to join the duchess, flapping up and down on his perch and shrieking: "Kick him out! ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... given better witticisms to the jest-books than Sir Thomas More. Like all legal wits, he enjoyed a pun, as Sir Thomas Manners, the mushroom Earl of Rutland discovered, when he winced under the cutting reproof of his insolence, conveyed in the translation of 'Honores mutant mores'—Honors change manners. But though he would condescend to play with words as a ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... to him his plan of conquest—by taking town after town and fortress after fortress, and gradually plucking away all the supports before he attempted the capital. He expressed his resolution in a memorable pun or play upon the name of Granada, which signifies a pomegranate. "I will pick out the seeds of this pomegranate one by one," said ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... ravished the rag-doll from the nursery, dragged it to a corner of the lawn, dug a hole, and buried it after the manner of careless undertakers. There you have the mystery solved, and no checks to write for the hypodermical wizard or fi'-pun notes to toss to the sergeant. Then let's get down to the heart of the thing, tiresome readers—the ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... eager listener to their folk lore and fireside stories. When later, during a residence of nearly four years among the people, my eyes were opened to behold the wondrous fertility of invention, the wealth of literary, historic and classic allusion, of pun, myth and riddle, of heroic, wonder, and legendary lore in Japanese art, I at once set myself to find the source of the ideas expressed in bronze and porcelain, on lacquered cabinets, fans, and even crape paper napkins and tidies. ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... "Why does a chicken cross the road?" to which most people give the answer, "To get to the other side;" though the correct reply is, "To worry the chauffeur." It has degenerated into the conundrum, which is usually based on a mere pun. For example, we have been asked from our infancy, "When is a door not a door?" and here again the answer usually furnished ("When it is a-jar") is not the correct one. It should be, "When it is a negress ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... for that were going to say something right now," she smiled. "Jerry, and Michael, and I. We've been practising it in secret for a surprise for you. You just lie there and listen. It's the Doxology. Don't Laugh. No pun intended." ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... he wrote a poem, the design of which is to prove that Solomon was the author of the Iliad; and it has been said that this was done to interest his wife, who had some property, to lend her aid towards the publication of so divine a work. This happy pun was applied ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... and deny it who can, Though he 'merrily' liv'd, he is now a 'grave' man; Rare compound of oddity, frolic, and fun! Who relish'd a joke, and rejoic'd in a pun; 150 Whose temper was generous, open, sincere; A stranger to flatt'ry, a stranger to fear; Who scatter'd around wit and humour at will; Whose daily 'bons mots' half a column might fill; A Scotchman, from pride and from ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... alternative but experiment (directed by probabilities) of every tongue known to him who attempts the solution, until the true one be attained. But, with the cipher now before us, all difficulty is removed by the signature. The pun upon the word 'Kidd' is appreciable in no other language than the English. But for this consideration I should have begun my attempts with the Spanish and French, as the tongues in which a secret of this kind would ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... and woo, and fight and joke, Perhaps you'll pun! Such feats are never done by folk ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... hearty task at length was done, When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the spiteful squib and pun The girls ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... all her heart. He never teased her as Jem and Shirley did. He never called her "Spider." His pet name for her was "Rilla-my-Rilla"—a little pun on her real name, Marilla. She had been named after Aunt Marilla of Green Gables, but Aunt Marilla had died before Rilla was old enough to know her very well, and Rilla detested the name as being horribly old-fashioned and prim. Why couldn't they have called her by her first name, Bertha, which was ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... "What a good pun, or what a bad one?" asked Bouldon with perfect simplicity. "But, I say, Gregson, are there any other fish but your friends, the newts, in this pond, do you think? because if there are not, I ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... be. I don't want none to tell me that, squoire. Tho', squoire, it's better to me nor a ten pun' note to hear you say so. I allays had a leaning to you, squoire; but I'll more nor lean to you, now. I've said all through she was good, and if e'er a man in Bungay said she warn't—; well, I was ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... the Husks in the best manner you can. Then pun them with a due proportion of Sugar, and a little Orange-flower, or Rose-water. When it is in a fitting uniform paste, make it into round Cakes, about the bigness of your hand, or a little larger, and about ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... King's treasury is empty," said Sinton, laughing at his pun. "Well, well, we might make it go, boys. I'm not a millionaire, but never mind. How much would ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... old Pink is the pink of propriety, no doubt about that!" said the rascal, laughing heartily at his heartless pun. ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... sneer; but he could tell them that the public would not stand the infliction of such a Senate as that which he saw before him for a day longer than it was obliged to by law. By disregarding law, he wished to know whether the laws would not be greater than the profits. He admitted that this was a pun; but appealed to PUNCHINELLO upon the point of the propriety of puns. Reform, he would say, was a "plant" of slow growth. He had sown it; and his colleague, Mr. ——-, had watered it; but it did not seem ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... spoke in, and assists or hinders them as he pleases. Can a stick be considered a spoke before it is put into its place, in the nave of the wheel at least? We often hear the observation, "Then I put in my spoke," &c. in the relation of an animated discussion. May I venture to suggest a pun on the preterite of the verb ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... would never have done that on purpose. I assured him that I knew he had said it accidentally, but it stopped us talking about Ward, because, when you hate puns, it is most discomforting to make one suddenly. I made a pun once—I can still remember it, because if I had performed this feat intentionally I should have deserved all I got. What I did get was a dig in the ribs from Collier and the remark, "You are a wag," and then I had ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... the creature for leaving such a unique specimen, at least," laughed Mr. Garth, completely mollified; (if you will not accuse us of an insane desire to make a pun). "Come, fairy changeling, and let's have a ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... of paper written on, and they was jes' as good as money—jes' as good if they come from customers you knew. Then all of a sudden they wasn't. I was left with three of 'em and two I'd given' change. Then it got about that five-pun' notes were no good, and then the silver sort of went off. Gold you 'couldn't get for love or—anything. The banks in London 'ad got it, and the banks was all smashed up. Everybody went bankrup'. Everybody was thrown out of ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... said my father, borrowing Cicero's pun on the occasion. (1) "And now we shall go upon velvet. I say, then, that books, taken indiscriminately, are no cure to the diseases and afflictions of the mind. There is a world of science necessary in the taking them. I have known some people in great ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... writer, dry; those who knew his writings will feel that he seldom could have taken in a joke or issued a pun. Maseres was the fourth wrangler of 1752, and first Chancellor's medallist (or highest in classics); his second was Porteus[459] (afterward Bishop of London). Waring[460] came five years after him: he could not get Maseres through the second page of his first book on algebra; a negative ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... said, while the ears of poor Archie reddened even as he was being led away by the not very pretty but extremely comforting Georgia. "He's a real man, every inch of him." ["Every inch a King!" she thought quickly, unashamed of the pun.] "A big man who does big things in a big way," she ran on, indicating that she, too, after that brief meeting had been ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... bit. 'This was Mimi's favorite wine,' said he, 'we have often drunk it together at this very table. I remember one day she said to me, holding out her glass, which she had already emptied several times, 'Fill up again, it is good for one's bones.' A poor pun, eh? Worthy, at the most, of the mistress of a farce writer. Ah! She could ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... end of the room was Hood. Some publishers, I think, were our companions. I quite remember his pale face; he was thin and deaf, and very silent; he scarcely opened his lips during the dinner, and he made one pun. Some gentleman missed his snuff-box, and Hood said,—(the Freemasons' Tavern was kept, you must remember, by Mr. CUFF in those days, not by its present proprietors). Well, the box being lost, and asked for, and CUFF ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the use of breaking your head to save him?" said Mrs. Crowl, with an unconscious pun. "He ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... the popular hero Pitt, was overwhelming. He was the object of numerous attacks and lampoons. He dared not show himself in the streets without the protection of prize-fighters, while the jack-boot (a pun upon his name) and the petticoat, by which the princess was represented, were continually being burnt by the mob or hanged upon the gallows. On the 9th of November, while proceeding to the Guildhall, he narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the populace, who smashed his coach, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... to the public the gross affront to decency which has been perpetrated, and the further affronts which are being planned. This appears to be a scheme for making a moving picture 'star'; this 'Carpenter'—note the silly pun—is to become the latest sensation in million dollar movie dolls, and the American public is to be invited to pay money to witness a story of sacred things played by a real 'prophet' ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... "Two pun ten," said Sam again; "an' I don't know what you're goin' to do with your half, but I'm goin' to give ten ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... generally current in Lancashire, that our knight-making monarch knighted at the banquet in Hoghton Tower a loin of beef; the part ever since called the sir-loin." And it is added by the same authority, "If the King did not give the sir-loin its name, he might, notwithstanding, have indulged in a pun on the already coined word, the etymology of which was then, as now, as little regarded as the thing signified is well approved."—Nichols's Progresses of James ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... as to say, the tough old knight hath a habit of swearing," said the keeper, grinning at a pun, which has been repeated since his time; "but who can help it? it comes of use and wont. Were you now, in your bodily self, to light suddenly on a Maypole, with all the blithe morris-dancers prancing around it to the merry pipe and tabor, with bells jingling, ribands fluttering, lads frisking ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... 'eard Ted Reddish and 'is wife coming back. They came in, sat down agin, and after Ted 'ad 'ad another good look at the wild man and prodded 'im all over an' looked at 'is teeth, he spoke up and said they'd decided to give a 'undered pun for 'im at the end o' ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... colourless, and in these days we are deboshed with colour; but then they are so luminously limpid and serene, they are so sprightly and graceful and gay! In the gallantry they affect there is a something at once exquisite and paternal. If they pun, 'tis with an air: even thus might Chesterfield have stooped to folly. And then, how clean the English, how light yet vigorous the touch, the manner how elegant and how staid! There is wit in them, and that so genial and unassuming that as like as not it gets leave to beam ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... letter to Dr. Johnson, writes thus: 'Are you acquainted with Dr. Leigh, {6} the Master of Balliol College, and are you not delighted with his gaiety of manners and youthful vivacity, now that he is eighty-six years of age? I never heard a more perfect or excellent pun than his, when some one told him how, in a late dispute among the Privy Councillors, the Lord Chancellor struck the table with such violence that he split it. "No, no, no," replied the Master; "I can hardly persuade ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... you are! Ah, you mean that infernal compound which they cover ships' bottoms with? What an atrocious pun!" The man looked puzzled. "Bullen, R.A., great at composition; it sounds well," continued Lightmark gaily, just touching in the brown ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... guess the riddle of the bamboo. It represents a sort of pun in symbolism. There are two Chinese characters both pronounced setsu—one signifying the node or joint of the bamboo, and the other virtue, fidelity, constancy. Therefore is the bamboo used as a felicitous sign. The name 'Setsu,' be it observed, is often given to Japanese ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... you mean. [Chuckling]. Haw! ha ha! really very nearly a pun, that. [He sits down ...
— The Inca of Perusalem • George Bernard Shaw
... gone one all right," said Sahwah, but Nyoda's mind was too busy with wondering about Gladys to notice the pun. ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... of the majority of the names of our hills, and Professor Edward Hitchcock, in commenting on their uncouthness, concluded his disapproval with a pun worth preserving, by saying, "Fortunately there are some summits in the State yet unnamed. It is to be hoped that men of taste will see to it that neither Tom, nor Toby, nor Bears, nor Rattlesnakes, nor Sugar Loaves shall be Saddled ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... to a keen recollection of his Viennese experiences and the double dealing (no pun intended) of the Austrian shopkeeper just at the present epoch in the national finance ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... and usually has some vivid description of nature, or some gallant passage in swinging verse, which stirs us like martial music; then the poem falls to earth like a stone, and presently appears some wretched pun or jest or scurrility. Our present remedy lies in a book of selections, in which we can enjoy the poetry without being unpleasantly reminded of the author's besetting sins ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... for a pun?" Beatrice blinked her big eyes at him. "If you're quite through with the train-robbers, perhaps you will tell ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... from the version formerly received, which intimates that the epitaphs were written before Goldsmith arrived: whereas the pun, "the late Dr. Goldsmith" appears to have suggested the writing of the epitaphs. In the "Retaliation", Goldsmith has not spared the characters and failings of his associates, but has drawn them with satire, at once pungent and good-humoured. Garrick is smartly chastised; Burke, the Dinner-bell ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... we would have missed him," said Mark, who, even upon so serious an occasion, could not resist the temptation to make a pun. ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... red beak and legs): "Ghurab" (Heb. Oreb) connects with Ghurbahstrangerhood, exile, and "Bayn" with distance, interval, disunion, the desert (between the cultivated spots). There is another and a similar pun anent the Ban-tree; the first word meaning "he fared, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... said the Subadar-Major, 'you and I grow too old to care for the Kahar-ki-nautch—the Bearer's dance.' He named one of the sauciest of the old-time nautches, and smiled at his own pun. Then he turned to his nephew. 'When I was a lad and came back to my village on leave, I waited the convenient hour, and, the elders giving permission, I spoke of ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... Daylight, dis tam you mek one beeg meestake," French Louis said, straightening up and stepping down from the chairs. "Only one damn iron man can do dat. One hundred pun' more—my frien', not ten poun' more." The sacks were unlashed, but when two sacks were added, Kearns interfered. "Only one ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... the pun was the lowest order of wit. Newspapers formerly indulged in it freely. One editor would say: "We don't care a straw what Shakespeare said—a rose by any other name would not smell as wheat." Then another paper would answer: "Such puns are barley ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... became more and more bitter. The Dominican Father Caccini preached a sermon from the text, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?" and this wretched pun upon the great astronomer's name ushered in sharper weapons; for, before Caccini ended, he insisted that "geometry is of the devil," and that "mathematicians should be banished as the authors of all heresies." The Church authorities ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... not appear strong enough. Lord Gower said:—"Mr. Attorney, you seem to be very lukewarm for your party." He replied:—"My Lord, I never was lukewarm for my party, nor ever was but of one party!"' Walpole's Letters, ii. 140. Mr. Croker assumes that Johnson here 'attempted a pun, and wrote the name (as pronounced) Go'er. Johnson was very little likely to pun, for 'he had a great contempt for that species of wit.' Post, April ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... signifying, in common parlance, idle chat, the double pun does credit to the ingenuity of a lady ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... other hours. Some day when you wish a bit of fun with your children you will find humorous poems in many of the books. One is in Volume IV, on page 57. Nearly every stanza contains a "joke": a pun, if you please, usually. Perhaps you and your children will find them all easily, and perhaps you will not. In the last stanza is the "joke" proper, the thing for which the rhymes were written. It is an ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... by a pun; but you cannot. I carry this talisman of innocence," and throwing aside his cloak, he disclosed the ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... hims!" proud, too, of his vote, And lost virginity of oratory, Proud of his learning (just enough to quote), He revelled in his Ciceronian glory: With memory excellent to get by rote, With wit to hatch a pun or tell a story, Graced with some merit, and with more effrontery,[mq] "His country's pride," he came down to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... will add one or two of a kind he more rarely indulged. "He is below par on the Exchange," a friend remarked of a notorious puffing actor; "he doesn't stand well at Lloyds." "Yet no one stands so well with the under-writers," said Dickens; a pun that Swift would have envied. "I call him an Incubus!" said a non-literary friend, at a loss to express the boredom inflicted on him by a popular author. "Pen-and-ink-ubus, you mean," interposed Dickens. So, when Stanfield ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... her, till she found him playing with Gorgon in the road; and from that to her bewilderment twenty-four hours later, when he had called the dog Zola. She had reproved the enormity of the syncopated pun, but Dick had insisted that Zola fitted an animal whose expression was always ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... who hovered over the fields of Bethlehem on the morning of our Saviour's nativity." It is true, indeed, that our modern angels, the waits of 1897, have hovered about, and they may (without a pun) be styled angels (of darkness), not only on account of the watch they keep a nights, but on account of those spirit-uous propensities, for the attainment of which, principally, some have supposed, we are indebted to them for their waits, and also for their wait-ing upon ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... already,—as who did not?—namely, the peculiar condition of his daughter in relation to the globe on which she dwelt and requested them to consult together as to what might be the cause and probable cure of her infirmity. The king laid stress upon the word, but failed to discover his own pun. The queen laughed; but Hum-Drum and Kopy-Keck heard with humility and retired in silence. Their consultation consisted chiefly in propounding and supporting, for the thousandth time, each his favorite theories. For the condition of the princess afforded delightful ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... must amuse you. It's all down here in black and white. Listen. The reason a pun amuses you is as follows: 'It impels the mind to identify objects quite disconnected. This obstructs the flow of thought; but this is too transient to give rise to pain, and the relief which comes with insight ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... brave hearts, for they would turn their backs upon this cold, inhospitable New York and set up their household gods in the "City of Brotherly Love." The city of Penn, he added, was the place for one of his calling—laughing as he spoke, at the feeble pun—but there was new hope and life in the laugh. In Penn's city, even if disappointments should come they would be able to bear them, for how should human beings suffer in the "City of ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... Blanche of Castile?" then, without moving his head, shot a furtive glance to right and left of him, doubtful, but happy on the whole. While Swann, by the painful and futile effort which he made to smile, testified that he thought the pun absurd, Forcheville had shewn at once that he could appreciate its subtlety, and that he was a man of the world, by keeping within its proper limits a mirth the spontaneity of ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... I think this is an excellent, though unintentional, pun. "Pudor" is Spanish for "shame," but this meaning makes the sentence difficult to read (at best), although it does convey the intent. I think that the word intended is "powder," but left the original ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... Shakespeare is at first unsure of his personage; he fumbles a little; yet the vivacity, the roaring life, is certainly a quality of the original Falstaff, for it attends him as constantly as his shadow; the pun, too, is his, and the phrase "sweet wag" is probably taken from his mouth, for he repeats it again, "sweet wag," and again "mad wag." The shamelessness, too, and the lechery are marks of him, and the love of witty word-warfare, and, ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... pun?—Begin beside yourself, and end beside your horse! I am sure he is not strong enough to sit over those rocks. No, you shall stay at home comfortably here; Valencia and I will ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... very little to say about puns; they are in very bad repute, and so they ought to be. The wit of language is so miserably inferior to the wit of ideas, that it is very deservedly driven out of good company. Sometimes, indeed, a pun makes its appearance which seems for a moment to redeem its species; but we must not be deceived by them: it is a radically bad race ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... savings) with which to buy a house in Paris, and I have charged Louis to find one in your neighborhood. My mother has given me thirty thousand francs for the furnishing, and I shall do my best not to disgrace the dear sister of my election—no pun intended. ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... after this that he met Macready at Talfourd's, and by way probably of saying something to shock Macready; whose personality could hardly have been sympathetic to him, uttered the remarkable wish that the last breath he drew in might be through a pipe and exhaled in a pun. ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... The pun was new to the Seigneur, and he turned to the Cure chuckling. "Think of that, Cure! He knows the classics." He laughed till the tears ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... below, where all the several Voices lost their Distinction, and rose up in a confused Humming; which created in me a Reflection that could not come into the Mind of any but of one a little too studious; for I said to my self, with a kind of Pun in Thought, What Nonsense is all the Hurry of this World to those who are above it? In these, or not much wiser Thoughts, I had like to have lost my Place at the Chop-House, where every Man according to the natural Bashfulness or Sullenness ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... he owed to his ability to curry favor with the king by shouldering the odium of unpopular acts. [Sidenote: May, 1521] When the Duke of Buckingham was executed for the crime of standing next in succession to the throne, Wolsey was blamed; many people thought, as it was put in a pun attributed to Charles V, that "it was a pity so noble a buck should have been slain by such a hound." Wolsey lost the support of the nobles by the pride that delighted to humble them, and of the commons by the avarice that accumulated a corrupt fortune. ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... [Greek: Dikaiarchos] and [Greek: adikaiarchoi], a pun on a name not reproducible in ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... a Jew. I was reading the other day a book of essays by one of our leading young latitudinarian divines, in which he was most anxious to prove that Our Lord had all the graces of a well-bred young man about town, including a pretty wit. He actually claimed that the pun on Peter's name was an example of Our Lord's urbane and genial humour! It gives away the latitudinarian position completely. They're really ashamed of Christianity. They want to bring it into line with modern thought. They hope by throwing overboard the Incarnation, the Resurrection ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... A pun on the two senses, (1) journey, (2) labour, the latter of which is now distinguished by ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... not your words; it was the truth they conveyed, pun-gently as it was expressed. But you shall not drive me off upon that, and so escape the expression of my deep gratitude, my—' he was on the verge now; he would not speak in the haste of his hot passion; he would weigh each word. He would; and his will was triumphant. ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... that time, and my grandfather and my great- grandfather were both living then, and both held the first royal rank among the Ottawas. My grandfather was then a sub-chief and my great- grandfather was a war chief, whose name was Pun-go-wish: And several other chiefs of the tribe I could mention who existed at that time, but this is ample evidence that the historian was mistaken in asserting that there was no known Ottawa chief existing at the time of ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... the ruin of all these puns; the gentlemen will hate me; I must learn to ignore their conundrums until they answer them themselves, and to wait patiently for the pun instead of catching it and laughing before it is half-spoken. Why can't I do as the others do? There was Mr. Van Ingen with his constant stream of them, that I anticipated several times. He said to me, "If I were asked what town in Louisiana I would rather be in this evening, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... of unknown origin, signifies some question or statement in which some hidden and fanciful resemblance is involved, the answer often depending upon a pun; an enigma is a dark saying; a paradox is a true statement that at first appears absurd or contradictory; a problem is something thrown out for solution; puzzle (from oppose) referred originally ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... on a smart Paris frock to land in, and meet "Larry": also hat. She looked a dream, and felt one. Every woman did her best in the clothes line (I don't mean a pun), but Mrs. Shuster transcended us all. You can't think what she was like in one of the new-fashioned dresses, and a close-winged hat with a long stick-out thing behind exactly the shape and size of a setting hen. You may imagine ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... my own history by saying, I went to a North Country school, where I was noted for my aptness in learning; and my skill at 'prisoner's base,'—upon my word I purposed no pun! I was intended for the Church. Wishing, betimes, to instruct myself in its ceremonies, I persuaded my schoolmaster's maidservant to assist me towards promoting a christening. My father did not like this premature love for the sacred rites. He ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the tongue could rest, ere the lips could close The sound of a listener's laughter rose. It was not the scream of a merry boy When harlequin waves his wand of joy; Nor the shout from a serious curate, won By a bending bishop's annual pun; Nor the roar of a Yorkshire clown;—oh, no! It was a gentle laugh, and low; Half uttered, perhaps, perhaps, and stifled half, A good old-gentlemanly laugh; Such as my uncle Peter's are, When he tells you his tales of Dr. Parr. The rider looked to the left and the right, With something of marvel, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... corroboration of Marco's story, but giving a different form to the pun, has been found by Mr. W.F. Mayers, of the Diplomatic Department in China, in a Chinese compilation dating from the latter part of the 14th century. Under the heading, "A Kiang-nan Prophecy," this book ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... the humorous sort, which may be considered as really waste-failures as any tainted hams that ever were yclept Westphalias. For of all dreary and lugubrious perpetrations in print, nothing can be more desolate than laboured witticism. A pun is a momentary spark dropt upon the tinder-box of social intercourse; and to detach such a sentence from its producing circumstances, is about as efficacious a method of producing laughter, as the scintillatory flint and ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... my pocket-book—or rather, to stretch a bad pun till it bursts, my pocket-dictionary—I require the aid of your benevolently-squandered talents for the correction of these proofs. I am, as usual, both idle and busy this morning; so draw pen, and set ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... process was steadily going on in the central senate of the nation. Parliament was passing Bill after Bill for the enclosure by the great landlords of such of the common lands as had survived out of the great communal system of the Middle Ages. It is much more than a pun, it is the prime political irony of our history that the ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... of pun-protesting groans filled the cavern, and as several of the boys arose in attitudes of vengeance, the punster made a dive for the exit and disappeared beyond the blanket portiere. None of the protestors followed. They did not feel like engaging ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... as if she appreciated the pun, and said musingly, "I'd like to see for myself how well they fitted. The names sound so funny. Do you ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... struck me forcibly, and on reflection I found that I never knew nor heard of one, though I have once or twice heard a woman make a single detached pun, as I have known a ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... not knowing her pun, "a thousand times," and she turned without further explanation to the gentleman: "When I tell Mr. Maxwell of this he will suffer as he ought, and that's saying a great deal, for not coming with me to-day. To think of it's ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... the range of his intellect,—only it had never any thing half so good in it." I quote this merely as one of the average bons-mots which made the small change of his ordinary conversation. He would pun, too, in talk, which he scarcely ever did in writing. Thus he extemporized as an epitaph for his friend Charles Knight, "GOOD NIGHT!"—When Mrs. Glover complained that her hair was turning gray,—from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various |
