The pun, regarded by many as an egregious category of humor, has been known and appreciated by writers for millennia. The ancient Greeks delighted in manipulating their words and they even devised a word, paronomasia, which sounds much like a terrible psychiatric disorder but means to call something by using a slight name-change, for purposes of irony or humor. The Romans expanded the meaning of their word, punctum [a point, as in words such as punctuation or punctual] to signify a point of humor. In Italian, this became puntiglio, meaning a fine point, a delightful play on words, which in turn evolved into the English word, pun, a belabored, disingenuous form of low humor based upon the playful use of words with the same sounds but with disparate meanings.

Some years ago the Wall Street Journal defined these witticisms as follows:

Paronomasia:

Having fun
Is the measure of pleasure
And so the pun
Is the pleasure I treasure.

- STANLEY M. ARONSON, MD, MPH
Copyright Rhode Island Medical Society Jun 2003