The Role of Language in Humor Creation

[Olga]

Dear all,

I am a linguist and I always use jokes when teaching various linguistic phenomena. I have started a series of posts in my blog devoted to this topic: the role of linguistic rules in humor creation. Many jokes and the discussion of how language play is employed in them.

Here is the link to the blog: http://kuno.co.il/en/
And a post on homonymy: http://kuno.co.il/en/language-and-hum...

I'm copying here some examples of homonymy employed by Lewis Carroll:

‘Mine is a long and a sad tale!’ said the Mouse, turning to Alice and sighing.
‘It is a long tail, certainly,’ said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse’s tail; ‘but why do you call it sad?’

`I’m a poor man, your Majesty,’ the Hatter began, in a trembling voice, `–and I hadn’t begun my tea–not above a week or so–and what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin–and the twinkling of the tea–‘
`The twinkling of the what?’ said the King.
`It began with the tea,’ the Hatter replied.
`Of course twinkling begins with a T!’ said the King sharply. `Do you take me for a dunce? Go on!’

…’there’s a large mustard-mine near here. And the moral of that is – “The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours.” ‘