Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
About Puns

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Hello Young Pundits,

Lewis Carroll likes to use puns which is why I addressed you as "Pundits." A pun is a play on words. Sometimes a pun plays on the similar sound of different words. For example, "Pundit" is a different word than "pun," but it sounds similar. A "pundit" is a learned person; a "pun" is a play on words. Another example are the words "to," "too" and "two." They are different words with different meanings, but they all sound the same. Follow this conversation:

"I went too."
"To where?"
"To wear? To wear what?"
"This is too confusing."
"Hey, it's two o'clock we better get to tomorrow too!"
"You mean by two?"
"Buy two what?"
"Bicycles?"
"I'd rather buy two popsicles today and tomorrow too!"
"We can eat them by the bicycles."
"We can get two for two bits."
"That's a good buy."
"Good-bye to you too."

In other cases a pun is a play on the different meanings of the same word. For example, the word "air" has many different meanings. Follow this conversation:

"He has an air about him."
"We all have air about us. We live in air."
"Newspeople are on the air."
"How can you be on the air? You can't even see it?"
"I think I need some air."
"The air in our car just got fixed, you can use it if you want."
"I think this whole conversation is up in the air."

Lewis Carroll loves to use puns in Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland and he's much better at it than I am. Look for puns as you are reading about Alice's strange adventure.

Guarded Regards to your Guards and Guardians,

Mr. Draeger

©2005-2008 Glen Draeger (all rights reserved)
Millstone Education: World Literature / http://www.millstoneeducation.com/worldLit