Hello, everyone. My name is Robin.
And in this video we are going to talk about ‘puns’.
Okay. Now puns are very difficult to understand.
Very difficult to hear. And very difficult to use.
So this video is an advanced video and I don't expect my students to
start making their own puns very soon. So this video is more for fun just to understand
a little bit of English word play.
Well, a ‘pun’ is kind of a word used in a joke. And the word has two meanings.
we're just going to jump into an example. And I have a very simple example here.
The word that is a pun is soul because soul has two meanings of course.
Now, when I say Korea has soul, this is s o u l. That soul means, Korea has some
But of course it has another meaning.
Because, soul, the spelling is different but the sound is the same.
Seoul is a city in Korea. So when we say ‘Korea has soul’, it's kind
of a joke because the ‘soul’ has two meanings. Okay.
Now pun jokes are kind of not really haha funny.
Usually when someone says a pun joke, everyone is kind of quiet.
So if I said ‘Korea has soul’, maybe everyone's oh yeah.
Okay. All right. So let's take a look at a couple other
examples of pun jokes to help you understand.
I have two more examples here to help you understand the pun jokes. Okay.
The jokes, they use a pun. Again, they're not really haha funny.
‘My bicycle fell… my bicycle fell because it's two-tired.’
‘My bicycle fell because it's two-tired.’ All right.
So the blue word, that's the pun. And again, a pun has two meanings.
So why is this funny? or not so funny?
Too tired. Alright. So again, two meanings.
The first meaning, my bicycle has ‘two tires’. Okay.
The front tire and the back tire. So has only two tires.
So it fell. But there's also a second meaning.
It's ‘two tired’ sounds like t-o-o, very tired. So a bicycle fell because it's very tired.
Alright. So ‘two tired’ sounds like ‘too tired’.
And too tired, very tired. Alright.
So that's what makes the pun funny. There's two meanings.
‘I used to be a banker but I lost interest.’ ‘I used to be a banker but I lost interest.’
This word has two meanings. The first meaning is ‘interest’ - I'm interested.
He's no longer interested in banking. So he's not a banker anymore.
‘interest’ is actually a bank term bank.
Bank vocabulary - when you put money in the bank.
Okay. Every year the bank will give you interest.
For example, six percent or 4 percent. They give you interest every year.
So he's not a banker anymore because he lost interest.
Which would mean he lost money. All right.
So this is funny. ‘I used to be a banker but I lost interest’
Because ‘interest’ is a pun. It has two meanings.
First meaning, he's not interested in the banking business anymore.
And the second meaning, he lost some money. Okay.
All right, let's move on to one last one.]
I'm going to show you actually has two puns.
And you can decide if it's funny or not.
So there's a question and answer.
The question, ‘How do celebrities stay cool?’
‘How do celebrities stay cool?’
Of course, celebrities are famous people, stars, talents.
‘How do celebrities stay cool?’ ‘They have many fans.’
And as I said, there's actually two puns.
So the question, ‘How do celebrities stay cool?’ Okay.
So cool has two meanings. The first meaning is cool, cold.
Okay. Not hot not warm. So how do they stay cold?
The second meaning is, cool, you know wearing sunglasses, they're cool.
All right. Very good. Very cool. So the two meanings of cool.
They have many fans of course. There's the pun.
And the pun has two meanings. The first meaning is fan.
When you're hot, you have the machine blowing air. That's the fan.
And of course, the other meaning, the second meaning of fan is, when you're very famous
and popular people like you, they're your fans. They're screaming.
And they want your signature, your autograph. Those are fans.
Okay. So, ‘How do a celebrities stay cool?’
‘They have many fans.’ All right.
So this is funny because we can recognize there's two meanings here.
So you could read this the first way, ‘How do celebrities stay cool (not hot)?’
‘They have many fans,’ machines blowing at them to stay cool.
Or ‘How do celebrities stay cool?’ ‘They have many fans,’ people screaming.
Okay, yeah, well, these are pun jokes. Some people like them - very advanced English.
Okay because you have to know, you have to have a very good vocabulary, you have to know the word
and it's two meanings to understand the joke.
All right. That's it. I hope you enjoyed the puns video.
And I hope you can maybe create your own pun one day.