Homonymy- and polysemy-based humour

Homonymy and polysemy have always been a rich source of humour. Jokes based on homonymy are known as ‘puns’, and English, with its wealth of homonyms, provides plenty of potential for humorous word play. Puns tend to elicit laughs or groans, but rarely a neutral response: some people like being awakened to sense relations in language while others do not. One of the leading exponents of pun-based humour is Milton Jones, whose work draws on surprising or unexpected connections between homophonous (or near-homophonous) words, or different senses of polysemous ones: ‘I phoned up the spiritual leader of Tibet, and he sent a large goat with a long neck. Turned out I’d phoned Dial-a-Llama’. ‘If they make it illegal to wear the veil at work, bee-keepers are going to be furious.’

‘The pollen count. That’s a difficult job.’

‘Incredible to think, isn’t it, that every single Scotsman started off as a Scotch egg.’

‘Years ago I used to supply filofaxes to the Mafia. I was involved in very organized crime.’