Word play for names

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

Source: Author robynraymer

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor NatalieW before going online.
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If you want to improve your writing, maybe it’s time to ditch all the writing books and podcasts and play some word games instead.

Yes, seriously! Word games and writing games are great ways to develop your vocabulary, to help you think more deeply about words, to have fun with story and structure, and to get a lot of fun out of writing.

But games can be a great way to:

• Develop your vocabulary
• Help you think more deeply about words
• Become more fluent in English (if it’s a foreign language for you)
• Invent and develop characters

… and much more.

After the list of 50 writing games, I’ve given you a top ten that I think are particularly great for kids who want to practice their writing skills. Many of the other games are suitable for children, too, so by all means try out other games as a family if you want to.

Of course, there are loads of online games (and quizzes and tools) that you can use to improve your writing skills, and I will be talking about some of the best of those. But there are also lots of tried-and-tested classic games that you can play with pen and paper, or using cards and dice … and we’ll be taking a look at those first.

5 Pen and Paper Word Games

I’ll start with the simplest games: pen and paper ones that you can play pretty much anywhere, so long as you have a pen.

All of these are suitable for children, and some (like crosswords) are enjoyed by many adults too.

#1: Hangman (2+ players)

Hangman is a classic word game for two players. One player thinks of a word and writes down dashes to represent the number of letters. The other guesses letters of the alphabet. Correct letters are inserted into the word; incorrect letters result in another segment of the “hangman” being drawn.

This is a great game for developing spelling and vocabulary. If you’re playing it with small children, you can do it without the perhaps rather unpleasant “hangman” element, and just count how many guesses each player takes!

#2: Crosswords (1 player)

A crossword is a grid of white and black squares, where each white square is one letter of a word. The words intersect. You can find crosswords in many newspapers and magazines (on all sorts of subjects), and you can buy booklets and books full of them. Some crosswords are “cryptic”: great if you like brainteasers. Others have more straightforward clues.

Crosswords are great if you want to learn new words and definitions, or (at the cryptic end of the scale) if you enjoy playing with words and language. Simple ones are suitable for fairly young children, with a little help.

#3: Word searches (1 player)

A word search has a grid (often 10×10 or more) filled with letters, and a number of words written alongside or beneath the grid. The person completing the word search needs to find those words within the grid.

Most word searches are easy enough for children, though younger children will struggle with backward and diagonal words. They’re a good way to get used to letter patterns and to improve spelling – and because word searches rely on matching letters, even children who can’t read well will be able to complete simple ones.

#4: Consequences (2+ players, ideally 4+)

This is a fun game with a group of people, as you get a wild and wacky mix of ideas. Each player writes down one line of a story and folds the paper over before passing it around the table to the next player. The very simple version we play has five lines: (1) A male name, (2) The word “met” then a female name, (3) “He said …” (4) “She said …” (5) “And then …”

Once all five stages are complete, the players open out the papers and read out the results. This can be great for sparking ideas, or as a way to encourage reluctant writers to have a go.

#5: Bulls and Cows (2 players)

This game, which can also be called “Mastermind” or “Jotto” involves one player thinking up a secret word of a set number of letters. The second player guesses a word; the first player tells them how many letters match in the right position (bulls) and how many letters are correct but in the wrong position (cows).

Our five year old loves this game, and it’s been a great way to develop her spelling and handwriting as well as logical thinking about which letters can or can’t be the correct ones after a few guesses.

10 Board and Dice Games

These are all games you can buy from Amazon (or quite probably your local toyshop). They’re fun ways to foster a love of writing within your family, or to share your enjoyment of words with your friends.

#1: Scrabble (2+ players)

A classic of word games, Scrabble is a game played with letter tiles on a board that’s marked with different squares. (Some squares provide extra points.) Letters have different points values depending on how common they are. The end result of scrabble looks like a crossword: a number of words overlapping with one another.

If you want to develop your vocabulary (particularly of obscure two-letter words…) then Scrabble is a great game to play. It’s suitable for children too, particularly in “Junior” versions.

#2: Boggle (2+ players)

This is less well known than Scrabble, but it was one I enjoyed as a child. To play Boggle, you shake a box full of dice with a letter on each side, and the dice land in the 4×4 grid at the bottom of the box. You then make as many words as you can from the resulting face-up letters.

Again, this is a good one for developing vocabulary – and it can be played by children as well as by adults. You need to write down the words you come up with, which can also be good for developing handwriting.

#3: Pass the Bomb (2+ players)

It’s very simple to play: you deal a card for the round pass a “bomb” around the table and when it goes off, the person holding it loses. Before you can pass the bomb on during your turn, you need to come up with a word that contains the letters on the card.

It’s a fun family or party game, and can work well with a wide range of ages. It’s a great way to help children think about letter patterns, too, and to develop vocabulary and spelling.

#4: Story Cubes (1+ players)

There are lots of different versions of these available, and they all work in a similar way. The open-ended game has a set of cubes that you roll to create ideas for a story that you can tell along with the other players. If you prefer, you can use them to come up with stories that you’re going to write on your own.

There are lots of different ways you can use them: as writing prompts for a school class or group, to make up a bedtime story together with your children, for getting past your own writers’ block, or almost anything you can think of.

#5: Apples to Apples (2+ players)

Apples to Apples has red cards (with the name of a person, place, thing, etc) and green cards (with two different descriptions): the player with a green card selects one of the descriptions, and others have to choose a card from their hand of red cards. The judge for that game decides which red card best matches the description.

If you want to develop your vocabulary (or your kids’), this could be a fun game to play. There are lots of expansions available, plus a “junior” version with simpler words. (If you’re playing with adults, you might also want to consider Cards Against Humanity, a decidedly not-kid-friendly game that works in a very similar way.)

#6: Letter Tycoon (2+ players)

In this game, you have a hand of 7 cards which you can use in conjunction with the 3 “community cards” to create a valuable word. It’s a more strategic game than some others, with aspects of finance (like patents and royalties) involved too – if you’re a budding tycoon, you might really enjoy it.

Because not all the game strategy depends on simply being good with words, it doesn’t matter if some players have a larger vocabulary than others. It’s suitable for children, too, so you can play it as a family game.

#7: Dabble (2+ players)

Dabble is a family-friendly game where you compete with other players to be the first to create five words (of 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 letters) using your 20 tiles. It’s very simple to get the hang of … but coming up with the words might be more challenging than you expect!

If you enjoy Boggle or Scrabble, you’ll probably have fun with Dabble. It’s a great way to develop both spelling and vocabulary, and to have fun with words.

#8: Upwords (2+ players)

Upwords is like 3D Scrabble: you can stack tiles on top of other tiles to create new words. The board is smaller than a Scrabble board (and doesn’t have double and triple word score squares) so it’s not as complex as it might initially sound.

Like similar games, it’s a great one for building vocabulary and for developing your spelling. It’s suitable for kids, too, so it could be a great game for the whole family.

#9: Tapple (2+ players)

Tapple has a wheel, with most of the letters of the alphabet on it, and lots of different “topic cards” that cover 144 different categories. There are lots of different ways you can play it – the basic rules are that each player has to think of a word that fits the topic within 10 seconds, but that word can’t start with a starting letter that’s been used previously.

While small children might find it a bit too challenging or frustrating, due to the short time limit, this could be a great game for older children looking to extend their vocabulary. All the categories are suitable for kids.

#10: Last Word (2+ players)

In Last Word, players have to come up with answers to “Subject” and “Letter” combinations, racing to get the last word before the buzzer. It works a bit like a combination of “Tapple” and “Pass the Bomb”.

You can easily play it with a large group (there are tokens for up to 8 players, but you could add more without affecting the gameplay). It’s a great way to develop vocabulary and, to some extent, spelling.

5 Roleplaying Games

While my geeky tendencies have been reined in a bit since I had kids, I’ll admit I have a great fondness for roleplaying games: ones where you come up with a character (often, but by no means always in a magic-medieval setting) and play as them. These are some great ones that you might like to try.

#1: Dungeons and Dragons (3+ players)

Although you might never have played Dungeons and Dragons, I’m sure you’ve heard of this classic roleplaying game that’s been around since 1974 and is now onto is 5^th edition. It takes rather longer to get to grips with than a board or card game: to play, you need a “Dungeon Master” (essentially the storyteller of the game) and at least two players (who each control a character), plus rulebooks and a lot of different dice.

It’s a great game for developing the “big picture” aspects of writing, like the ability to construct a plot and a story (if you’re the Dungeon Master) and the skills involved with creating a character, giving them a backstory, and acting “in character” as them (if you’re one of the players).

#2: Amazing Tales (1 parent, plus 1 or 2 children)

This is a kid-friendly RPG aimed at parents who want to create a story with their child(ren). It’s like a very simple version of Dungeons and Dragons, and has straightforward but flexible rules. You can play it with a single six-sided dice – though it’s better if you have four dice (with six, eight, ten and twelve sides).

If you want to encourage your child’s creativity and have fun creating stories together, this is a wonderful game to play. The rulebook contains lots of ideas and sample settings, with suggested characters and skills … but you can come up with pretty much any scenario you like.

#3: LARP (Live Action Roleplay) (lots of players)

Over the past decade or so, LARP has become a bit more mainstream than it once was. It’s short for “Live Action Roleplay” … which basically means dressing up as your character and pretending to be them. It’s a bit like Dungeons and Dragons crossed with improv drama.

The nature of LARP is that it needs quite a lot of people, so unless you have loads of friends to rope in, you’ll want to join an organised LARP – there are lots out there, covering all sorts of different themes, from traditional fantasy ones to futuristic sci-fi ones. Some are suitable for children, but do ask event organisers about this. They won’t necessarily involve any sort of writing, but can be a great way to explore characters and dialogue.

#4: MUDs (lots of players)

MUDs, or “multi-user dungeons” have been around since the early days of networked computing in the ‘70s, and are the forerunners of games like Fortnite and World of Warcraft. They’re now distinctly retro-looking text-based online games, where players create a character and interact with other characters and the world.

Like other types of roleplaying game, they’re a great way to practice storytelling and character-development skills. They also involve a lot of writing – so they can be useful for things like vocabulary and spelling. Some are suitable for children, but as with anything online, do ensure your children know how to be safe (e.g. by not giving out their full name, address, etc).

#5: Online Forum Games / Forum Roleplaying (2+ players)

Some fan communities write collaborative fanfiction through forums (here’s an example), with different people posting little pieces as different “characters” to continue a story. These can be quite involved and complex, and they can be a great way to learn the skills of telling a long, detailed story (e.g. if you’re thinking of writing a novel).

They’ll probably appeal most to writers who are already producing fanfiction on their own, and who have a fair amount of time for the back-and-forth required for forum roleplaying. Again, if your child wants to get involved with this type of roleplaying, do make sure you monitor what they’re doing and who they’re interacting with.

10 Word Games You Can Play on Your Phone

These days, many writers are more likely to have their phone to hand than a pen and paper … and to be fair, there’s nothing wrong with that. You can easily make notes on a phone, whether by tapping them in or by recording them. If you find yourself with a bit of time on your hands, why not try one of these writing-related games?

Note: all of these are free to download, but most allow in-app purchases, and you may find you need to make a purchase to get the most out of them.

#1: Bonza Word Puzzle

This game is a bit like a deconstructed crossword: you get bits of the puzzle and you drag them together to form words that will all match with the clue. If you’re a fan of crosswords and want something a bit different, you might just love it.

It’s a great way to think hard about letter patterns and how words are put together, so it might be a good game for older children who’re looking to develop their spelling and vocabulary, too.

#2: Dropwords 2

Dropwords 2 (a rewrite of the original Dropwords) is a word-finding puzzle where letters drop from the top of the screen: if you remember Tetris, you’ll get the idea. It’s a bit like Scrabble or Boggle, and you have to race the clock to make letters out of the words on the screen.

With six different modes (“normall”, “lightning”, “relax”, etc), it’s suitable for children and for people who are learning English, as well as for those wanting to really challenge their vocabulary skills.

#3: Spellspire

Spellspire is a fantasy-style game where you select letters from a grid to create words: the longer the word, the bigger the blast from your magic wand! You can kill monsters, buy better equipment, and make your way to the top of the Spellspire.

If your kids aren’t very motivated to practice their spelling, this could be a great game for them. (Or, let’s face it, for you!) You can also choose to play it against your Facebook friends, adding a competitive element.

#4: TypeShift

This is a relatively simple game that lets you create words from letters arranged on different dials. There are a couple of different ways you can play: by trying to use all the letters on the dials at least once to create words, or by tackling the “Clue Puzzles”, which are a bit like crossword clues.

Again, if you want to develop your spelling and vocabulary, this is a straightforward game that you can use to do so. You can buy extra puzzle packs at a fairly reasonable price, if you find that you want to play it a lot.

#5: Wordalot

This crossword app uses pictures rather than written clues, which is a fun twist. You can use coins to get hints (you can earn these through the game, or purchase them with real money).

If you enjoy doing crosswords but want something a bit different, give this one a try. You might find that as well as helping you develop your spelling and vocabulary, it’s a great way to develop your lateral thinking as you puzzle out the clues.

#6: WordBrain

This game is another one where you have to find hidden, scrambled words within a grid. There are loads of different levels (1180!) and so this could keep you busy for a long time. You can purchase hints – this could potentially see you clocking up quite a spend, though.

All the words are appropriate for children (though some are tricky to spell), so your kids might well enjoy this game too, as a way to develop their spelling and vocabulary.

#7: Ruzzle

Ruzzle works like Boggle, with a 4×4 grid of letters that you use to make words (the letters must be adjacent to one another). You can play it against friends, or simply against random players.

Like the other apps we’ve looked at, it’s a good one for developing your vocabulary and spelling. Some players said it included too many ads, so this is something to be aware of if you plan to use the free version rather than upgrading.

#8: WordWhizzle Search

This is a word search type game with loads of different levels to play. If you enjoy word searches, it’s a great way to carry lots around in your pocket! You can play it alone or with Facebook friends. It’s easy to get to grips with, but the levels get increasingly tricky, so you’re unlikely to get bored quickly.

As with other apps, this is a great one for developing your spelling and vocabulary. Each level has a particular description (words should match with this), so you have to avoid any “decoy” words that don’t match.

#9: 7 Little Words

This game works a bit like a crossword: each puzzle has seven clues, seven mystery words, and 20 tiles that include groups of letters. You need to solve the clues and rearrange the letter types so you can create the answers to the mystery words – so it’s also a bit like an anagram.

There are five different difficulty levels (“easy” to “impossible”) and each game is quick to play, so this could be a good one for kids too. Again, it’s a great way to develop vocabulary and spelling.

#10: Words With Friends

This classic word-building game is hugely popular, and you can play against your Facebook or Twitter friends, or against a random opponent. It works just like Scrabble, where you have seven letter tiles and add them to a board.

You can chat with the opponent in a chat window, so do be aware of this if you’re allowing your kids to play. The game is a great way to develop vocabulary and spelling, and you can play it fairly casually because there’s no time limit on your moves.

10 Word Games You Can Play in Your Browser

What if you want a writing-related game you can play while taking a break at your computer? All of these are games that you can play in your browser: some involve a lot of writing and are essentially story-telling apps, whereas others are essentially digital versions of traditional pen and paper games.

Unless otherwise noted, these games are free. With some free browser games, you’ll see a lot of ads. If this annoys you, or if you’re concerned that the ads may be unsuitable for your children, you may want to opt for premium games instead.

#1: Wild West Hangman

This is a digital version of Hangman, which we covered above. You choose a category for words (e.g. “Countries” or “Fruits And Vegetables”) and then you play it just like regular Hangman.

It’s simple enough for children – but it only takes six wrong guesses for your cowboy to be hanged, too, so it could get frustrating for younger children.

#2: Word Wipe

In Word Wipe, you swipe adjacent tiles (including diagonals) to create words, a bit like in Boggle. The tiles fall down a 10×10 grid (moving into the blank spaces you’ve created when your word disappears from the grid) – your aim is to clear whole rows of the grid.

Since the easiest words to create are short, simple ones, this is a great game for children or for adults who want to get better at spelling.

#3: Sheffer Crossword

As you might expect, this is a crossword game! There’s a different free puzzle each day, and you can choose from puzzles from the past couple of weeks. It looks very much like a traditional crossword, and you simply click on a clue then type in your answer.

The clues are straightforward rather than cryptic, though probably not easy enough to make this a good app for children or for English learners. If you’re a fan of crosswords, this will definitely be a great way to develop your vocabulary, though.

#4: Twine

Twine is a bit different from some of the other games we’ve looked at: it’s a tool for telling interactive stories (a bit like the old “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, or a text-based adventure game). You lay out your story as different cards and create connections between them.

If you want to experiment with interactive fiction, this is a simple, code-free to get started – as reviewer Kitty Horrorshow puts it, “if you can type words and occasionally put brackets around some of those words, you can make a Twine game”. It’s a great way to deepen your understanding of story, plot and narrative.

#5: Storium

Like Twine, Storium is designed to help you tell stories … but these stories are written in collaboration with others. (There’s a great review, with screenshots, here on GeekMom.) You can either join a story as a character within it, or you can narrate a story – so this is a great game for building lots of different big-picture fiction-writing skills.

It’s suitable for teens, but probably involves a bit too much writing for younger children. If you’d like to write fiction but the idea of creating a whole novel on your own seems a bit overwhelming, or if you enjoy roleplaying-type games (like Dungeons and Dragons), then you might just love Storium.

#6: Words for Evil

This game combines a fantasy RPG setting (where you fight monsters, get loot, gain levels and so on), with word games to play along the way. It could be a good way to encourage a reluctant young teen writer to have fun playing with words – or you might simply enjoy playing it yourself.

The word games work in a very similar way to Word Wipe, so if you found that game frustrating, then Words for Evil probably isn’t for you!

#7: First Draft of the Revolution

This game is an interactive story, told in the form of letters (epistolary). It comes at writing from a much more literary angle than many of the other games, and if you’ve studied English literature or creative writing, or if you teach writing, then you might find it particularly interesting.

The graphics are gorgeous – playing the game is like turning the pages of a book. To play First Draft of the Revolution, you make choices about how to rewrite the main character (Juliette’s) draft letters – helping you gain insight into the process of drafting and redrafting, as well as affecting the ongoing story.

#8: Writing Challenge

Writing Challenge can be used alone or with friends, creating a collaborative story by racing against the clock. You can use it as an app on your phone, as well as on your computer, so you can add to your stories at any time.

If you struggle to stay motivated when you’re writing, then Writing Challenge could be a great way to gamify your writing life – and potentially to create collaborative works of fiction.

#9: Plot Generator

Plot Generator works a bit like Mad Libs: you select a particular type of story (e.g. short story, movie script, fairytale) then enter a bunch of words as prompted. The website creates the finished piece for you. There are also options for story ideas (essentially writing prompts), character generators, and much more on the site.

If you’re stuck for an idea, or just want to play around a bit, Plot Generator could be a lot of fun. Some of the options, like Fairy Tale, are great to use with young children – others may not be so suitable, so do vet the different options first.

#10: The Novelist ($9.99)

The Novelist follows the life of Dan Kaplan, a struggling novelist who’s also trying to be a good husband and father. You can make choices about what Dan should do to reach his goals in different areas of his life – and the decisions you make affect what happens next in the game. You are a “ghost” in the house, learning about and influencing the characters.

While there’s not any actual writing involved in the game, it could be a thought-provoking way to explore how writing fits into your own life.

10 Games to Help You Learn to Type

Typing might seem like an odd thing to include on a list of writing games. But so much of writing involves being able to type – and if you’re a slow typist, you’ll find that your fingers can’t keep up with your brain! While most people find that their typing does naturally improve with practice, these games are all quick ways for you (or your kids) to get that practice in a fun way.

Obviously, all of these games should help to improve typing skills: those which involve whole words may also help with spelling and vocabulary. Unless otherwise mentioned, they’re free.

#1: Dance Mat Typing

This game is designed to teach children touch type (type without looking at the keyboard). It starts off with Level 1, teaching you the “home row” (middle row) keys on the keyboard. Other letters are gradually added in as the game progresses.

It’s very much aimed at kids, so teens and adults may find the animated talking goat a bit annoying or patronising! Unlike many other free games, though, it doesn’t include ads.

#2: Spider Typer

This typing game took a while to load for me: you too many find it’s a bit slow. In the game, you type the letters that appear on chameleons that are trying to catch a spider (the chameleons disappear when you hit their letter). The spider keeps rising up into a tree, and if it safely gets there, you move on to the next level.

It’s suitable for kids, and starts off very easy with just letters: if you set it to a harder difficulty, you need to type whole words.

#3: NitroType

This is a competitive typing game where you race a car against friends (or total strangers) by typing the text at the bottom of the screen. It’s a good one for practicing typing whole sentences, including punctuation – not just typing letters or words.

Older children might enjoy it, and any adults with a strong competitive streak! You can compete as a “guest racer”, or you can create an account and login so you can level up and gain rewards like a better car.

#4: TypeRacer

TypeRacer is similar to NitroType: you control a racing car and the faster you type, the faster your car moves. You can practice on your own, enter a typing race, or race against your friends if you prefer.

If you create an account and login, other users can see your username, score, average speed and so on – and they can also send you messages. This could potentially open you up to receiving spam or unwanted communications, so do be aware of this, particularly if you’re allowing your child to play.

#5: The Typing of the Ghosts             

In this game, you destroy ghosts by typing the word on them. The graphics are pretty rudimentary, though it is a free game and a good way to practice quickly typing words. It’s suitable for children, and the sound effects (there’s a noise for every letterstroke) may appeal to kids.

You don’t need to create an account or login: you can simply start playing straight away.

#6: Typing Chef

In this game, you type cooking-related words (usually types of equipment). It involves single words and a few double words with a space between at the early levels.

There’s nothing particularly unusual about this game compared with others, though it wasn’t so ad-heavy as some and doesn’t require any registration. It’s good for teaching words and phrases, but not for helping you to learn to type whole sentences.

#7: TypeTastic

This is a fun typing game aimed at young kids, so it starts with the fundamentals. You start by building a keyboard from letter blocks, then learn how to spot letters on the keyboard quickly before learning where those letters are located.

Teachers or parents might be interested in reading about why the game starts with mapping the keyboard. The interface and graphics are pretty good, given that it’s a free game, and it’s designed specifically with young children in mind.

#8: Typer Shark! Delux

This is a free typing game, where you’re a diver exploring the seas. You can choose from different difficulty levels, and – in a mechanic that’s probably by now quite familiar if you’ve played any of the other typing games – you get rid of creatures like sharks by typing the word written on them.

Again, this can help you with your typing speed and accuracy. I found it was a bit slow to load, but it’s not full of ads like some other games.

#9: Typing Attack

In this game, you’re a spaceship, facing enemy spaceships – each with a word written on them. I expect you can guess what you need to do: type the word correctly to destroy the spaceship. Some words are shorter, some longer, and as with other games, there are multiple difficulty settings.

You’ll need to watch an ad before the game loads, which can be annoying, and means that it isn’t necessarily suitable for children.

#10: The Typing of the Dead: Overkill ($14.99)

This game is definitely aimed at adults rather than kids, because it’s a bit gory. It also costs $14.99, so it’s probably one that’ll suit you best if you’re really keen to improve your typing speed – perhaps you do transcription, for instance, or you’re a freelance writer.

To play the game, you type the words that appear in front of the enemies and monsters: each type you type a letter correctly, you send a bullet at them. If you like horror games and films, it could be a fun way to learn to type faster – but it won’t necessarily improve your accuracy with whole sentences.

10 Word Games that Are Particularly Suited to Kids

While I’ve tried to indicate above whether or not the games are suitable for kids, I wanted to list the ten that I’d particularly recommend if you want to help your children get a great start as budding writers.

Several of these are games I play with my five-year-old already; others are games I’m really looking forward to using with her and my son as they get older. I won’t repeat the full descriptions: just scroll back up if you want those.

#1: Word searches (pen and paper) – you can buy whole books of these, or print off free ones. Older kids might have fun creating their own for their friends or siblings.

#2: Bulls and Cows (pen and paper) – you can play this with just a pen and paper (or if you’ve got a really good memory, with nothing at all).

#3: Boggle (board game) – this is simple enough for quite young children to get the hang of it: my five-year-old enjoys playing it with her Granny.

#4: Story Cubes (dice game) – your child can use these on their own to come up with ideas for a story, or you could use them with a group of children – e.g. in a classroom or as part of a club.

#5: Amazing Tales (roleplaying) – this child-friendly RPG is a great way to introduce big-picture storytelling skills, particularly developing a character.

#6: Spellspire (phone app) – a fun spelling/word-creation game your child can play on your phone (and probably a bit more educational than yet another game of Angry Birds).

#7: Wild West Hangman (browser game) – if your child likes hangman but you don’t always have the time to play it with them, this is a good alternative.

#8: First Draft of the Revolution (browser game) – if your teen is interested in writing and/or the French revolution, they might really enjoy this intriguing game based around redrafting letters.

#9: Dance Mat Typing (typing game) – this game from the BBC is high-quality, and designed to appeal to young children. It teaches good typing practice from the start, by explaining correct finger placement on the keys.

#10: TypeTastic – this is another typing game aimed at young children, and this one starts with putting together a keyboard – a great place to begin.

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Do you have any favourite writing games – of any type? Share them with us in the comments.

It goes without saying that writers are drawn to language, but because we love words so much, the English language is filled with word play. By interrogating the complexities of language—homophones, homographs, words with multiple meanings, sentence structures, etc.—writers can explore new possibilities in their work through a play on words.

It’s easiest to employ word play in poetry, given how many linguistic possibilities there are in poetry that are harder to achieve in prose. Nonetheless, the devices listed in this article apply to writers of all genres, styles, and forms of writing.

After examining different word play examples—such as portmanteaus, malapropisms, and oxymorons—we’ll look at opportunities for how these devices can propel your writing. But first, let’s establish what we mean when we’re talking about a play on words.

Wordplay Definition

Word play, also written as wordplay, word-play, or a play on words, is when a writer experiments with the sound, meaning, and/or construction of words to produce new and interesting meanings. In other words, the writer is twisting language to say something unexpected, with the intent of entertaining or provoking the reader.

Wordplay definition: Experimentation with the sounds, definitions, and/or constructions of words to produce new and interesting meanings.

It should come as no surprise that many word play examples were written by Shakespeare. One such example comes from Hamlet. Some time after Polonius is killed, Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius, asks him where Polonius is. The below exchange occurs:

The line “Not where he eats, but where he is eaten” is a play on words, drawing the audience’s attention to Polonius’ death. He is not eating, but being consumed by the worms. This play on the meaning of “eat” utilizes the verb’s multiple definitions—to consume versus to decompose. (It is also an example of synchysis, and of polyptoton, a type of repetition device.)

The most common of word play examples is the pun. A pun directly plays with the sounds and meanings of words to create new and surprising sentences. For example, “The incredulous cat said you’ve got to be kitten me right meow!” puns on the words “kidding” (kitten) and “now” (meow).

To learn more about puns, check out our article on Pun Examples in Literature. Some of the play on words examples in this article can also count as puns, but because we’ve covered puns in a previous blog, this article covers different and surprising possibilities for twisting and torturing language.

Examples of a Play on Words: 10 Literary Devices

Word play isn’t just a way to have fun with language, it’s also a means of creating new and surprising meanings. By experimenting with the possibilities of sound and meaning, writers can create new ideas that traditional language fails to encompass.

Let’s see word play in action. The following examples of a play on words all come from published works of literature.

1. Word Play Examples: Anthimeria

Anthimeria is a type of word play in which a word is employed using a different part of speech than what is typically associated with that word. (For reference, the parts of speech are: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, articles, interjections, conjunctions, and prepositions.)

Most commonly, a writer using anthimeria will make a verb a noun (nominalization), or make a noun a verb (verbification). It would be much harder to employ this device using other parts of speech: using an adjective as a pronoun, for example, would be difficult to read, even for the reader familiar with anthimeria.

Here are some word play examples using anthimeria:

Nouns to Verbs

The word “peace” is being used as a verb, meaning “to calm down.” Many anthimeria examples come to us from Shakespare, in part because of his genius with language, and in part because he needed to use certain words that would preserve the meter of his verse.

Of course, “unhair” isn’t a word at all. But, it’s using “hair” as a verb, and then using the opposite of that verb, to express scalping someone’s hair off.

Shakespeare is using “scarf” as a verb, meaning “to wrap around.” Nowadays, the use of “scarf” as a verb is recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary, but at the time, this was a very new usage of the word.

Verbs to Nouns

It’s difficult to find examples of nominalization in literature, mostly because it’s not a wise decision in terms of writing style. Verbs are the strongest parts of speech: they provide the action of your sentences, and can also provide necessary description and characterization in far fewer words than nouns and adjectives can. Using a verb as a noun only hampers the power of that verb.

Nonetheless, we use verbs as nouns all the time in everyday conversation. If you “hashtag” something on social media, you’re using the noun hashtag as a verb. Or, if you “need a good drink,” you’re noun-ing the verb “drink.” Often, nouns become acceptable dictionary entries for verbs because of the repeated use of nominalizations in everyday speech.

Nouns and Verbs to Adjectives

The words “gossipest, poachest, jailest” might seem silly or immature. But, they’re fun and striking uses of language, and they help characterize Mrs. Day through dialogue.

“I’ll get you, my pretty.”

—From The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

By using the adjective “pretty” as a noun, the witch’s use of anthimeria in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz strikes a chilling note: it’s both pejorative and suggests that the witch could own Dorothy’s beauty.

Anthimeria isn’t just a form of language play, it’s also a means of forging neologisms, which eventually enter the English lexicon. Many words began as anthimerias. For example, the word “typing” used to be a new word, as people didn’t “employ type” until the invention of typing devices, like typewriters. The word “ceiling” comes from an antiquated word “ceil,” meaning sky: “ceiling” means to cover over something, and that verb eventually became the noun we use today.

2. Word Play Examples: Double Entendre

A double entendre is a form of word play in which a word or phrase is used ambiguously, meaning the reader can interpret it in multiple ways. A double entendre usually has a literal meaning and a figurative meaning, with both meanings interacting with each other in some surprising or unusual way.

In everyday speech, the double entendre is often employed sexually. Indeed, writers often use the device lasciviously, and bawdry bards like Shakespeare won’t hesitate when it comes to dirty jokes.

Nonetheless, here a few examples of double entendre that are a little more PG:

The repeated use of “institution” suggests a double meaning. While marriage is, literally, an institution, West is also suggesting that marriage is an institution in a different sense—like a prison or a psychiatric hospital, one that she’s not ready to commit to.

In Homer’s Odyssey, the hero, Odysseus, tells the cyclops Polyphemus that his name is “no man.” Then, when Odysseus blinds Polyphemus, the cyclops is enraged and tells people that “no man” did this, suggesting that his blindness is an affliction from the gods. In this instance, Polyphemus means one thing but communicates another, causing humorous ambiguity for the audience.

In Oscar Wilde’s play, the protagonist Jack Worthing leads a double life: to his lover in the countryside, he’s Jack, while he’s Ernest to his lover in the city. The play follows this character’s deceptions, as well as his realization of the necessity of being true to himself. Thus, in this final line of the play, Jack realizes the importance of being “earnest,” a pun and double entendre on “Ernest.”

3. Word Play Examples: Kenning

The kenning is a type of metaphor that was popular among medieval poets. It is a phrase, usually two nouns, that describes something figuratively, often using words only somewhat related to the object being described.

If you’ve read Beowulf, you’ve seen the kenning in action—and you know that, in translation, some kennings are easier understood than others. For example, the ocean is often described as the “whale path,” which makes sense. But a dragon is described as a “mound keeper,” and if you don’t know that dragons in literature tend to hoard piles of gold, it might be harder to understand this kenning.

A kenning is constructed with a “base word” and a “determinant.” The base word has a metaphoric relationship with the object being described, and the determinant modifies the base word. So, in the kenning “whale path,” the “path” is the base word, as it’s a metaphor for the sea. “Whale” acts as a determinant, cluing the reader towards the water.

The kenning is a play on words because it uses marginally related nouns to describe things in new and exciting language. Here are a few examples:

Kenning In Beowulf

At some point in the text of Beowulf, the following kennings occur:

• Battle shirt — armor
• Battle sweat — blood
• Earth hall — burial mound
• Helmet bearer  — warrior
• Raven harvest — corpse
• Ring giver — king
• Sail road  — the sea
• Sea cloth — sail
• Sky candle — the sun
• Sword sleep — death

Don’t be too surprised by all of the references to fighting and death. Most of Beowulf is a series of battles, and given that the story developed across centuries of Old English, much of the epic poem explores God, glory, and victory.

Kenning Elsewhere in Literature

The majority of kennings come from Old English poetry, though some contemporary poets also employ the device in their work. Here are a few more kenning word play examples.

“The Wanderer” is a poem anonymously written and preserved in a codex called The Exeter Book, a manuscript from the late 900s. It contains approximately ⅙ of the Old English poetry we know about today. In this poem, an “earth-stepper” is a person, and a “wealth-chamber” is the wanderer’s mind or heart—wherever it is that he stores his immaterial virtues.

Ian Crockatt is a contemporary poet and translator from Scotland, and his work with Old Norse poetry certainly influences his own poems. “Sea wolf” is a kenning for “sailor,” and a “love cry” is a love poem.

In this Frost sonnet, the speaker employs the kenning “petal-fall” to describe the autumn. The full text of the poem has been included, not for any particular reason, other than it’s simply a lovely, striking poem.

4. Word Play Examples: Malapropism

A malapropism is a device primarily used in dialogue. It is employed when the correct word in a sentence is replaced with a similar-sounding word or phrase that has an entirely different meaning.

For example, the word “assimilation” sounds a lot like the phrase “a simulation.” Employing a malapropism, I might have a character say “Everything is programmed. We all live in assimilation.”

For the most part, malapropisms are humorous examples of a play on words. They often make fun of people who use pretentious language to sound intelligent. But, in everyday speech, we probably employ more malapropisms than we think, so this device also emulates real speech.

The name “malapropism” comes from the play The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. In it, the character Mrs. Malaprop often uses words with opposite meanings but similar sounds to the word she intends. Here’s an example from the play:

“He is the very pineapple of politeness!” (Instead of pinnacle.)

Malapropisms are also known as Dogberryisms (from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing), or as acyrologia. Though this word play device is employed humorously, it also demonstrates the complex relationship our brain has with language, and how easy it is to mix words up phonetically.

5. Word Play Examples: Metalepsis

Metalepsis is the use of a figure of speech in a new or surprising context, creating multiple layers of meaning. In other words, the writer takes a figure of speech and employs it metaphorically, using that figure of speech to reference something that is otherwise unspoken.

This is a tricky literary device to define, so let’s look at an example right away:

The expected phrase here would be “the blood from spilling.” But, in this excerpt, “life” replaces the word “blood.” The word life, then, becomes a metonymy for “blood,” and as this displacement occurs in the common phrase “spilled blood,” “life” becomes a metalepsis.

So, there are two layers of meaning going on here. One is the meaning derived from the phrase “spilled blood,” and the other comes from the use of “life” to represent “blood.” In any metalepsis, there are multiple layers of meaning occurring, as a metaphor or metonymy is employed to modify a figurative phrase, adding complexity to the phrase itself.

This is a tricky, advanced example of word play, and it primarily occurs in poetry. Here are a few other examples in literature:

Here, the face in question is that of Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world (according to The Iliad and the Odyssey). Helen is claimed by Paris, a prince of Troy, and when he takes Helen home with him, it incites the Trojan war—thus the references to a thousand ships and the towers of Ilium. So, the face refers to Helen, and Faustus describes the beauty of that face tangentially, referencing the magnitude of the Trojan War.

In this Biblical passage, the phrase “cleanness of teeth” is actually referencing hunger. By having nothing to eat, the people have nothing to stain their teeth with. Thus, the figurative image of clean teeth becomes a metalepsis for starvation.

This is a complex extended metaphor and metalepsis. Instead of saying “to the ends of time,” Shakespeare modifies this phrase to “the last syllable of recorded time.” He then extends this idea by saying that life is “a walking shadow, a poor player”—in other words, that which speaks the syllables of recorded time, and then never speaks again. By describing life as an idiot which signifies nothing, Macbeth is saying that life has no inherent value or meaning, and that all men are fools who exist at the whim of a random universe.

Note: this soliloquy arrives after the death of Macbeth’s wife, and it clues us towards Macbeth’s growing madness. So, yes, it’s a very dark passage, but dark for a reason.

To summarize: a metalepsis is a type of word play in which the writer describes something using a tangentially related image or figure of speech. It is, put most succinctly, a metonymy of a metonymy. There is also a narratological device called metalepsis, but it has nothing to do with this particular literary device.

6. Word Play Examples: Oxymoron

An oxymoron is a self-contradictory phrase. It is usually just two words long, with each word’s definition contrasting the other one’s, despite the apparent meaning of the words themselves. It is a play on words because opposing meanings are juxtaposed to form a new, seemingly-impossible idea.

A common example of this is the phrase “virtual reality.” Well, if it’s virtual, then it isn’t reality, just a simulation of a new reality. Nonetheless, we employ those words together all the time, and in fact, the juxtaposition of these incompatible terms creates a new, interesting meaning.

Oxymorons occur all the time in everyday speech. “Same difference,” “Only option,” “live recording,” and even the genre “magical realism.” In any of these examples, a new meaning forms from the placement of these incongruous words.

Here are a few examples from literature:

Note: an oxymoron is not self-negating, but self-contradictory. The use of opposing words should mean that each word cancels the other out, but in a good oxymoron, a new meaning is produced amidst the contradictions. So, you can’t just put two opposing words together: writing “the healthy sick man,” for example, doesn’t mean anything, unless maybe it’s placed into a very specific context. An oxymoron should produce new meaning on its own.

7. Word Play Examples: Palindrome

The palindrome is a word play device not often employed in literature, but it is language at its most entertaining, and can provide interesting challenges to the daring poet or storyteller.

A palindrome is a word or phrase that is spelled the exact same forwards and backwards (excluding spaces). The word “racecar,” for example, is spelled the same in both directions. So is the phrase “Able was I ere I saw Elba.” So is the sentence “A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.”

The longer a palindrome gets, the less likely it is to make sense. Take, for example, the poem “Dammit I’m Mad” by Demetri Martin. It’s a perfect palindrome, but, although there are some striking examples of language (for example, “A hymn I plug, deified as a sign in ruby ash”), much of the word choice is nonsensical.

Because of this, there are also palindromes that occur at the line-level. Meaning, the words cannot be read forwards and backwards, but the lines of a poem are the same forwards and backwards. The poem “Doppelganger” by James A. Lindon is an example.

Want to challenge yourself? Write a palindrome that tells a cohesive story. You’ll be playing with both the spellings of words and with the meanings that arise from unconventional word choice. Good luck!

8. Word Play Examples: Paraprosdokian

A paraprosdokian is a play on words where the writer diverts from the expected ending of a sentence. In other words, the writer starts a sentence with a predictable ending, but then supplies a new, unexpected ending that complicates the original meanings of the words and surprises the reader.

Here’s an example sentence: “Is there anything that mankind can’t accomplish? We’ve been to the moon, eradicated polio, and made grapes that taste like cotton candy.” This last clause is a paraprosdokian: the reader expects the list to contain great, life-altering achievements, but ending the list with something a bit more trivial, like cotton candy grapes, is a humorous and unexpected twist.

With the paraprosdokian, writers contort the expected endings of sentences to create surprising juxtapositions, playing with both words and sentence structures. Here are a few literary examples, with the paraprosdokian in bold:

9. Word Play Examples: Portmanteau

A portmanteau is a word which combines two distinct words in both sound and meaning. “Smog,” for example, is a portmanteau of both “smoke” and “fog,” because both the sounds of the words are combined as well as the definition of each word.

The portmanteau has become a popular marketing tactic in recent years. A portmanteau is also, often, an example of a neologism—a coined word for which new language is necessary to describe new things.

Here are a few portmanteaus that have recently entered the English lexicon:

• Fanzine (fan + magazine)
• Telethon (telephone + marathon)
• Camcorder (camera + recorder)
• Blog (web + log)
• Vlog (video + blog)
• Staycation (stay + vacation)
• Bromance (brother + romance)
• Webinar (web + seminar)
• Hangry (hungry + angry)
• Cosplay (costume + play)

Lewis Carroll popularized the portmanteau, but a work of fiction that’s rife with this word play is Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce. The novel—which is notoriously difficult to read due to its use of foreign words, as well as its disregard for conventional spelling and syntax—has coined portmanteaus like “ethiquetical” (ethical + etiquette), “laysense” (layman + sense), and “fadograph” (fading + photograph).

10. Word Play Examples: Spoonerism

A spoonerism occurs when the initial sounds of two neighboring words are swapped. For instance, the phrase “blushing crow” is a spoonerism of “crushing blow.”

Often, spoonerisms are slips of the tongue. We might confuse our syllables when we speak, which is a natural result of our brains’ relationships to language.

Spoonerisms can be literary examples of a play on words. But they’re also just ways to have fun with language. An example is Shel Silverstein’s posthumous collection of children’s poems Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook.

How to Use a Play on Words in Your Writing

Writers can utilize word play for two different strategies: literary effect, and creative thinking.

When it comes to literary effect, a play on words can surprise, delight, provoke, and entertain the reader. Devices like oxymoron, metalepsis, and kenning offer new, innovative possibilities in language, and a strong example of these devices can move the reader in a way that ordinary language cannot.

Word play can also stimulate your own creativity. If you experiment with language using literary devices, you might stumble upon the following:

• A title for your work.
• Character names.
• Witty dialogue.
• Interesting or provocative description.
• The core idea of a poem or short story.

I’ll give a personal example. Once, in a fiction course, I was struggling to come up with an idea for a short story. A friend and I ended up bouncing words around and came up with the phrase “psychic psychiatrist” (an example of alliteration and polyptoton). Just playing with words like this was enough to inspire me to write a story about exactly that, a psychiatrist who predicts the future for their clients without realizing it.

Titles like The Importance of Being Earnest (a self-referential pun), “Dammit I’m Mad” (palindrome), or Back to the Future (oxymoron) all use word play to frame and guide the story or poem. You might find inspiration for your own work by considering, with careful attention and an appreciation for language, the many possibilities of a play on words.

Experiment with Word Play at Writers.com

The instructors at Writers.com are masters of word play. Not only do we love words, we love to mess with them in surprising and innovative ways. If you want to formulate new ideas for your work, take a look at our upcoming online writing classes, where you’ll receive expert instruction on all the work you write and submit.

Here in the UK, we love a good pun.

You’ll probably notice them in tabloid newspaper headlines, but you might also hear them in everyday conversation, emails, social media, television and any number of other situations in which the speaker wishes to present themselves as comical or witty. They’re not the only prevalent form of wordplay you’ll encounter in the English language though; there are plenty more plays on words that contribute to the richness of the spoken and written language. In this article, we start with an introduction to English puns and wordplay and then take you through some of our favourite examples.

What is a pun?

A pun is a form of wordplay that creates humour through the use of a word or series of words that sound the same but that have two or more possible meanings. Puns often make use of homophones – words that sound the same, and are sometimes spelt the same, but have a different meaning. Puns are generally jokes – but not always; we tend to write “no pun intended” in brackets if we’ve inadvertently chosen our words in a way that could be construed as a pun.
As with any kind of comedy, timing is crucial to the telling of a good pun, and if you’re able to think of one on the spot then you’re bound to get a laugh for your ready wit (it won’t look so good if you take several minutes to think of one, by which time the conversation has moved on!). For example, you might be having a conversation about what you had for breakfast, and your friend tells you that they had boiled eggs for breakfast. You could then retort with “were they eggstraordinary?” – accompanied by a cheeky grin in acknowledgement of the poor joke, of course. More subtle and sophisticated puns don’t modify words in this way, but make use of homophones. For example, in a conversation about cooking fish for a dinner party, one might say “do you think we should scale back on the number of guests?” (playing on a fish’s scales and the expression “scale back”, which means to reduce).

Puns have a slightly poor reputation as forms of humour go, and often elicit a groan from the person on the receiving end of one (though that might just be because they wish they’d thought of something that witty to say). They’re generally considered to be a fairly basic form of humour, though they can also be very sophisticated and funny. Shakespeare was famously pretty big on puns; perhaps, it’s recently been suggested, even more so than previously thought; apparently if you read Shakespeare in an Elizabethan accent, you spot many more puns. These days the tabloids are known for their use of puns in headlines; for example, you might see a headline like “Otter Devastation” in an article detailing the decline of the otter (this plays on the similarities between the words “otter” and “utter”).

Other forms of English wordplay

Puns aren’t the only form of English wordplay – they’re just one of the most popular. Here are some of the other kinds of wordplay you might encounter when you’re learning English, whether in everyday conversation, in the newspapers or in works of English literature.

Acronyms

Acronyms involve making a word using the first letters of a series of other words. This type of wordplay is popular in company names. You might not have known, for example, that the popular budget furniture shop IKEA is actually an acronym; it stands for Ingvar Kamprad, Elmtaryd, Agunnaryd. The first two words are the founder’s name, the third the farm on which he spent his childhood, and the fourth his Swedish hometown. “IKEA” has become such a common word in everyday use that very few people know that it stands for something.

Spoonerisms

We accidentally use spoonerisms all the time, to the point where it’s debateable whether they can legitimately classed as ‘wordplay’, with the connotations of intentional wit that that word entails. A spoonerism – named after a chap named Reverend Spooner, who supposedly fell foul of this slip of the tongue frequently – is when you switch some of the letters between two words. For example, you might say “a slight of fairs” instead of “a flight of stairs”. There’s a joke that relies on Spoonerisms:
Question: Why did the butterfly flutter by?
Answer: Because it saw the dragonfly drink the flagon dry.
While this isn’t exactly a laugh-out-loud witticism, it’s an excellent example of the Spoonerism.

Internet abbreviations

Originally intended to make typing a bit quicker, internet abbreviations have almost become a language in their own right – and some abbreviations have actually entered the spoken English language as well. Perhaps the most famous example is “lol”, which means “laughing out loud”. Some people – particularly among the younger generation – now say “lol” out loud, pronouncing it as “loll” (traditionalists frown upon such behaviour, however, so you’re advised to avoid it if you want to be taken seriously).

Portmanteaus

Take part of one word and its meaning, and combine it with another word and its meaning, and you have a portmanteau. For example, the word “brunch” is a portmanteau that combines “breakfast” and “lunch” to create a word for a meal one has in between, and often instead of, breakfast and lunch. Portmanteaus are very popular with tacky gossip magazines, who use them to refer to celebrity couples, such as “Brangelina” for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. They were actually popularised by Lewis Carroll, who used the word “portmanteau” for the first time in Alice Through the Looking-Glass.

Alliteration and onomatopoeia

Alliteration is when you use two or more words in a row beginning with the same letter or using the same sounds, and it tends to be used for emphasis or to make something more memorable. You might hear it in a brand name – such as the Automobile Association (AA) – or newspaper headlines, such as “Persecuted for Praying”. You’ll also see it used in English literature, particularly poetry, as it can be helpful for emphasising a point or creating a particular sound. For instance, a piece of writing about a snake might use words beginning with or containing the letter ‘s’, because, when spoken aloud, this echoes the sound a snake makes when it hisses: “the sly snake slithered stealthily”. A similar concept in wordplay is onomatopoeia, which is where a word sounds like what it describes. For example, animal noises are usually onomatopoeic, such as “oink” to describe the noise a pig makes, “moo” for a cow, “woof” for a dog, and so on. This type of wordplay is also common in poetry, as it means that the poet can create certain sounds to add meaning to what they are writing; a poem about fireworks, for example, might allude to the sounds a firework makes using onomatopoeic words, such as “bang”, “crash”, “fizz”, “whoosh”, and so on.

Jokes, headlines and other witticisms involving puns and wordplay

Finally, we give you some more examples of how cunning use of words can make great jokes and newspaper headlines. Puns are particularly popular in tabloid newspaper headlines because they are eye-catching and memorable, drawing attention to a story that might otherwise not spark the curiosity of a passerby.

“Why did the scarecrow…”

Question: Why did the scarecrow win a Nobel Prize?
Answer: For being outstanding in his field!
This excellent joke makes use of clever wordplay to great comic effect, centered around the word “outstanding”. Clearly Nobel laureates are outstanding in their field of expertise, but you wouldn’t expect a scarecrow would be – these are, after all, simply effigies put in fields to scare birds away from crops. But the word “outstanding”, when separated into two words, takes on a different meaning: the scarecrow is “out standing in his field”, meaning that he is “outside, standing in his field”.

A Queen-based headline

A newspaper headline did the rounds on social media a while ago for its clever play on lyrics from the song Bohemian Rhapsody by the rock band Queen in a story about hikes in rail prices. This is explained below with the original lyrics included in italics beneath the headline words.
Is this the rail price?
Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught up in land buys
Caught in a landslide,
No escape from bureaucracy!
No escape from reality.
This example illustrates an example of witty wordplay that doesn’t involve homophones, and it’s been hailed as headline writing at its very best!

“I wondered why the baseball…”

The joke goes like this: “I was wondering why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.” The punchline rests on two meanings of the word “hit”. It can mean physically being hit by something being thrown at you, but it can also mean a thought or realisation suddenly occurring to you.

“Why did the fly fly?”

This one’s a staple of the Christmas cracker and makes use of homophones.
Question: Why did the fly fly?
Answer: Because the spider spied her.
The question exploits two meanings of the word “fly”; it’s a small, irritating buzzing insect, but it’s also a verb – “to fly” – meaning to be airborne. The answer relies on the fact that “spied her” – meaning “saw her” – sounds like “spider”.

“What do you call a small midget fortune teller…”

Here’s a joke that’s both groan-worthy and quite clever wordplay.
Question: What do you call a midget fortune teller who just escaped from prison?
Answer: A small medium at large!
The comedy here hinges on the fact that the answer includes the common sizes of small, medium and large, but they all mean different things. A midget is a small person; another word for a fortune teller is “medium”, as in a psychic medium; and when someone has escaped from prison, they’re described as being “at large”.

“A cigarette lighter”

Three men are on board a boat and they have four cigarettes, but nothing to light them with. What do they do? They throw one overboard… so that they become a cigarette lighter!
The humour here relies on the two different interpretations of “cigarette lighter”. Clearly it’s something used to light a cigarette, but the boat itself can also said to be “a cigarette lighter” in weight, because it has shed the weight of one cigarette.

A long joke to end with

Let’s end with a longer joke that relies on clever wordplay for its punchline. This is a popular joke and comes in a number of versions; this particular rendition comes from here.
“The big chess tournament was taking place at the Plaza in New York. After the first day’s competition, many of the winners were sitting around in the foyer of the hotel talking about their matches and bragging about their wonderful play. After a few drinks they started getting louder and louder until finally, the desk clerk couldn’t take any more and kicked them out.
The next morning the Manager called the clerk into his office and told him there had been many complaints about his being so rude to the hotel guests….instead of kicking them out, he should have just asked them to be less noisy. The clerk responded, “I’m sorry, but if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s chess nuts boasting in an open foyer.”
The punchline at the end – “chess nuts boasting in an open foyer” – is a play on the words of a famous “Christmas Song”, which begins “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire”. “Chess nuts” are people who are “nuts” or crazy about chess; boasting rhymes with roasting; and the “open foyer” that sounds like “open fire” is another word for a reception area. We bet you didn’t realise you could do such clever things with the English language when you first started learning!

Revised as of
6 Mar 2023

Word play, i.e., verbal games, uses words to be witty, funny, make a memorable point, encourage understanding, make an impact, brighten text, for vehemence or emphasis, enhance a musical effect, catch attention, convey an idea or emotion, create an atmosphere, enforce an idea, and more.

Word Play is a Literary Device, Just Like Figures of Speech and Rhetorical Devices

Word Play is a verbal game of wit and fun that brightens and enhances the reader’s understanding that comes under the category of literary devices and may incorporate figures of speech or rhetorical devices.

A literary device is a linguistic or literary technique that creates specific effects, plots, styles, and more in the overall category for figure of speech, rhetorical device, and word play.

A figure of speech alters the meanings of words, going beyond a word’s or phrase’s literal interpretation, like simile, metaphor, hyperbole, and more. It becomes a device in rhetoric when it is aimed at persuading the readers or listeners.

A rhetorical device is used in the art of discourse in which the writer (or speaker) uses different methods to convince, influence, or please an audience. This helps explain why rhetorical devices and figures of speech occasionally swap categories.

Grammar Explanations is . . .

. . . an evolving list of the structural rules and principles that determines where words are placed in phrases or sentences as well as how the language is spoken. Sometimes I run across an example that helps explain better or another “also known as”. Heck, there’s always a better way to explain it, so if it makes quicker and/or better sense, I would appreciate suggestions and comments from anyone on an area of grammar with which you struggle or on which you can contribute more understanding.

If you found this post on “Word Play” interesting, consider subscribing to KD Did It, if you’d like to track this post for future updates.

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Rhythm & Rhyme
Rhyme A repetition of identical or similar sounds in two or more different words.

• go   show   glow   know   though

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Rhythm – A strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound

Definition: Together, rhythm and rhyme refer to a recurring pattern of rhymes created by using words that produce the same or similar sounds in prose and poetry, creating a musical, gentle effect.

Combining rhythm + rhyme creates more musical lines that will be easier to remember.

Internal Rhyme
Definition: The practice of forming a rhyme in only one lone line of verse and is typically constructed in the middle of a line to rhyme with the bit at the end of the same metrical line.

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There are three variations:

1. Two or more rhyming words in the same line
2. Rhyming words that appear in the middle of successive lines
3. A word at the end of a line that rhymes with a word in the middle of a successive line

A.k.a. middle rhyme

Credit to: Internal

“We were the first that ever burst.” – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

“Just turn me loose let me straddle my old saddle,
Underneath the western skies,
On my cayuse let me wander over yonder,
‘Til I see the mountains rise.” – Cole Porter, “Hollywood Canteen”

It would be good to have a hood in this weather.

I felt sad thinking of the day / That my dad left for the war.

In the end, what does it matter? / It’s all chatter, the things they say.

Prosody
Definition: The patterns of rhythm, sound, tempo, pitch, loudness, and meter used in poetry.

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It is an important element of language that contributes towards rhythmic and acoustic effects in a piece of writing, using such different elements as scansion, sound, pace, and meaning.

Types of Prosody:

• Syllabic Prosody
• Accentual Prosody
• Accentual-Syllabic Prosody
• Quantitative Prosody

Prosody also has multiple functions in both poetry and prose:

• Used with syntactic phrasing, word segmentation, sentence, accentuation, stress and phonological distinctions
• Use it to produce rhythmic and acoustic effects
• A sentence in a given perspective expresses more than just its linguistic meanings:
  • Expressive content could be an identity of a speaker, his mood, age, sex and other extra linguistic features
  • Pragmatic content encompasses the attitude of the speaker and listener and provides a relationship between a speaker and his/her discourse
    • Reflect different features of a speaker and his utterance, emotional state, a form of utterance, presence of sarcasm or irony, and emphasis

Credit to: Prosody

Syllabic Prosody
Definition: Counts a fixed number of syllables in each line, while accent, tone and quantity play a secondary role.

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“In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
W-ith all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light…
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.” – Dylan Thomas, In My Craft or Sullen Art

An example of syllabic verse, which contains constrained or a fixed number of syllables with each line consisting of seven syllables except the final line, but does not follow a consistent stressed pattern.

Accentual Prosody
Definition: Measures only the accents or stresses in a line of verse, while the overall number of syllables may vary in a line. It is very common in Germanic, Old English, and modern English verses.

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“

what

if a

much

of a

which

of a

wind
gives

the

truth

to

sum

mer’s

lie

;

blood

ies with

diz

zying

leaves

the

sun

and

yanks

im

mor

tal

stars

aw

ry

?
Blow

king

to

beg

gar and

queen

to

seem

(blow friend to fiend: blow space to time)
— when skies are hanged and oceans drowned,
the single secret will still be man…” – e.e. cummings, “what if a much of a which of a wind”

An example of accentual verse in which the number of stressed syllables is four that remain constant. They are underlined, but the syllables in each line do not remain constant and change from seven to ten.

Accentual-Syllabic Prosody
Definition: Counts both number of syllables and accents in each line. It is commonly found in English poetry.

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“If

ev

er

two

were

one

, then

sure

ly

we

.
If

ev

er

man

were

loved

by

wife

, then

thee

;
If

ev

er

wife

was

hap

py

in

a

man

,
Com

pare

with

me

, ye

wo

men,

if

you

can

.
I

prize

thy

love

more

than

whole

mines

of

gold

” – Anne Bradstreet, “To My Dear and Loving Husband”

An example of accentual-syllabic verse, which focuses on both the number of syllables and number of accents in each poetic line. This iambic pentameter poem is one of the best examples of accented syllabic verse, as it contains five iambs in each line and follows strictly measured syllabic pattern.

Quantitative Prosody
Definition: Depends upon the duration of syllables, which can be determined by the amount of time used on pronunciation, such as a with free verse poem that consists of unmeasured lines.

Commonly found in Roman and classical Greek poetry and very rarely in English poetry.

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“Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris…” – Virgil, “The Aeneid”

This opening line of Virgil’s poem is a classic model of quantitative prosody. Look at the stress pattern that is irregular, as this type of prosody does not have measured syllables, but it measures the meter according to duration of time to pronounce a line.

Acatalectic
Definition: Having complete or full number of syllables in a poetic line.

A.k.a. ataclexis

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This stanza example…

Catalectic
Definition: A metrically incomplete line of verse, lacking a syllable at the end or ending with an incomplete foot.

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One form of catalexis is headlessness, where the unstressed syllable is dropped from the beginning of the line.

Making a meter catalectic can drastically change the feeling of the poem, and catalexis is often used to achieve a certain effect.

Credit to: Catalectic

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful. – W. H. Auden, “Lay Your Sleeping Head, My Love”

Brachycatalectic
Definition: A line missing two syllables.

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha”

Hypercatalectic
Definition: A line of poetry having an extra syllable or syllables at the end of the last metrical foot.

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This stanza example…

Ischiorrhogic
Definition: [Of an iambic line] A type of poetry.

Having a spondee as its second, fourth, or sixth foot.

A.k.a. broken-backed, broken-hipped

Credit to: Ischiorrhogic

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I can only find examples in Greek, and I doubt they’d translate to provide a good example in English.

Sibilance
Definition: Repeats “hissing”, sibilant consonant sounds, such as s (most popular), sh, ch, th, f, soft c, and z in a specific type of alliteration, mostly used in poetry.

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Sibilance is useful in creating an atmosphere, drawing the attention of readers to paint a more colorful picture of the idea of the event. Descriptive scenes can be explained more carefully by laying stress on the specific letters. In fact, the sense of repeated sounds and then the making up of different literary devices through sibilance creates further musical effects on the readers.

Credit to: Sibilance

“Sing a Song of Sixpence”

Charming child who changed the world.

A shark sliced through the water, charging toward the shore.

“As whence the sun ‘gins his reflection
Shipwracking storms and direful thunders break,
So from that spring whence comfort seemed to come
Discomfort swells. Mark, King of Scotland, mark:
No sooner justice had, with valor armed,…
But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage,
With furbished arms and new supplies of men,…
Till seven at night. To make society
The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourselves
Till suppertime alone. While then, God be with you!” – William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Stanza
Definition: A single, related one unit or group of lines in poetry, which forms one particular faction in poetry.

The most basic kind of stanza is usually four lines per group, with the simplest rhyme scheme a-b-a-b being followed.

Credit to: Rhyme

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Synchysis
Definition: An odd form of an alternating word sequence of the form a-b-a-b.

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Typically appears in poetry, where words are rearranged such that alternate words should be read together. It asks the reader to think hard, concentrating on and reviewing the words until the pattern and so the meaning is discovered. This can be so confusing that it may be necessary to emphasize the words that go together so the reader or listener can understand better what is intended.

Young man, boy old.

Golden happy ring girl.

I run and shoot, fast and accurate.

Credit to: Synchysis

Sarcasm
If you can’t bothered to click over to Figure of Speech: Sarcasm, it’s your loss.

Slang
Definition: Informal language that continually evolves and changes and is considered to be a largely spontaneous, lively, and creative speech process typically restricted to a particular context or group of people, which begins as a way to flout standard language.

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It’s more common in speech than in writing, so it’s ideal for dialogue!

Slang can be blunt or riddled with metaphor, and often quite profound.

Many slang terms become accepted into the standard lexicon and/or are borrowed between groups, and much of it dies out.

A.k.a. argot, cant, colloquialism, jargon, patois

Slipshod Extension
Definition: Overextending the meaning of a word beyond its proper meaning.

A.k.a. word-swapping

Credit to: Slipshod

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Credit to: Nordquist, “5”; Carey

Sobriquet
Definition: A nickname, sometimes assumed, but often given by another.

Distinct from a pseudonym that is assumed as a disguise, you can read more about sobriquets in the post “-Nyms That are Names.

A.k.a. sotbriquet, soubriquet

Spoonerism
Definition: A phonetic mix-up.

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Tom Swifty
Definition: Interpreting idioms literally and creating contradictions and redundancies.

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“Hurry up and get to the back of the ship,” Tom said sternly.

“I need a pencil sharpener,” said Tom bluntly.

“Oops! There goes my hat!” said Tom off the top of his head.

“I can no longer hear anything,” said Tom deftly.

“I have a split personality,” said Tom, being frank.

Credit to: Tom

Univocalic
Definition: A type of verbal play in which the writer may use only a single vowel.

A.k.a. homovocalic, monovocalic

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Richard Lederer’s The Word Circus notes that some of the longest common univocalic words use the vowel e.

Paul Hellweg’s “Mary Had a Little Lamb” from Word Ways magazine:

“Meg kept the wee sheep,
The sheep’s fleece resembled sleet;
Then wherever Meg went
The sheep went there next;

He went where she needed her texts,
The precedent he neglected;
The pre-teen felt deep cheer
When the sheep entered there.”

Howard Bergerson’s “The Haiku of the Eyes” uses only i:

In twilight this spring

Girls with miniskirts will swim

In string bikinis.

Credit to: September

Wellerism
Definition: “A sentence with a speaker and a narrator; after the speaker speaks, the narrator adds commentary that undermines the sentiment of the speaker sometimes by changing the meaning of the speaker’s idea. Other times, the narrator offers description to show that, what the speaker said, may not be so true, after all.”

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“We’ll have to rehearse that,” said the undertaker, as the coffin fell out of the car.

“Everyone to his own taste,” the woman said, as she kissed her cow.

“It’s all coming back to me now,” Captain Smith remarked after he spat into the wind.

“Eureka!” Archimedes said to the skunk.

“Capital punishment,” the boy said when his teacher seated him among the girls.

“I’ve been to see an old flame,” the young man said when he returned from Vesuvius.

“I hope I made myself clear,” said the water, as it passed through the filter.

“That’s my mission in life,” said the monk, as he pointed to his monastery.

“My business is looking good,” said the model.

Credit to: Mittendorf

Zeugma
Definition: A figure of speech that uses a word to modify two or more words usually so that it applies to each word in a different sense or makes sense with only one.

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A zeugma is also a form of ellipsis as it omits words(s) that are superfluous or can be understood from contextual clues, although the sense can vary in its repetition.

It often creates a witty or comical effect.

4 Types of Zeugma:
(Depends on the location of the verb that functions as the shared connector.)

1. Diazeugma
   • Disjunction
2. Hypozeugma
3. Mesozeugma
4. Prozeugma

A.k.a. change in concord, concepcio, conceptio, conglutinata conceptio, double supply, grammatical syllepsis, semantic syllepsis, silepsis, sillepsis, syllempsis, syllepsis, synezeugmenon

…with weeping eyes and hearts

The zeugma weeping modifies both objects, but the first eyes is literal; the second, figurative as the heart can’t really weep.

Margaret opened the door and her heart to the homeless boy.

The zeugma opened modifies both objects, but the first door is literal; the second, figurative as an opened heart is more surgical.

“Miss Bolo … went straight home, in a flood of tears and a sedan-chair.” – Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

The zeugma went . . . home modifies both objects, but the first a flood of tears is figurative; the second, literal.

She made my coffee and my day.

The zeugma is made which modifies coffee and day. In its first instance, made means preparing the coffee but the meaning shifts when applied to the second instance, made is understood to mean make an otherwise ordinary or dull day pleasingly memorable for someone.

She gave me a smile and a coffee.

The zeugma is gave which modifies smile and coffee. In its first instance, gave means she smiled at me but the meaning shifts when applied to the second instance, and gave is understood to mean handing a cup of coffee to me.

John and his license expired last week.

The zeugma is expired which modifies John and license. In its first instance, expired means John died but the meaning shifts when applied to the second instance, expired is understood to mean the license is no longer valid.

“Rend your heart, and not your garments.” – Joel 2:13

The zeugma rend modifies both objects, but the first rend is figurative; the second, literal.

“You held your breath and the door for me.” – Alanis Morissette

The zeugma is held which modifies breath and door. In its first instance, held means stop but the meaning shifts when applied to the second instance, held is understood to mean kept the door open.

“Fix the problem, not the blame.” – Dave Weinbaum

The zeugma is fix which modifies problem and blame. In its first instance, fix means solve but the meaning shifts when applied to the second instance, fix is understood to mean assign.

His boat and his dreams sank.

The zeugma is sank which modifies boat and dreams. In its first instance, sank means the boat was damaged and went beneath the surface of the water but the meaning shifts when applied to the second instance, sank is understood to mean destroyed.

Credit to: Burton, “Syllepsis”

Diazeugma
Definition: The use of a single subject that governs several verbs or verbal constructions (usually arranged in “parallel fashion and expressing a similar idea).

It’s the opposite of zeugma.

A.k.a. diezeugmenon

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“The Roman people destroyed Numantia, razed Carthage, demolished Corinth, and overthrew Fregellae.” – Rhetorica ad Herennium, IV, xxvii.

Of no aid to the Numantines was bodily strength; of no assistance to the Carthaginians was military science; of no help to the Corinthians was polished cleverness; of no avail to the Fregellans was fellowship with us in customs and in language.” – Rhetorica ad Herennium, IV, xxvii.

“We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” – John F. Kennedy

I couldn’t get to sleep because my report wasn’t finished, my psycho neighbor was playing with his musical clapper, the handgun my mother had given me was missing, and worst of all, my Sleep Number bed’s 5-part fully adjustable electric frame was stuck at 9. (Diazeugma).

And Thisbe, tarrying in mulberry shade, / His dagger drew, and died.

“With disease physical beauty fades, with age it dies.” – Rhetorica ad Herennium

“For this reason, to dwell with us in true flesh God came; marked with the stain of our flesh he could not be; and at length those who were his in his own blood he washed.”

Credit to: Abbot

Disjunction
Definition: A type of diazeugma used when alternatives are presented to a question and are each resolved by adding a reason in parallel fashion.

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“His evils are two: the fraud of simony, the coldness of avarice. He embraces both the one and the other, and does not abhor them.” – Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Poetria Nova, 63

“If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;
If not, why then this parting was well made.” – Shakespeare, Julius Caeser

“Why should I now reproach you in any way ? If you are an upright man, you have not deserved reproach; if a wicked man, you will be unmoved.” – Rhetorica ad Herennium

“Why should I now boast of my deserts? If you remember them, I shall weary you; if you have forgotten them, I have been ineffective in action, and therefore what could I effect by words?” – Rhetorica ad Herennium

“There are two things which can urge men to illicit gain: poverty and greed. That you were greedy in the division with your brother we know, that you are poor and destitute we
now see. How, therefore, can you show that you had no motive for the crime?” – Rhetorica ad Herennium

Credit to: Malton

Hypozeugma
Definition: Used in a construction containing several phrases and occurs when the word or words on which all of the phrases depend are placed at the end.

A.k.a. adjunction

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“Assure yourself that Damon to his Pythias, Pylades to his Orestes, Titus to his Gysippus, Theseus to his Pyrothus, Scipio to his Laelius, was never found more faithful than Euphues will be to his Philautus. – John Lyly, Euphues

Mesozeugma
Definition: A type of zeugma whose governing word occurs in the middle of the sentence and governs clauses on either side.

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“What a shame is this, that neither hope of reward, nor feare of reproch could any thing move him, neither the persuasion of his friends, nor the love of his country.” – Henry Peacham

Prozeugma
Definition: A zeugma whose governing word occurs in the first clause of the sentence.

A.k.a. protozeugma

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“Lust conquered shame; audacity, fear; madness, reason.” – Cicero, The Rhetoric of Pro Cluentio, VI, 15

“Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.” – Francis Bacon

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C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!

Satisfy your curiosity about other Grammar Explanations by exploring its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Book Layout & Formatting Ideas, Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Word Confusions, Writing Ideas and Resources, and Working Your Website.

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Resources for Word Play

Some of these links may be affiliate links, and I will earn a small percentage, if you should buy it. It does not affect the price you pay.

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“Antanaclasis.” Literary Devices.net. n.d. Web. n.d. <http://literarydevices.net/antanaclasis/>.

“Antanaclasis.” Wikipedia. n.d. Web. n.d. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antanaclasis>.

“Assonance.” Literary Devices.net. n.d. Web. n.d. <http://literarydevices.net/assonance/>.

“Autoantonym Meaning.” Vocabulary. Grammar Terminology. English Grammar. Using English. n.d. Web. n.d. <https://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/autoantonym.html>.

“Autogram.” Wikipedia. n.d. Web. n.d. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogram>.

Barber, Dr M. “A Collection of Humorous Mondegreens.” University of Houston. n.d. Web. n.d. <http://www.uh.edu/~mbarber/mondegreens.html>.

“Blanagram.” Wikipedia. n.d. Web. n.d. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanagram>.

Branch, Megan. “10 Literary Terms You Might Not Know.” Literary Terms. Oxford University Press. 27 Mar 2009. Web. n.d. <https://blog.oup.com/2009/03/literary-terms/>.

Burton, Gideon O. “Antistasis.” Silva Rhetoricae (rhetoric.byu.edu). Brigham Young University. n.d. Web. n.d. <http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Figures/A/antistasis.htm>.

⸻. “Paregmenon.” Silva Rhetoricae (rhetoric.byu.edu). Brigham Young University. n.d. Web. n.d. <http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Figures/P/paregmenon.htm>.

⸻. “Paronomasia.” Silva Rhetoricae (rhetoric.byu.edu). Brigham Young University. n.d. Web. n.d. <http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Figures/P/paronomasia.htm>.

⸻. “Syllepsis.” Silva Rhetoricae (rhetoric.byu.edu). Brigham Young University. n.d. Web. n.d. <http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Figures/S/syllepsis.htm>.

“Bushism.” Wikipedia. n.d. Web. n.d. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushism>.

Carey, Stan. “Resolving a Usage Dilemma.” Learn English. Macmillan Dictionary. 2019. Web. 6 Mar 2023. <https://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/resolving-a-usage-dilemma>.

“Catalectic.” Wikipedia. n.d. Web. n.d. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalectic>.

Christopher, Thomas. “To Wit: An E-zine On How To Be a Wit.” Tools of Wit. 4 Jun 2007. Web. n.d. <http://www.toolsofwit.com/ToWit/Ezine06-04-07.html>.

Croll, Morris W. Style, Rhetoric, and Rhythm: Essays. Princeton University Press, New Jersey: 1966. <http://press.princeton.edu/titles/3953.html> OR <https://amzn.to/3YtSGOi>. Print.

Dean, Deborah. Bringing Grammar to Life. Intl Reading Assn: 2007. <https://amzn.to/3ygPHhG>. Print.

“Diazeugma.” Daily Trope. Silva Rhetoricae (rhetoric.byu.edu). 18 Feb 2013. Web. n.d. <https://dailytrope.com/2013/02/18/diazeugma-3/>.

“Dog Latin.” Collins Dictionary. n.d. Web. n.d. <https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/dog-latin>.

“Dog Latin or Pig Latin?” Latin4Everyone. n.d. Web. n.d. <https://latin4everyone.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/dog-latin-or-pig-latin/>.

“Engrish.” Wikipedia. n.d. Web. n.d. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engrish>.

“Epanadiplosis Definition.” YourDictionary.com. n.d. Web. n.d. <http://www.yourdictionary.com/epanadiplosis#ADFqmjSVo52QDVMm.99>.

“Epitaph.” Literary Devices.net. n.d. Web. n.d. <http://literarydevices.net/epitaph/>.

Fallon, Matthew. “How the English Language Came to Be: A Brief History.” Language Trainers. 17 Jan 2012. Web. n.d. <https://www.languagetrainers.com/blog/2012/01/17/anglish-english-without-all-the-borrowed-words/>.

Gay, Patricia. “Poetry Friday: Playful Palindromes.” Expect the Unexpected. 24 May 2013. Web. n.d. <https://patriciagay.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/poetry-friday-playful-palindromes/>.

Gunner, Jennifer. “Examples of Puns: Exploring What They are and Different Types.” Examples. YourDictionary.com. n.d. Web. n.d. <http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-puns.html#3ORvVRKxiHHFy34k.99>.

Hall, Heather. “Say What? The Best Chinglish from Two Years in China.” Ferreting Out the Fun. 26 June 2017. Web. n.d. <http://www.ferretingoutthefun.com/2013/12/04/best-chinglish-signs/>.

“Internal Rhyme.” Literary Devices.com. n.d. Web. n.d. <https://literarydevices.com/internal-rhyme/>.

“Ischiorrhogic.” Oxford Dictionaries. n.d. Web. n.d. <https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ischiorrhogic>.

Jones, Paul Anthony. “21 Rhetorical Devices Explained.” Mental Floss. n.d. Web. 6 Sept 2020. <https://getpocket.com/explore/item/21-rhetorical-devices-explained>.

“List of Forms of Word Play.” Wikipedia. n.d. Web. n.d. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_forms_of_word_play>.

“Macaronic Language.” Wikipedia. n.d. Web. n.d. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaronic_language>.

Malton, Ioanna. “Rosapodosis.” Rhetorical Figures. n.d. Web. n.d. <https://rhetfig.appspot.com/view?id=ag1zfnJoZXRmaWctaHJkchgLEhBSaGV0b3JpY2FsRmlndXJlGNqzAQw>.

Mittendorf, M.J. “Wellerisms.” The Island English Tutor. n.d. Web. n.d. <http://www.theislandenglishtutor.com/wellerisms.html>.

Nelson, Mark J. “Word-unit Palindromes.” kmjn.org. 7 Feb 2012. Web. n.d. <http://www.kmjn.org/notes/word_unit_palindromes.html>.

Nichol, Mark. “10 Types of Wordplay.” Daily Writing Tips. n.d. Web. n.d. <http://www.dailywritingtips.com/10-types-of-wordplay/>.

Nordquist, Richard. “5 Words That Don’t Mean What You Think They Mean.” ThoughtCo. 5 Oct 2018. Web. 6 Mar 2023. <https://www.thoughtco.com/do-words-mean-what-you-think-1692794>.

⸻. “Paragram (Word Play).” ThoughtCo. Last updated 12 Feb 2020. Web. n.d. <http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/paragramterm.htm>.

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