Examples
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Most writers engage in word play to some extent, but certain writers are particularly committed to, or adept at, word play as a major feature of their work . Shakespeare's "quibbles" have made him a noted punster. Similarly, P.G. Wodehouse was hailed by The Times as a "comic genius recognized in his lifetime as a classic and an old master of farce" for his own ingenious wordplay. James Joyce, author of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, is another noted word-player. For example, Joyce's phrase "they were yung and easily freudened" clearly implies the more conventional "they were young and easily frightened", however the former also makes an apt pun on the names of two famous psychoanalysts, Jung and Freud.
Other writers and entertainers closely identified with word play include:
- Above
- Forrest J Ackerman, magazine editor, coined "sci-fi"
- Aesop Rock
- GZA
- Piers Anthony in his Xanth novels
- Beck
- Big Daddy Kane
- Big L
- Cam'ron
- Isaac Brock (musician) vocalist/lyricist of Modest Mouse
- Canibus,
- Childish Gambino
- Chris and Margo
- George Carlin
- Lewis Carroll, in his Alice books, among other works
- G. K. Chesterton
- Chino XL,
- Brian P. Cleary in his "Rhyme and PUNishment: Adventures in Wordplay"
- Max Collins, lead vocalist and lyricist of Eve 6
- Crooked I
- Ian Dury
- Benny Hill
- Bo Burnham
- Bob Dylan
- Elvis Costello
- Eyedea
- Willard R. Espy collected various anthologies of word play
- Jasper Fforde
- Lil Wayne
- Lupe Fiasco
- Craig Finn, lead vocalist and lyricist of The Hold Steady
- Sage Francis
- Frenzal Rhomb
- Homer in his famous works The Iliad and The Odyssey
- Mitch Hurwitz in his acclaimed TV-series Arrested Development, which is widely noted for its unusually intricate and complex use of word play.
- Franz Kafka, perhaps most notably in The Judgment.
- Kool Keith
- Jack Kerouac (in On the Road and arguably more so in Visions of Cody)
- John Lennon in (In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works) ("The Nasties Are Booming Us!")
- Till Lindemann
- Lloyd Banks
- Nas
- MF DOOM
- Seth MacFarlane
- Marilyn Manson
- Manila Luzon
- Groucho Marx
- A. A. Milne's poem "In the dark", in Now We Are Six, has been noted for its emulation of crib talk, a form of monologue word play used by infants to practice phonology, syntax and conversation skills
- Jason Mraz
- Alan Moore
- Dave Mustaine
- Vladimir Nabokov
- Nickelback
- Flann O'Brien
- Van Dyke Parks
- Emo Philips, stand-up comedian, revered for his paraprosdokians and garden-path jokes
- Thomas Pynchon
- Spider Robinson in his Callahan series, e.g. Lady Slings the Booze.
- Rhyme Asylum
- George Bernard Shaw
- The Apocryphal book of Susanna features elements of word play in the original Greek
- Steven Wright
- Andy Zaltzman
- John Donne
- J. Cole
- Earl Sweatshirt
- Mushroomhead
- TISM
- Eminem
- Dappy
Read more about this topic: Word Play
Famous quotes containing the word examples:
“Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“There are many examples of women that have excelled in learning, and even in war, but this is no reason we should bring ‘em all up to Latin and Greek or else military discipline, instead of needle-work and housewifry.”
—Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733)
“It is hardly to be believed how spiritual reflections when mixed with a little physics can hold people’s attention and give them a livelier idea of God than do the often ill-applied examples of his wrath.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)