From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is a list of techniques used in
word play .
Techniques that involve the phonetic values of words
Engrish
Chinglish
Homonym : words with same sounds and same spellings but with different meanings
Homograph : words with same spellings but with different meanings
Homophone : words with same sounds but with different meanings
Homophonic translation
Mondegreen : a mishearing (usually unintentional) as a
homophone or near-homophone that has as a result acquired a new meaning. The term is often used to refer specifically to mishearings of song lyrics (cf.
soramimi ).
Onomatopoeia : a word or a grouping of words that imitates the sound it is describing
Phonetic reversal
Rhyme : a repetition of identical or similar sounds in two or more different words
Alliteration : matching consonants sounds at the beginning of words
Assonance : matching vowel sounds
Consonance : matching consonant sounds
Holorime : a rhyme that encompasses an entire line or phrase
Spoonerism : a switch of two sounds in two different words (cf.
sananmuunnos )
Same-sounding words or phrases, fully or approximately homophonous (sometimes also referred to as "oronyms")
Techniques that involve the
letters
Acronym : abbreviations formed by combining the initial components in a phrase or names
Apronym : an acronym that is also a phrase pertaining to the original meaning
RAS syndrome : repetition of a word by using it both as a word alone and as a part of the acronym
Recursive acronym : an acronym that has the acronym itself as one of its components
Acrostic : a writing in which the first letter, syllable, or word of each line can be put together to spell out another message
Mesostic : a writing in which a vertical phrase intersects lines of horizontal text
Word square : a series of letters arranged in the form of a square that can be read both vertically and horizontally
Backronym : a phrase back-formed by treating a word that is originally not an initialism or acronym as one
Replacement Backronym: a phrase back-formed from an existing initialism or acronym that is originally an abbreviation with another meaning
Anagram : rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase
Ambigram : a word which can be read just as well mirrored or upside down
Blanagram : rearranging the letters of a word or phrase and substituting one single letter to produce a new word or phrase
Letter bank : using the letters from a certain word or phrase as many times as wanted to produce a new word or phrase
Jumble : a kind of word game in which the solution of a puzzle is its anagram
Chronogram : a phrase or sentence in which some letters can be interpreted as numerals and rearranged to stand for a particular date
Gramogram : a word or sentence in which the names of the letters or numerals are used to represent the word
Lipogram : a writing in which certain letter is missing
Univocalic : a type of poetry that uses only one vowel
Palindrome : a word or phrase that reads the same in either direction
Pangram : a sentence which uses every letter of the alphabet at least once
Tautogram : a phrase or sentence in which every word starts with the same letter
Caesar shift : moving all the letters in a word or sentence some fixed number of positions down the alphabet
Techniques that involve
semantics and the choosing of words
Anglish : a writing using exclusively words of Germanic origin
Auto-antonym : a word that contains opposite meanings
Autogram : a sentence that provide an inventory of its own characters
Irony
Malapropism : incorrect usage of a word by substituting a similar-sounding word with different meaning
Neologism : creating new words
Phono-semantic matching : camouflaged/pun borrowing in which a foreign word is matched with a phonetically and semantically similar pre-existent native word (related to
folk etymology )
Portmanteau : a new word that fuses two words or morphemes
Retronym : creating a new word to denote an old object or concept whose original name has come to be used for something else
Oxymoron : a combination of two contradictory terms
Zeugma and Syllepsis : the use of a single phrase in two ways simultaneously
Pun : deliberately mixing two similar-sounding words
Slang : the use of informal words or expressions
Techniques that involve the manipulation of the entire sentence or passage
Dog Latin
Language game : a system of manipulating spoken words to render them incomprehensible to the untrained ear
Non sequiturs : a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement
Techniques that involve the formation of a name
Ananym : a name with reversed letters of an existing name
Aptronym : a name that aptly represents a person or character
Charactonym : a name which suggests the personality traits of a fictional character
Eponym : applying a person's name to a place
Pseudonym : an artificial fictitious name, used as an alternative to one's legal name
Sobriquet : a popularized nickname
Techniques that involves
figure of speech
Conversion (word formation) : a transformation of a word of one word class into another word class
Dysphemism : intentionally using a word or phrase with a harsher tone over one with a more polite tone
Euphemism : intentionally using a word or phrase with a more polite tone over one with a harsher tone
Kenning :
circumlocution used in
Old Norse and
Icelandic poetry
Paraprosdokian : a sentence whose latter part is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe the first
Others
See also