A reunion dinner ( Chinese : 年夜飯 , 團年飯 or 團圓飯 ; Vietnamese : Tất niên ) is held on New Year's Eve of the Chinese and Vietnamese New Years , during which family members get together to celebrate. It is often considered the most important get-together meal of the entire year.
107-539: The New Year's Eve dinner is very large and traditionally includes dumplings, chicken, and pork. Fish (魚, yú; Vietnamese: Con cá) is also included, but intentionally (except for Vietnam) not finished, and the remaining fish is stored overnight. The reason for this stems from a pun , as the Chinese phrase 年年有魚/餘; (nián nián yǒu yú, or "every year there is fish/leftover") is a homophone for phrases which mean "be blessed every year" or "have abundant profit every year". Similarly,
214-659: A heart attack due to undiagnosed coronary artery disease on 11 May 2001, aged 49, after resting from his regular workout at a private gym in Montecito, California . His funeral was held on 16 May in Santa Barbara. His ashes were placed in Highgate Cemetery in north London in June 2002. A memorial service was held on 17 September 2001 at St Martin-in-the-Fields church, Trafalgar Square , London. This became
321-402: A malapropism in that a malapropism is an incorrect variation on a correct expression, while a pun involves expressions with multiple (correct or fairly reasonable) interpretations. Puns may be regarded as in-jokes or idiomatic constructions, especially as their usage and meaning are usually specific to a particular language or its culture . Puns have a long history in writing. For example,
428-401: A Möbius strip club!" puns on the terms Möbius strip and strip club . A recursive pun is one in which the second aspect of a pun relies on the understanding of an element in the first. For example, the statement " π is only half a pie" (π radians is 180 degrees , or half a circle, and a pie is a complete circle). Another example is " Infinity is not in finity", which means infinity
535-423: A broken engagement, they married on 25 November 1991. Adams and Belson had one daughter together, Polly Jane Rocket Adams, born on 22 June 1994, shortly after Adams turned 42. In 1999, the family moved from London to Santa Barbara, California , where they lived until his death. Following the funeral, Jane Belson and Polly Adams returned to London. Belson died on 7 September 2011 of cancer, aged 59. Adams died of
642-444: A chance, won't the lima beans feel left out?" which plays with the similar—but not identical—sound of peas and peace in the anti-war slogan " Give Peace a Chance ". A homographic pun exploits words that are spelled the same ( homographs ) but possess different meanings and sounds. Because of their origin, they rely on sight more than hearing, contrary to homophonic puns. They are also known as heteronymic puns . Examples in which
749-642: A character in The Hitchhiker's Guide . Adams also designed the cover of one issue of the Broadsheet , and had a letter and short story published in The Eagle , the boys' comic, in 1965. A poem entitled "A Dissertation on the task of writing a poem on a candle and an account of some of the difficulties thereto pertaining" written by Adams in January 1970 at the age of 17, was discovered in a cupboard at
856-555: A few minutes' walk away, in the late 1980s. In the early 1980s, Adams had an affair with novelist Sally Emerson , who was separated from her husband at that time. Adams later dedicated his book Life, the Universe and Everything to Emerson. In 1981, Emerson returned to her husband, Peter Stothard , a contemporary of Adams at Brentwood School , and later editor of The Times . Adams was soon introduced by friends to Jane Belson, with whom he later became romantically involved. Belson
963-696: A few months after his birth to the East End of London , where his sister, Susan, was born three years later. His parents divorced in 1957; Douglas, Susan and their mother moved then to an RSPCA animal shelter in Brentwood, Essex , run by his maternal grandparents. Each parent remarried, giving Adams four half-siblings. A great-grandfather was the playwright Benjamin Franklin Wedekind . Adams attended Primrose Hill Primary School in Brentwood. At
1070-411: A friend, literature has lost a luminary, the mountain gorilla and the black rhino have lost a gallant defender." Adams was also an environmental activist who campaigned on behalf of endangered species . This activism included the production of the non-fiction radio series Last Chance to See , in which he and naturalist Mark Carwardine visited rare species such as the kākāpō and baiji , and
1177-544: A grave man" in Romeo and Juliet . Shakespeare was also noted for his frequent play with less serious puns, the "quibbles" of the sort that made Samuel Johnson complain, "A quibble is to Shakespeare what luminous vapours are to the traveller! He follows it to all adventures; it is sure to lead him out of his way, sure to engulf him in the mire. It has some malignant power over his mind, and its fascinations are irresistible." Elsewhere, Johnson disparagingly referred to punning as
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#17327717922791284-614: A group called "Adams-Smith-Adams". He became a member of the Footlights by 1973. Despite doing very little work – he recalled having completed three essays in three years – he graduated in 1974 with a 2:2 in English literature . After leaving university, Adams moved back to London, determined to break into TV and radio as a writer. An edited version of the Footlights Revue appeared on BBC2 television in 1974. A version of
1391-754: A message forum on his own website to avoid the issue. In 1996, Adams was a keynote speaker at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) where he described the personal computer as being a modelling device. The video of his keynote speech is archived on Channel 9 . Adams was also a keynote speaker for the April 2001 Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco, one of the major technical conferences on embedded system engineering. Adams moved to Upper Street , Islington , in 1981 and to Duncan Terrace,
1498-447: A moving company: "We don't charge an arm and a leg. We want your tows." Here, the familiar phrase "an arm and a leg" is paronomastically punned upon with "tows," playing on the phonetic similarity to "toes" while referring to the company's service of towing belongings. Metonymic puns exploit the metonymic relationship between words – where a word or phrase is used to represent something it's closely associated with. In such puns, one term
1605-454: A new cast of characters. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency was published in 1987, and was described by its author as "a kind of ghost-horror-detective-time-travel-romantic-comedy-epic, mainly concerned with mud, music and quantum mechanics". A sequel, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul , was published a year later. It was Adams's first original work since So Long, and Thanks for All
1712-621: A new tolerance for a long-despised form of humor." It can be argued that paronomasia is common in media headlines, to draw the reader's interest. The rhetoric is important because it connects people with the topic. A notable example is the New York Post headline "Headless Body in Topless Bar". New York Post headlines for sex scandal articles have included "Cloak and Shag Her" (General Petraeus), "Obama Beats Weiner" (Congressman Weiner), and " Bezos Exposes Pecker ". Paronomasia
1819-474: A photo-illustrated edition, published in 1994. This latter edition featured a 42 Puzzle designed by Adams, which was later incorporated into paperback covers of the first four Hitchhiker's novels (the paperback for the fifth re-used the artwork from the hardback edition). In 1980, Adams began attempts to turn the first Hitchhiker's novel into a film, making several trips to Los Angeles, and working with Hollywood studios and potential producers. The next year,
1926-546: A potential film script, called Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen , which later became his novel Life, the Universe and Everything (which in turn became the third Hitchhiker's Guide radio series). Adams then went on to serve as script editor on the show for its 17th season in 1979. Altogether, he wrote three Doctor Who serials starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor : The episodes authored by Adams are some of
2033-462: A pun can make the speaker seem witty. Paronomasia is strong in print media and oral conversation so it can be assumed that paronomasia is strong in broadcast media as well. Examples of paronomasia in media are sound bites. They could be memorable because of the humor and rhetoric associated with paronomasia, thus making the significance of the soundbite stronger. There exist subtle differences between paronomasia and other literary techniques, such as
2140-486: A pun may be based on a similarity in shape of the written character, despite a complete lack of phonetic similarity in the words punned upon. Mark Elvin describes how this "peculiarly Chinese form of visual punning involved comparing written characters to objects." Visual puns on the bearer's name are used extensively as forms of heraldic expression, they are called canting arms . They have been used for centuries across Europe and have even been used recently by members of
2247-551: A recording of his reading of Life, the Universe and Everything and editing, Adams can be heard playing the part of Agrajag posthumously. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish and Mostly Harmless made up the fourth and fifth radio series, respectively (on radio they were titled The Quandary Phase and The Quintessential Phase ) and these were broadcast in May and June 2005, and also subsequently released on Audio CD. The last episode in
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#17327717922792354-794: A rhino suit; Adams wore the suit while travelling to the mountain before the climb began. About £100,000 was raised through that event, benefiting schools in Kenya and a black rhinoceros preservation programme in Tanzania . Adams was also an active supporter of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. Since 2003, Save the Rhino has held an annual Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture around the time of his birthday to raise money for environmental campaigns. Adams bought his first word processor in 1982, having considered one as early as 1979. His first purchase
2461-486: A rock musician". Adams's official biography shares its name with the song "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd . The opening section of " Shine On You Crazy Diamond " was featured in a section of the third episode of the original 1978 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series (broadcast only, cut from commercial releases). Adams was friends with Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour and, on Adams's 42nd birthday, he
2568-451: A scrap of difference between them. They're the same species of Curculio ." Captain Aubrey: "If you had to choose. If you were forced to make a choice. If there were no other option." Dr. Maturin: "Well, then, if you're going to push me. I would choose the right-hand weevil. It has significant advantage in both length and breadth." Captain Aubrey: "There, I have you!...Do you not know that in
2675-521: A third radio series, based on the third novel in the Hitchhiker's series. They also discussed the possibilities of radio adaptations of the final two novels in the five-book "trilogy". As with the film, this project was realised only after Adams's death. The third series, The Tertiary Phase , was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2004 and was subsequently released on audio CD. With the aid of
2782-417: A title can immediately communicate both that what follows is a parody and also that work is about to be parodied, making any further "setup" (introductory explanation) unnecessary. Sometimes called "books never written" or "world's greatest books", these are jokes that consist of fictitious book titles with authors' names that contain a pun relating to the title. Perhaps the best-known example is: " Tragedy on
2889-550: A tree-surgeon in Dudley called " Special Branch ". The winning entry, selected by Lee Nelson , was a dry cleaner's in Fulham and Chelsea called "Starchy and Starchy", a pun on Saatchi & Saatchi . Paronomasia has found a strong foothold in the media. William Safire of The New York Times suggests that "the root of this pace-growing [use of paronomasia] is often a headline-writer's need for quick catchiness, and has resulted in
2996-528: A type of black hair-like algae, " fat choy " (髮菜, fǎ cài, literally "hair vegetable" in Chinese), is also featured in many dishes since its name sounds similar to "prosperity"(發財, fā cái). Hakka will serve "kiu nyuk" 扣肉 and "ngiong tiu fu" 釀豆腐. The belief is that having one will lead to the other, as the phrases sound similar to one another. This China -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Vietnam -related article
3103-477: A week-long brainstorming session with the Lucasfilm Games team for the game Labyrinth . Later he was also involved in creating Bureaucracy as a parody of events in his own life. Adams was a founder-director and Chief Fantasist of The Digital Village , a digital media and Internet company with which he created Starship Titanic , a Codie award -winning and BAFTA-nominated adventure game , which
3210-399: A word. For instance, in the sentence, "I used to be a baker, but I couldn't make enough dough," the word "dough" is used paronomastically to refer both to the substance used to make bread and to slang for money. This type of pun is frequently used in advertisements , comedy , and literature to provide a clever and memorable message. One notable example comes from an advertising slogan for
3317-437: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Pun A pun , also known as a paronomasia in the context of linguistics , is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophonic , homographic , metonymic , or figurative language . A pun differs from
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3424-542: Is a statement that contains two or more puns. In this case, the wordplay cannot go into effect by utilizing the separate words or phrases of the puns that make up the entire statement. For example, a complex statement by Richard Whately includes four puns: "Why can a man never starve in the Great Desert ? Because he can eat the sand which is there. But what brought the sandwiches there? Why, Noah sent Ham, and his descendants mustered and bred." This pun uses sand which
3531-409: Is also an example of a multilingual pun, full understanding of which requires knowledge of more than one language on the part of the listener. Names of fictional characters also often carry puns, such as Ash Ketchum , the protagonist of the anime series Pokémon , and Goku ("Kakarrot"), the protagonist of the manga series Dragon Ball . Both franchises are known for including second meanings in
3638-735: Is not in finite range. Another example is "a Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother ". The recursive pun "Immanuel doesn't pun, he Kant " is attributed to Oscar Wilde . Visual puns are sometimes used in logos, emblems, insignia, and other graphic symbols, in which one or more of the pun aspects is replaced by a picture. In European heraldry , this technique is called canting arms . Visual and other puns and word games are also common in Dutch gable stones as well as in some cartoons , such as Lost Consonants and The Far Side . Another type of visual pun exists in languages that use non-phonetic writing. For example, in Chinese,
3745-463: Is parsed as dis-tressed (having hair cut off), or in the self-referential pun "I entered ten puns in a pun competition hoping one would win, but no pun in ten did" (parsed as "no pun intended"). Puns are a common source of humour in jokes and comedy shows . They are often used in the punch line of a joke, where they typically give a humorous meaning to a rather perplexing story. These are also known as feghoots . The following example comes from
3852-481: Is prevalent orally as well. Salvatore Attardo believes that puns are verbal humor. He talks about Pepicello and Weisberg's linguistic theory of humor and believes the only form of linguistic humor is limited to puns. This is because a pun is a play on the word itself. Attardo believes that only puns are able to maintain humor and this humor has significance. It is able to help soften a situation and make it less serious, it can help make something more memorable, and using
3959-599: Is repeated with the meaning "be executed." This punning style is prevalent in both humorous and serious contexts, adding layers of complexity to the language by highlighting the multifaceted nature of words. Such puns are frequently used in literature, speeches, and advertising to deliver memorable and impactful lines. Richard J. Alexander notes two additional forms that puns may take: graphological (sometimes called visual) puns, such as concrete poetry ; and morphological puns, such as portmanteaux . Morphological puns may make use of rebracketing , where for instance distressed
4066-445: Is substituted for another term with which it's closely linked by a concept or idea. The humor or wit of the pun often comes from the unexpected yet apt connection made between the two concepts. For instance, consider a hypothetical news headline: "The White House loses its balance." In this case, "The White House" is used metonymically to represent the U.S. government , and "balance" could be interpreted both as physical stability (as if
4173-404: Is the formal term for punning , playing with words to create humorous or rhetorical effect. Paronomastic puns often manipulate well-known idioms , proverbs , or phrases to deliver a punned twist. The classic structure of a joke, with a setup leading to a punchline, is a common format for paronomastic puns, where the punchline alters the expected phrase in a way that plays on multiple meanings of
4280-464: Is there/sandwiches there , Ham /ham , mustered/mustard , and bred/bread . Similarly, the phrase "piano is not my forte" links two meanings of the words forte and piano , one for the dynamic markings in music and the second for the literal meaning of the sentence, as well as alluding to "pianoforte", the older name of the instrument. Compound puns may also combine two phrases that share a word. For example, "Where do mathematicians go on weekends? To
4387-470: The British royal family , such as on the arms of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and of Princess Beatrice of York . The arms of U.S. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower are also canting . In the context of non-phonetic texts, 4 Pics 1 Word , is an example of visual paronomasia where the players are supposed to identify the word in common from the set of four images. Paronomasia
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4494-613: The Doctor Who 2012 Christmas episode " The Snowmen ", writer Steven Moffat was inspired by a storyline that Adams pitched called The Doctor Retires . The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was a concept for a science-fiction comedy radio series pitched by Adams and radio producer Simon Brett to BBC Radio 4 in 1977. Adams came up with an outline for a pilot episode, as well as a few other stories (reprinted in Neil Gaiman 's book Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to
4601-657: The Edinburgh Fringe festival. By Christmas, work had dried up again, and a depressed Adams moved to live with his mother. The lack of writing work hit him hard, and low confidence became a feature of Adams's life: "I have terrible periods of lack of confidence [...] I briefly did therapy, but after a while I realised it was like a farmer complaining about the weather. You can't fix the weather – you just have to get on with it." Some of Adams's early radio work included sketches for The Burkiss Way in 1977 and The News Huddlines . He also wrote, again with Chapman,
4708-732: The O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships in Austin, Texas . In 2015 the UK Pun Champion was Leo Kearse. Other pun competitions include Minnesota’s Pundamonium, Orlando Punslingers, the Almost Annual Pun-Off in Eureka, and Brooklyn’s Punderdome, led by Jo Firestone and her father, Fred Firestone. In Away with Words: An Irreverent Tour Through the World of Pun Competitions, Joe Berkowitz deems Austin's O. Henry Pun-Off
4815-506: The double entendre . While puns are often simple wordplay for comedic or rhetorical effect, a double entendre alludes to a second meaning that is not contained within the statement or phrase itself, often one that purposefully disguises the second meaning. As both exploit the use of intentional double meanings, puns can sometimes be double entendres, and vice versa. Puns also bear similarities with paraprosdokian , syllepsis , and eggcorns . In addition, homographic puns are sometimes compared to
4922-444: The fine-tuned universe argument for God. He remained fascinated by religion because of its effect on human affairs. "I love to keep poking and prodding at it. I've thought about it so much over the years that that fascination is bound to spill over into my writing." The evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins invited Adams to participate in his 1991 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures , where Dawkins calls Adams from
5029-455: The stylistic device antanaclasis , and homophonic puns to polyptoton . Puns can be used as a type of mnemonic device to enhance comprehension in an educational setting. Used discreetly, puns can effectively reinforce content and aid in the retention of material. Some linguists have encouraged the creation of neologisms to decrease the instances of confusion caused by puns. Puns were found in ancient Egypt , where they were heavily used in
5136-479: The "Olympics" of pun competitions, and Brooklyn's Punderdome the "X Games". GQ described the crowd at Brooklyn's Punderdome as "passionate, to a level that feels dangerous". Non-humorous puns were and are a standard poetic device in English literature . Puns and other forms of wordplay have been used by many famous writers, such as Alexander Pope , James Joyce , Vladimir Nabokov , Robert Bloch , Lewis Carroll , John Donne , and William Shakespeare . In
5243-753: The 20 February 1977 episode of Doctor on the Go , a sequel to the Doctor in the House television comedy series. After the first radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide became successful, Adams was made a BBC radio producer, working on Week Ending and a pantomime called Black Cinderella Two Goes East . He left after six months to become the script editor for Doctor Who . In 1979, Adams and John Lloyd wrote scripts for two half-hour episodes of Doctor Snuggles : "The Remarkable Fidgety River" and "The Great Disappearing Mystery" (episodes eight and twelve). John Lloyd
5350-532: The Cliff by Eileen Dover", which according to one source was devised by humourist Peter De Vries . It is common for these puns to refer to taboo subject matter, such as " What Boys Love by E. Norma Stitts". Pun competitions 2014 saw the inaugural UK Pun Championships, at the Leicester Comedy Festival , hosted by Lee Nelson . The winner was Darren Walsh. Walsh went on to take part in
5457-587: The Fish. After the book tour, Adams set off on his round-the-world excursion, which supplied him with the material for Last Chance to See . The Salmon of Doubt was incomplete when published posthumously. Adams played the guitar left-handed and had a collection of 24 left-handed guitars when he died (having received his first guitar in 1964). He also studied piano in the 1960s. Pink Floyd and Procol Harum had important influence on Adams's work. During his segment on music discussion programme Private Passions , Adams remarked that he "would have loved to have been
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#17327717922795564-591: The Galaxy Companion ) that could be used in the series. According to Adams, the idea for the title occurred to him while he lay drunk in a field in Innsbruck , Austria, gazing at the stars. He was carrying a copy of the Hitch-hiker's Guide to Europe , and it occurred to him that "somebody ought to write a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ". Despite the original outline, Adams was said to make up
5671-641: The Grapes wine and spirits, Curl Up and Dye hair salon, as do books such as Pies and Prejudice , webcomics like ( YU+ME: dream ) and feature films such as ( Good Will Hunting ). The Japanese anime Speed Racer 's original Japanese title, Mach GoGoGo! refers to the English word itself, the Japanese word for five (the Mach Five 's car number), and the name of the show's main character, Go Mifune. This
5778-599: The Revue performed live in London's West End led to Adams being discovered by Monty Python 's Graham Chapman . The two formed a brief writing partnership, earning Adams a writing credit in episode 45 of Monty Python for a sketch called " Patient Abuse ". The pair also co-wrote the "Marilyn Monroe" sketch that appeared on the soundtrack album of Monty Python and the Holy Grail . Adams is one of only two people other than
5885-549: The Roman playwright Plautus was famous for his puns and word games. A homophonic pun is one that uses word pairs which sound alike ( homophones ) but are not synonymous. Walter Redfern summarized this type with his statement, "To pun is to treat homonyms as synonyms ." For example, in George Carlin 's phrase "atheism is a non-prophet institution", the word prophet is put in place of its homophone profit , altering
5992-505: The Service , one must always choose the lesser of the two weevils. " Not infrequently, puns are used in the titles of comedic parodies . A parody of a popular song, movie, etc., may be given a title that hints at the title of the work being parodied, replacing some of the words with ones that sound or look similar. For example, collegiate a cappella groups are often named after musical puns to attract fans through attempts at humor. Such
6099-456: The age of nine, he passed the entrance exam for Brentwood School . He attended the prep school from 1959 to 1964, then the main school until December 1970. Adams was 6 feet (1.8 m) tall by the age of 12, and stopped growing at 6 feet 5 inches (1.96 m). His form master, Frank Halford, said that Adams's height had made him stand out and that he had been self-conscious about it. His ability to write stories made him well known in
6206-541: The audience to read a passage from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe which satirises the absurdity of the thought that any one species would exist on Earth merely to serve as a meal to another species, such as humans. Dawkins also uses Adams's influence to exemplify arguments for non-belief in his 2006 book The God Delusion . Dawkins dedicated the book to Adams, whom he jokingly called "possibly [my] only convert" to atheism and wrote on his death that "Science has lost
6313-469: The audience's background with the possibility of detracting from the intended message. Like other forms of wordplay, paronomasia is occasionally used for its attention-getting or mnemonic qualities, making it common in titles and the names of places, characters, and organizations, and in advertising and slogans. Many restaurant and shop names use puns: Cane & Able mobility healthcare, Sam & Ella 's Chicken Palace, Tiecoon tie shop, Planet of
6420-516: The beginning of episode 44, "Mr. Neutron", Adams is dressed in a pepper-pot outfit and loads a missile onto a cart driven by Terry Jones , who is calling for scrap metal ("Any old iron..."). The two episodes were broadcast in November 1974. Adams and Chapman also attempted non-Python projects, including Out of the Trees . At this point, Adams's career stalled; his writing style was unsuited to
6527-426: The building itself is tipping over) or fiscal balance (as in the budget), thereby creating a pun. While metonymic puns may not be as widely recognized as a specific category of pun, they represent a sophisticated linguistic tool that can bring an additional layer of nuance to wordplay. Syllepsis , or heteronymy, is a form of punning where a single word simultaneously affects the rest of the sentence, while it changes
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#17327717922796634-512: The character of Professor Chronotis . Big Finish Productions eventually remade Shada as an audio play starring Paul McGann as the Doctor. Accompanied by partially animated illustrations, it was webcast on the BBC website in 2003, and subsequently released as a two-CD set later that year. An omnibus edition of this version was broadcast on the digital radio station BBC7 on 10 December 2005. In
6741-421: The children.) Notable practitioners of the sylleptic pun include authors such as P. G. Wodehouse , who once wrote, "If not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled," playing on the dichotomy of "disgruntled" and "gruntled," where the latter is not typically used. Antanaclasis is a type of pun where a single word or phrase is repeated, but the meaning changes each time. The humor or wit derives from
6848-701: The common phrase " non-profit institution ". Similarly, the joke "Question: Why do we still have troops in Germany ? Answer: To keep the Russians in Czech " relies on the aural ambiguity of the homophones check and Czech . Often, puns are not strictly homophonic, but play on words of similar, not identical, sound as in the example from the Pinky and the Brain cartoon film series: "I think so, Brain, but if we give peas
6955-505: The development of myths and interpretation of dreams. In China , Shen Dao (ca. 300 BC) used "shi", meaning "power", and "shi", meaning "position" to say that a king has power because of his position as king. In ancient Mesopotamia around 2500 BC, punning was used by scribes to represent words in cuneiform . The Tanakh contains puns. The Maya are known for having used puns in their hieroglyphic writing , and for using them in their modern languages. In Japan, " graphomania "
7062-463: The early 1980s, during their collaboration on Infocom's version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy . While living in New Mexico in 1993 he set up another e-mail address and began posting to his own USENET newsgroup, alt.fan.douglas-adams, and occasionally, when his computer was acting up, to the comp.sys.mac hierarchy. Challenges to the authenticity of his messages later led Adams to set up
7169-430: The exploitation of words that are both homographs and homophones. The statement "Being in politics is just like playing golf : you are trapped in one bad lie after another" puns on the two meanings of the word lie as "a deliberate untruth" and as "the position in which something rests". An adaptation of a joke repeated by Isaac Asimov gives us "Did you hear about the little moron who strained himself while running into
7276-606: The extension of moral equality to include all great apes, human and non-human. In 1994, Adams participated in a climb of Mount Kilimanjaro while wearing a rhino suit for the British charity organisation Save the Rhino International . Puppeteer William Todd-Jones , who had originally worn the suit in the London Marathon to raise money and bring awareness to the group, also participated in the climb wearing
7383-510: The few that were not originally novelised, as Adams would not allow anyone else to write them and asked for a higher price than the publishers were willing to pay. Shada was later adapted as a novel by Gareth Roberts in 2012 and City of Death and The Pirate Planet by James Goss in 2015 and 2017 respectively. Elements of Shada and City of Death were reused in Adams's later novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency , in particular,
7490-603: The first church service broadcast live on the web by the BBC. Two days before Adams died, the Minor Planet Center announced the naming of asteroid 18610 Arthurdent , named after The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy protagonist. In 2005, the asteroid 25924 Douglasadams was named in his memory. In May 2002, The Salmon of Doubt was published, containing many short stories, essays, and letters, as well as eulogies from Richard Dawkins , Stephen Fry (in
7597-599: The first radio series weekly in the UK starting 8 March 1978, lasting until April. The series was distributed in the United States by National Public Radio . Following the success of the first series, another episode was recorded and broadcast, which was commonly known as the Christmas Episode. A second series of five episodes was broadcast one per night, during the week of 21–25 January 1980. While working on
7704-432: The highest form of literature." Shakespeare is estimated to have used over 3,000 puns in his plays . Even though many of the puns were bawdy, Elizabethan literature considered puns and wordplay to be a "sign of literary refinement" more so than humor. This is evidenced by the deployment of puns in serious or "seemingly inappropriate" scenes, like when a dying Mercutio quips "Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me
7811-439: The homophonic qualities of tune a and tuna , as well as the homographic pun on bass , in which ambiguity is reached through the identical spellings of / b eɪ s / (a string instrument ), and / b æ s / (a kind of fish ). Homographic puns do not necessarily need to follow grammatical rules and often do not make sense when interpreted outside the context of the pun. Homonymic puns, another common type, arise from
7918-455: The internet community. It was hosted by BBC Online from 2001 to 2011. In 1990, Adams wrote and presented a television documentary programme Hyperland which featured Tom Baker as a "software agent" (similar to the assistant pictured in Apple's Knowledge Navigator video of future concepts from 1987), and interviews with Ted Nelson , the co-inventor of hypertext and the person who coined
8025-421: The last series (with a new, "more upbeat" ending) concluded with, "The very final episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams is affectionately dedicated to its author." Between Adams's first trip to Madagascar with Mark Carwardine in 1985, and their series of travels that formed the basis for the radio series and non-fiction book Last Chance to See , Adams wrote two other novels with
8132-436: The lowest form of humour. Puns can function as a rhetorical device , where the pun serves as a persuasive instrument for an author or speaker. Although puns are sometimes perceived as trite or silly, if used responsibly a pun "can be an effective communication tool in a variety of situations and forms". A major difficulty in using puns in this manner is that the meaning of a pun can be interpreted very differently according to
8239-581: The meaning of the idiom it is used in. This form of punning uses the word in its literal and metaphorical senses at once, creating a surprising and often humorous effect. An example of a sylleptic pun is in the sentence, "She lowered her standards by raising her glass, her courage, her eyes and his hopes." In this case, "raising" applies in different ways to each of the items listed, creating a series of linked puns. This type of punning can often be seen in literature, particularly in works that play extensively with language. (She razed his self-esteem in how she raised
8346-470: The movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World , though the punchline stems from far older Vaudeville roots. The final line puns on the stock phrase " the lesser of two evils ". After Aubrey offers his pun (to the enjoyment of many), Dr. Maturin shows a disdain for the craft with his reply, "One who would pun would pick-a-pocket." Captain Aubrey: "Do you see those two weevils , Doctor?...Which would you choose?" Dr. Maturin: "Neither. There's not
8453-503: The names of characters. A recurring motif in the Austin Powers films repeatedly puns on names that suggest male genitalia. In the science fiction television series Star Trek , " B-4 " is used as the name of one of four androids models constructed "before" the android Data , a main character. A librarian in another Star Trek episode was named "Mr. Atoz" (A to Z). The parallel sequel The Lion King 1½ advertised with
8560-452: The original Python members to get a writing credit (the other being Neil Innes ). Adams had two brief appearances in the fourth series of Monty Python's Flying Circus . At the beginning of episode 42, "The Light Entertainment War", Adams is in a surgeon's mask (as Dr. Emile Koning, according to on-screen captions), pulling on gloves, while Michael Palin narrates a sketch that introduces one person after another but never gets started. At
8667-570: The phrase "You haven't seen the 1/2 of it!". Wyborowa Vodka employed the slogan "Enjoyed for centuries straight", while Northern Telecom used "Technology the world calls on." On 1 June 2015 the BBC Radio 4 You and Yours included a feature on "Puntastic Shop Titles". Entries included a Chinese Takeaway in Ayr town centre called " Ayr's Wok ", a kebab shop in Ireland called " Abra Kebabra " and
8774-653: The poem A Hymn to God the Father , John Donne , whose wife's name was Anne More, puns repeatedly: "Son/sun" in the second quoted line, and two compound puns on "Done/done" and "More/more". All three are homophonic, with the puns on "more" being both homographic and capitonymic . The ambiguities introduce several possible meanings into the verses. "When Thou hast done , Thou hast not done / For I have more . that at my death Thy Son / Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore And having done that, Thou hast done ; / I fear no more ." Alfred Hitchcock stated, "Puns are
8881-402: The publication of a tie-in book of the same name. In 1992, this was made into a CD-ROM combination of audiobook , e-book and picture slide show. Adams and Mark Carwardine contributed the 'Meeting a Gorilla' passage from Last Chance to See to the book The Great Ape Project . This book, edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer , launched a wider-scale project in 1993, which calls for
8988-450: The punned words typically exist in two different parts of speech often rely on unusual sentence construction, as in the anecdote: "When asked to explain his large number of children, the pig answered simply: 'The wild oats of my sow gave us many piglets. ' " An example that combines homophonic and homographic punning is Douglas Adams 's line "You can tune a guitar, but you can't tuna fish. Unless of course, you play bass ." The phrase uses
9095-415: The radio series (and with simultaneous projects such as The Pirate Planet ) Adams developed problems keeping to writing deadlines that got worse as he published novels. Adams was never a prolific writer and usually had to be forced by others to do any writing. This included being locked in a hotel suite with his editor for three weeks to ensure that So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish was completed. He
9202-589: The radio series became the basis for a BBC television mini-series broadcast in six parts. When he died in 2001 in California, he had been trying again to get the film project started with Disney , which had bought the rights in 1998. The screenplay was rewritten by Karey Kirkpatrick and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film was released in 2005. Radio producer Dirk Maggs had consulted with Adams, first in 1993, and later in 1997 and 2000 about creating
9309-489: The rock band Disaster Area who appear in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe , who planned to crash a space ship into a nearby star as a stunt during a concert. Gilmour also performed at Adams's memorial service in 2001, and what would have been Adams's 60th birthday party in 2012. Adams created an interactive fiction version of HHGG with Steve Meretzky from Infocom in 1984. In 1986 he participated in
9416-710: The school in early 2014. On the strength of an essay on religious poetry that discussed the Beatles and William Blake , Adams was awarded an Exhibition in English at St John's College, Cambridge (where his father had likewise been a student), going up in 1971. He wanted to join the Footlights , an invitation-only student comedy club that has acted as a hothouse for comic talent. He was not elected immediately as he had hoped, and started to write and perform in revues with Will Adams (no relation) and Martin Smith; they formed
9523-514: The school. Adams became the only student ever to be awarded a ten out of ten by Halford for creative writing – something he remembered for the rest of his life, particularly when facing writer's block . Some of his earliest writing was published at the school, such as a report on its photography club in The Brentwoodian in 1962, or spoof reviews in the school magazine Broadsheet , edited by Paul Neil Milne Johnstone , who later became
9630-413: The screen door?" playing on strained as "to give much effort" and "to filter". A homonymic pun may also be polysemic , in which the words must be homonymic and also possess related meanings, a condition that is often subjective. However, lexicographers define polysemes as listed under a single dictionary lemma (a unique numbered meaning) while homonyms are treated in separate lemmata. A compound pun
9737-510: The stories as he wrote. He turned to John Lloyd for help with the final two episodes of the first series . Lloyd contributed bits from an unpublished science fiction book of his own, called GiGax . Very little of Lloyd's material survived in later adaptations of Hitchhiker's , such as the novels and the TV series. The TV series was based on the first six radio episodes, and sections contributed by Lloyd were largely re-written. BBC Radio 4 broadcast
9844-613: The subject of technology, including reprints of articles that originally ran in MacUser , and in The Independent on Sunday . In these, Adams claims that one of the first computers he ever saw was a Commodore PET , and that he had "adored" his Apple Macintosh ("or rather my family of however many Macintoshes it is that I've recklessly accumulated over the years") since he first saw one at Infocom's offices in Boston in 1984. Adams
9951-471: The surprising shift in meaning of a familiar word or phrase. This form of punning often relies on homophones, homonyms, or simply the contextual flexibility of a word or phrase. A classic example is Benjamin Franklin 's statement, "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." In this quote, the word "hang" is first used to mean "stay" or "work together," but then, it
10058-440: The television series Doctor Who , including the unaired serial Shada , co-wrote City of Death (1979), and served as script editor for its seventeenth season . He co-wrote the sketch " Patient Abuse " for the final episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus . A posthumous collection of his selected works, including the first publication of his final (unfinished) novel, was published as The Salmon of Doubt in 2002. Adams
10165-570: The term. Adams was an early adopter and advocate of hypertext. Adams described himself as a "radical atheist ", adding "radical" for emphasis so he would not be asked if he meant agnostic. He told American Atheists that this conveyed the fact that he really meant it. He imagined a sentient puddle who wakes up one morning and thinks, "This is an interesting world I find myself in – an interesting hole I find myself in – fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!" to express his disbelief in
10272-459: The then-current style of radio and TV comedy. To make ends meet, he took a series of odd jobs, including as a hospital porter, barn builder, and chicken shed cleaner. He was employed as a bodyguard by a Qatari family, who had made their fortune in oil. During this time, Adams continued to write and submit sketches, though few were accepted. In 1976, his career had a brief improvement when he wrote and performed Unpleasantness at Brodie's Close at
10379-522: Was a Macintosh user from the time they first came out in 1984 until his death in 2001. He was the first person to buy a Mac in Europe, the second being Stephen Fry . Adams was also an " Apple Master ", celebrities whom Apple made into spokespeople for its products (others included John Cleese and Gregory Hines ). Adams's contributions included a rock video that he created using the first version of iMovie with footage featuring his daughter Polly. The video
10486-435: Was a Nexu. In 1983, when he and Jane Belson went to Los Angeles, he bought a DEC Rainbow . Upon their return to England, Adams bought an Apricot , then a BBC Micro and a Tandy 1000 . In Last Chance to See , Adams mentions his Cambridge Z88 , which he had taken to Zaire on a quest to find the northern white rhinoceros . Adams's posthumously published work, The Salmon of Doubt , features several articles by him on
10593-584: Was a self-proclaimed "radical atheist", an advocate for environmentalism and conservation , and a lover of fast cars, technological innovation, and the Apple Macintosh . Adams was born in Cambridge , England, on 11 March 1952 to Christopher Douglas Adams (1927–1985), a management consultant and computer salesman, former probation officer and lecturer on probationary group therapy techniques, and nurse Janet (1927–2016), née Donovan. The family moved
10700-594: Was also co-author of two episodes from the original Hitchhiker radio series ("Fit the Fifth" and "Fit the Sixth", also known as "Episode Five" and "Episode Six"), as well as The Meaning of Liff and The Deeper Meaning of Liff . Adams sent the script for the HHGG pilot radio programme to the Doctor Who production office in 1978, and was commissioned to write The Pirate Planet . He had also previously attempted to submit
10807-401: Was available on Adams's .Mac homepage. Adams installed and started using the first release of Mac OS X in the weeks leading up to his death. His last post to his own forum was in praise of Mac OS X and the possibilities of its Cocoa programming framework. He said it was "awesome...", which was also the last word he wrote on his site. Adams used email to correspond with Steve Meretzky in
10914-541: Was further developed into a television series , several stage plays, comics, a video game , and a 2005 feature film . Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy 's Hall of Fame. Adams also wrote Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), and co-wrote The Meaning of Liff (1983), The Deeper Meaning of Liff (1990) and Last Chance to See (1990). He wrote two stories for
11021-639: Was invited to make a guest appearance at Pink Floyd's concert of 28 October 1994 at Earls Court in London, playing guitar on the songs "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse" . Adams chose the name for Pink Floyd's 1994 album, The Division Bell , by picking the words from the lyrics to one of its tracks, " High Hopes ". Pink Floyd and the song " Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun " in particular, inspired Adams to create
11128-485: Was one type of pun. More commonly, wordplay in modern Japan is known as dajare . Douglas Adams Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author, humourist , and screenwriter, best known as the creator of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ( HHGTTG ) . Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy , The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy developed into a " trilogy " of five books which sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime. It
11235-405: Was published in 1998 by Simon & Schuster . Terry Jones wrote the accompanying book, entitled Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic , since Adams was too busy with the computer game to do both. In April 1999, Adams initiated the h2g2 collaborative writing project, an experimental attempt at making The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy a reality, and at harnessing the collective brainpower of
11342-399: Was quoted as saying, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." Despite the difficulty with deadlines, Adams wrote five novels in the series, published in 1979, 1980, 1982, 1984, and 1992. The books formed the basis for other adaptations, such as three-part comic book adaptations for each of the first three books, an interactive text-adventure computer game , and
11449-576: Was the "lady barrister" mentioned in the jacket-flap biography printed in his books during the mid-1980s ("He [Adams] lives in Islington with a lady barrister and an Apple Macintosh"). The two lived in Los Angeles together during 1983, while Adams worked on an early screenplay adaptation of Hitchhiker's . When the deal fell through, they moved back to London, and after several separations ("He is currently not certain where he lives, or with whom") and
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