LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

  While making my bed this morning, and due to the strange workings of the brain, I started humming  a little poem I learnt in my early youth: A Flea and a Fly A flea and a fly in a flue Were inprisoned. What could they do? "Let us fly!" said the flea. "Let us flee!" said the fly. So they flew through a flaw in the flue. I have done some research on this, and it passes off as a tongue twister. It is not. It is a pun riddle. Flea vs. flee; flue vs. flew; fly noun vs. fly verb. It is a good example of the workings of puns in the English language. My dictionary defines "pun" (retruécano) as "the humorous use of a word or phrase to emphasize or suggest its different meanings or applications, or the use of words that are alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning; a play on words." 

Pun: “ The humorous use of a word or phrase so as to emphasize its different meanings, or the use of words that are alike or in sound but different in meaning; a play on words.” Webster´s Unabridged Dict. 3.0 --I tried to sue the airline for losing my luggage. I lost my case. --When the semi-colon broke grammar laws it was given two consecutive sentences. --Why did the scarecrow win a Nobel Prize? For being outstanding in his field. --What kind of tea did the American Colonists want? Liberty. Retruécano: “ Chiste conseguido manejando palabras parónimas (de forma parecida y distinto significado). ” M. Moliner. --Un capataz tan malo que ni jugando al ajedrez conseguía mover los peones. --La mujer era tan pobre que en vez de dar a luz dio a oscuras. --Era un hombre tan fuerte que doblaba todas las esquinas. --La vaca era tan flaca, tan flaca, que en vez de dar leche daba pena.   I hope you got a belly laugh out of these! (No son míos; los he copiado.) ...