Understatement, irony, zeugma and pun

Understatement is the reverse of exaggeration. The relations, or feelings, or qualities of the object are intentionally underrated, diminishing the importance of event.

Ex. She looked at me with not much joy. I wasn’t what you can call in a fever of impatience.

Understatement is aSD which consists in lessening, reducing the real quantity of the object. The psychological essence of understatement is more complicated than that of hyperbole. The hearer is expected to understand the intentional discrepancy between what the speaker says about the object and what he really thinks about it. English is well known for its preference for understatement in everyday speech. “ I am rather annoyed ” instead of “ I’m infuriated’, “ The wind is rather strong ” instead of “ There’s a gale (буря) blowing outside ” are typical of British polite speech, but are less characteristic of American English.

Irony is a stylistic device based on the simultaneous realization of two logical meanings - dictionary and contextual, but the two meanings stand in opposition to each other. E.g. "It must be delightful to find oneself in a foreign country
without a penny in one's pocket."

“What a noble illustration of the tender laws of this favored country! – they let the paupers go to sleep!”(Dickens)

Irony must not be confused with humor, although they have very much in common. Humor always causes laughter. What is funny must come as sudden clash of the positive and the negative. In this respect irony can be likened to humor. But the function of irony is not confined to producing a humorous effect. In a sentence like "How clever of you" where, due to the intonation pattern, the word " clever " conveys a sense opposite to its literal signification, the irony does not cause a ludicrous effect. It rather expresses a feeling of irritation, displeasure, pity or regret. The context is arranged so that the qualifying word in irony reverses the direction of the evaluation, and the word positively charged is understood as a negative qualification and (much-much rarer) vice versa.

Richard Altick says, "The effect of irony lies in the striking disparity between what is said and what is meant." This "striking disparity" is achieved through the intentional interplay of the two meanings, which are in opposition to each other.
We must also take into consideration that irony is generally used to convey a negative meaning. Therefore only positive concepts may be used in their logical dictionary meanings.
Irony does not exist outside the context, which varies from the minimal - a word combination, as in J. Steinbeck's "She turned with the sweet smile of an alligator," - to the context of a whole book.

In oral speech irony is made prominent by emphatic intonation, mimic and gesticulation. In writing the most typical signs are inverted commas or italics.

Zeugma is the use of a word in the same grammatical but different semantic relations to two adjacent words in the context, the semantic relations being, on the one hand, literal, and, on the other, transferred. Ex. "Dora, plunging at once into privileged intimacy and into the middle of the room". (B. Shaw)

Zeugma is limited to a syntactical combination of a polysemantic verb with several nouns tied to it by different relations - one noun can form with this verb a free word combination, the other – a phraseological unit. Both can be free word combinations.

Ex. “Now I give you a warning”, - shouted the Queen, - “ Ether you or your head must be off. Take your choice”. The lady took her choice & was gone in a moment.

Zeugma is particularly favored in English emotive prose and in poetry. It is a strong and effective device to maintain the purity of the primary meaning when the two meanings clash. By making the two meanings conspicuous in this particular way, each of them stands out clearly. Thus in the sentence: "...And May's mother always stood on her gentility (претенциозность, знать), and Dot's mother never stood on anything but her active little feet" (Dickens) the word 'stood' is used twice. In this structural variant of zeugma the two meanings of the word 'stand' are simultaneously expressed, one primary and the other derivative. When the number of homogeneous members, semantically disconnected, but attached to the same verb, increases, we deal with semantically false chains. E.g.: A Governess wanted. Must possess knowledge of Romanian, Russian, Italian, Spanish, German, Music and mining Engineering. (S.Leacock).

The pun (paronomasia, play on words) is another stylistic device based on the interaction of two well-known meanings of a word or phrase. It is difficult do draw a hard and fast distinction between zeugma and the pun. The only reliable distinguishing feature is a structural one: zeugma is the realization of two meanings with the help of a verb which is made to refer to different subjects or objects (direct or indirect). The pun is more independent. There need not necessarily be a word in the sentence to which the pun-word refers. This does not mean, however, that the pun is entirely free. Like any other stylistic device, it must depend on a context. But the context may be of a more expanded character, sometimes even as large as a whole work of emotive prose. Ex. "'Bow to the board," said Bumble. Oliver brushed away two or three tears that were lingering in his eyes; and seeing'-no board but the table, fortunately bowed to that'. (Dickens) In fact, the humorous effect is caused by the interplay not of two meanings of one word, but of two words. 'Board' as a group of officials with functions of administration and management and 'board' as a piece of furniture (a table) have become two distinct words.

Pun can be the misinterpretation of one’s speaker’s utterance by the other, which results in his remark dealing with a different meaning of the misinterpreted word or its homonym, e.g.: the Pickwick Papers: when the fat boy, Mr.Wardle’s servant, emerged from the corridor, very pale, he was asked by his master: “Have you been seeing any spirits?” - “Or taking any?” – added Bob Allen.

Misinterpretation can be caused by the phonetic similarity of two homonyms. In this case a pun is loosely defined as a play on the sound of words to a certain effect. In other words, a pun can make you laugh, it can make you think. It can increase clarity when we’re trying to discern the meaning of a text, or it can introduce ambiguity. Many puns rely on simple homophones, for instance, “atheism is a non-prophet [non-profit] organization.” A man's home is his castle, in a manor (феодальное поместье) of speaking.

Other puns have much deeper meaning.

Pun has been called as "a witty enquiry into the language", "a literary riot", "a mixture of erudition and fun","a feast of ingenuity and wit", "a provocative play on words"

Puns are often used in riddles and jokes (A riddle or pun makes learning words fun), ex.: What is the difference between a schoolmaster and an engine-driver? (One trains the mind and the other minds the train.) Devices of simultaneously realizing the various meanings of words, which are of a more subtle character than those embodied in puns and zeugma, are to be found in poetry and poetical descriptions and in speculations in emotive prose.

E.g.: A woman had three sons who emigrated from Ireland to the USA. They prospered and soon became the owners of a large cattle ranch. They weren't, however, sure what to call it, so they wrote back to their mother for advice. She sent a one-word reply on a postcard: Focus. Puzzled, they wrote back for an explanation. Her response was: "It's where the sons raise meat". [sun's rays meet] (As a trivial aside, this pun seems to have inspired a number of real Focus Ranches)