Zeugma. The difference from pun and paronomasia

Some rhetorical figures commonly used in literary texts are neither tropes they nor are based on repetition.

Zeugma, pun, paronomasia - miscellaneous stylistic devices

Zeugma (From Gk. zeugyana, 'to bind together') is the blending of two or more semantically incompatible word groups, having an identical lexical item, into a single construction in which this item is used only once; the resultant effect is strongly humorous or ironical.

In quotation " Medora took heart, a cheap hall room, and two art lessons " is a blend of three word groups: the first is a phraseological unit "to take heart (= to pluck up courage)", the other two are free word combinations — "to take a room (to rent a room)" and "to take lessons". There is a good deal of semantic distance between the phraseologically bound "heart", "cheap hall room" and "art lessons", hence a strong comical effect based on low predictability. Yu. M. Skrebnev writes that any instance of zeugma is breach of the Law of semantic coherence because in this figure there is always an unexpected and seemingly illogical switch-over from one subject of speech to another.

It should be underlined that while in English literature Zeugma is an accepted figure of rhetoric, in Russian it is beyond the literary norm, hence certain difficulties may arise in translating zeugmas from English into Russian (40).

Pun - a stylistic device based on a humorous use of words identical in sound but different in meaning, or the use of different meanings of the same word.

“her nose was sharp but not so sharp as her voice”

Paronomasia - a figure of speech which consists in the deliberate (often humorous) use of the partial phonetic similarity of words different in meaning.

A young man married is a man that's marred. (Shakespeare)

Zeugma: polysemantic verbs are deliberately used with several homogeneous members which are not connected semantically

Pun: one word-form is deliberately used in two meanings; it is relatively independent, there needn't be a word in the sentence to which the pun-word refers (but it depends on a context)

1 Lupercal — Roman festival on 15th February, connected with ferti­lity rites.

[1] Austerlitz — a town in Moravia, where Napoleon defeated the allied Russian and Austrian forces in 1805.

[2] Waterloo — a village in Belgium, where Napoleon was defeated by Anglo-Dutch and German forces in 1815.

[3] Gettysburg - a town in Pennsylvania (USA), where the army of the North was defeated in 1863.

[4] Ypres — a town in Belgium, the seene of fierce fighting during World War I, where poisonous gas was first brought into action.

[5] Verdun — a fortified town in France, the scene of bloody battles during World War I.