Dec 22nd – Family Circus & Holiday Puns

Hello everyone!

Today’s comic is Family Circus featuring holiday puns.

What are puns?

A pun is a play on words.  Puns are when a word or phrase is funny due to a double or second meaning.  Puns are used for comedic or dramatic effect.  They work because many words are homonyms and thus share the same sound or spelling but not meaning which gives a phrase or title a double meaning. 

Puns are also funny because of malapropisms.  Malapropisms are when people mix up similar sounding words.  To learn more about malapropisms, click here.

Conversations become a lot more interesting and funny when one can understand and use puns.

Now to our comic:) 

Comic Breakdown

Knight before Christmas – The night before Christmas, December 24^th, is also known as Christmas Eve.  

A knight is a medieval soldier and night is the time of day when it is dark.

Stocking Stuffers – This refers to gifts and treats you put into a Christmas stocking. 

Stockings are another name for socks

A Christmas stocking are socks you hang at the fireplace mantle or your bedpost so that Santa Claus can put gifts in it.

Addressing his cods – The child misheard the phrase “addressing his flock”.  This was a malapropism because of the mix up between “cod” and “flock”.

Cod is a fish. 

A flock is a group of animals; usually sheep or goats.

The phrase “addressing his flock” refers to a Christian religious leader (a pastor, priest, reverend) as a shepherd and the people in his church as his flock of sheep.  The people follow their religious leader’s words and guidance the way sheep follow a shepherd.

Christmas Seals – Christmas seals are stickers, labels, and stamps with holiday images that decorate packages, letters, and gifts. 

The word “seal” is a homograph.  Seal has two meanings. 

The Arctic animal.

Something used to close something such as a package or letter.

Missile Toe – This is a malapropism.  The child mixed up “missile” with “mistle”.

A missile is a rocket launched bomb.

Mistletoe is a Christmas plant that people hang as a decoration. 

Beat Nick – The word “beat” is a homograph and has two meanings here.  Beat can mean to hit someone.  Or beat can mean tired.  Santa Claus, also known as Saint Nick (short for Nicholas), would be very tired after delivering gifts around the world in one night, December 24^th.

To read more about the meanings of "beat", click here.

SI-ENT NIGHT (NO EL) - This is referencing the Christmas songs "Silent Night" and "The First Noel".  Noel is another name for Christmas.  The double meaning of "NO - EL" is that many people do not pronounce the letter L in the song Silent Night do you do not get the L sound.  You get "No L".

Today’s images are from here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.