Which of the following sentences use a pun?
(A) The tyre-shop owner sighed that business had been rather flat all month.
(B) The bicycle bell went tring-tring as the newspaper boy turned into our lane.
(C) Our neighbour, who repairs ceiling fans, says he has fans all over the city.
(D) Our new hostel warden’s list of rules is longer than the river Ganga.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → (A) and (C) only
A pun is a play on a word that has two meanings.
(A) The tyre-shop owner sighed that business had been rather flat all month. — Correct.
- “Flat” means both “dull, with little going on” and “without air”, like a flat tyre.
(B) The bicycle bell went tring-tring as the newspaper boy turned into our lane. — Incorrect.
- This is onomatopoeia, because “tring-tring” copies the sound of the bell.
(C) Our neighbour, who repairs ceiling fans, says he has fans all over the city. — Correct.
- “Fans” means both the ceiling fans he has fixed and people who admire his work.
(D) Our new hostel warden’s list of rules is longer than the river Ganga. — Incorrect.
- This is hyperbole, because no list can be “longer than the river Ganga”.