04 April 2016: Puns

"The butcher backed up into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work."

 a "pun," or "a humourous play on words" (Visual Thesaurus definition). Some puns (like the one in the example) are considered "homographic" or depend upon words that look alike but have multiple meanings; other puns are considered "homophonic" or depend on words that sound the same but have different meanings (e.g., Two peanuts were walking down the street; one was assaulted.-"assaulted" sounds like "a salted").

http://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/51_1_6_lems.pdf

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