I was kindly asked by a colleague to contribute an article within the topic of Frame Semantics to the Festschrift in honour of Professor Dr. Hans-Ulrich Boas, the founding professor of English Studies at the University of Erfurt. I churlishly answered that I had never heard of ‘Frame Semantics’ and, besides, as a lector with a heavy teaching load, that I had no time for such fripperies. However, as Hans- Ulrich and his wife Ursula are close family friends, I quickly and gladly capitulated. The result is the following article on paronomasia (word play). I had covered much of the material in my dissertation, but this article was meant to be a little more light-hearted or even entertaining. It has long since been argued by numerous eminent men of letters and also by linguists that puns (wordplay) and poetry are basically untranslatable. In the article, I try to prove the opposite.
