--- title: Alice's word games: puns, parodies and nonsense — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Alice's word games: puns, parodies and nonsense», a lesson of the language course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» is a book you can read twice: once for the story, and once for the word games hidden i --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/41-alice-s-word-games-puns-parodies-and-nonsense/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/) / Alice's word games: puns, parodies and… # Alice's word games: puns, parodies and nonsense Lesson 41 of the language course of Mova's primary school: 12 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/language/41-alice-s-word-games-puns-parodies-and-nonsense/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/41-alice-s-word-games-puns-parodies-and-nonsense/0/) — «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» is a book you can read twice: once for the story, and once for the word games hidden in nearly every page. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/41-alice-s-word-games-puns-parodies-and-nonsense/2/) — The Mock Turtle's school subjects are puns too: Reeling and Writhing for reading and writing, and four kinds of sums: Ambition, Distraction, Uglification and Derision, for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/41-alice-s-word-games-puns-parodies-and-nonsense/4/) — How I wonder what you're at!» - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/41-alice-s-word-games-puns-parodies-and-nonsense/6/) — A pun is a joke built on a word with two meanings or on two words that sound alike, like «tale» (a story) and «tail» (the end of an animal). - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/41-alice-s-word-games-puns-parodies-and-nonsense/8/) — The Mock Turtle's subjects are sound-alike jokes: Mystery (history), Seaography (geography), Drawling (drawing), Stretching (sketching), Fainting in Coils (painting in oils), and Laughing and Grief (Latin and Greek). - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/41-alice-s-word-games-puns-parodies-and-nonsense/9/) — The Mock Turtle says no wise fish would go anywhere without a «porpoise», which sounds like «purpose». - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/41-alice-s-word-games-puns-parodies-and-nonsense/11/) — A parody copies the shape and rhythm of a well-known poem or song but changes the words to make it funny. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/41-alice-s-word-games-puns-parodies-and-nonsense/12/) — «How doth the little crocodile» is a parody of Isaac Watts's poem «How doth the little busy bee», and «Twinkle, twinkle, little bat» is a parody of «Twinkle, twinkle, little star». - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/41-alice-s-word-games-puns-parodies-and-nonsense/13/) — «You are old, Father William» is a parody of a serious poem by Robert Southey, in which an old man gives wise advice; in Carroll's version the old man stands on his head and turns back-somersaults. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/41-alice-s-word-games-puns-parodies-and-nonsense/14/) — The Duchess twists the proverb «Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves» into «Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves». - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/41-alice-s-word-games-puns-parodies-and-nonsense/15/) — The Hatter's riddle «Why is a raven like a writing-desk?» has no answer; Carroll admitted it, though later he and his readers invented answers for fun. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/41-alice-s-word-games-puns-parodies-and-nonsense/17/) — Alice mixes up «antipodes» (the people on the opposite side of the Earth) with «antipathies» (strong dislikes), a funny word mistake called a malapropism. - ← previous: [The big language quiz](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/40-the-big-language-quiz/) - next →: [Kipling's word games: «Best Beloved», the 'Stute Fish, «Humph!» and the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/42-kipling-s-word-games-best-beloved-stute-fish-humph-and-the-great-grey-green-greasy-limpopo/) - ↑ back to [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/)