ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of the book. This book focuses on rhetorical analysis of similes and puns hearkens back to Aristotle, who originally described the poetic and rhetorical effects of simile and metaphor, paronomasia, symbolic names, and other techniques. Puns are not linked to certain structures like similes, but are instead often realized as a second relevance of a word that already has one relevant meaning in context. In this sense, some puns can be grammatically invisible and may go unnoticed by readers. Gerard Steen has argued that the "deliberateness" of rhetorical use is what distinguishes simile forms from metaphor, calling attention to the fact that a listener or reader may assess a figure of speech in part based on whether he or she believes it was used on purpose by a specific individual.
