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ell in sneering, Benjamin Backbite usually spreads calumnious rumors behind one’s back; and Captain Boastall likes to talk big. From the above examples, we can see the feature of this kind of pun is to use an object’s traits to express the object itself. And this feature also can be found in another figure of speech – metonymy. For example, (22) The boiled lobster walked into the office. Here “boiled lobster” refers to Britain soldier, because Britain soldiers often wear red uniform. (23) Soapy stood still with his hands in his pockets and smiled at the sight of brass buttons. “Brass buttons” is one of the features of American cop uniform, so here it refers to police. The above analysis indicates that pun is in a certain extent connected with metonymy, about this point; Li Xinhua’s point is good for understanding the interrelation. He thinks, “English pun belongs to the category of metonymy [15]”. Metonymy is a figure of speech that has to do with the substitution of the name of one thing for that of another, in essence, so does pun. Pun is the use of a word with same or similar pronunciation to express the different meanings, or the use of the same word to suggest different meanings. In a word, no matter it is pronunciation or spelling, it always does with the substitution of the name of one thing for that of another. Therefore, “the substitution of the name of ‘A’ for ‘B’” is the common feature of pun and metonymy. However, we can’t mix them up, because the formation of puns possesses the following two characteristics. 3. Characteristics of English pun The formation of English pun needs two fundamental conditions: ambiguity and double context. 3.1 Ambiguity The first characteristic of a pun is that the focus of its meaning lies in its ambiguity. No matter whether they are homophones or homographs, the speaker aims to achieve an ambiguity. Ambiguity can be divided into positive and passive ambiguity. Putting the word in the wrong place to cause ambiguity and impairing the effectiveness is called passive ambiguity, while using the polyseme on purpose to enhance the effectiveness is called positive ambiguity. In our daily communication, we try to avoid the presence of ambiguity, but as for puns we deliberately create ambiguity. That is because the essence of a pun lies in its ambiguity. For example, (24) - What kind of money do girls like the most? - Matrimony we must admit that it is very difficult to translate the pun in this example into Chinese without losing its original flavor. However, it is a perfect example of puns in English. The ending element “mony” of the word “Matrimony” has the similar sound with that of the word “money”, which is considered as a homophonic pun. It is implied to us that girls expect to change their social and economic statuses through marriage. This pun is very humorous and ironic. Let’s look at another example, (25) King: …my cousin Hamlet, and my son… How is it that the clouds still hang on you? Hamlet: Not so, my lord, I am too much in the sun.[16] - Shakespeare, Hamlet Here “sun” and “son” have the same sound but ambiguity, Hamlet used this ambiguity skillfully to hint his complaining emotion in the indirect way. The king pretended to be intimate with Hamlet and call him “son”, however, Hamlet responded that “I am too much in the sun”. The surface meaning is that he dries in the sun for a long time, but actually, it suggests that Hamlet