Read the excerpt from Act II of The Importance of Being Earnest . Algernon: [Raising his hat.] You are my little cousin Cecily, I’m sure. Cecily: You are under some strange mistake. I am not little. In fact, I believe I am more than usually tall for my age. Which two definitions of the word little does the pun in this excerpt rely on? Choose two correct answers.
Algernon uses “little” to mean young, as in a young cousin. Cecily responds by taking it to mean small in physical size, then points out that she is unusually tall. The pun depends on these two meanings: “young” and “small.”
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