7 PARONOMASIA OR WORDPLAY? over, Cherry extends his definition of paronomasia even further by including not only all types of figures of sound (cf. Casanowicz) but also the so-called “visual paronomasia” 18. Cherry defines “visual paronomasia” as a figure of word that is completely dependent on its written form to express ambiguity. Since these visual examples of paronomasia are usually presented as a kind of code that has to be de- ciphered, Cherry relates this type of paronomasia to small circles of esoteric intellectuals and scribes. By extending the definition of paronomasia, Casanowicz’s paronomasia would merely represent one specific type of wordplay/paronomasia in Cherry’s classification, i.e. those cases of paronomasia that are characterized by similar sound patterns (“oral paronomasia”) 19. Against this background, it may be illustrated that the obscurity in terminology and the shifts in the content of concepts related to word- play created a real “Babel-like confusion”. In our opinion, if one still wants to use the term paronomasia in the context of research in Hebrew wordplay, one has to state that paronomasia (in the strict definition that seems to be the most current in classical rhetoric) is only one specific type of wordplay. Instead of considering “wordplay” and “paronoma- sia” to be synonymous concepts, one needs to acknowledge that “the proximity of two words with a different meaning but a similar sound pattern” is merely one particular way of expressing a play between sound and meaning of words. This observation will be the point of de- parture for our own definition of Hebrew wordplay and the use of the concept of paronomasia. By way of clarification and illustration, the following table sum- marizes the different positions of Casanowicz, Cherry and our own: 18 Cf. CHERRY, Paronomasia and Proper Names in the Old Testament, 18. Several examples of visual paronomasia will be given in the third section “Implications of the definition”. 19 Because of these “sound-based” characteristics, Cherry calls them “oral paronomasia”. Cf. CHERRY, Paronomasia and Proper Names in the Old Te- stament, 17.