Learn English – What’s the name of this figure of speech playing with the use-mention distinction

figures-of-speechsingle-word-requests

The following is a figure of speech I've seen a couple of times in my native language of German.
Though I have no reason to doubt it exists, I don't remember ever seeing it used in English, so I've come up with two examples myself:

  • Every time you wear your heart on your sleeve, or give someone short shrift, you're using a phrase coined by Shakespeare.
  • People who take everything for "granite" might not be the most educated.

These sentences deal with the mentioning of these terms – saying "I'm wearing my heart on my sleeve", or misspelling "granted" as "granite" – but they're worded like they deal with their using, as if they were about actually wearing your heart on your sleeve or taking things for granted.

To once again illustrate the difference, here are the same sentence with the figure of speech removed:

  • Every time you say "I'm wearing my heart on a sleeve", or use the phrase "to give someone short shrift", you're using a phrase coined by Shakespeare.
  • People who say "take for granite" instead of "take for granted" might not be the most educated.

No list I've used has mentioned this figure of speech. I could just name it "equating usage and mentioning" and call it a day (and by calling it a day, using a phrase originating in the 19th century, just by the way),
but I'd really like to know if this has been observed before, and given an official name.

Best Answer

They're puns that depend on the use-mention distinction, as many puns do, so we could reasonably call them "use-mention puns", a phrase that's had some use, but not a lot.

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