puns that you had missed

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when was the last time you realised that you missed an obvious pun? not necessarily a pun involving the word "obvious".

1. For about two years I never realised/thought of the product "Micro Chips" was a pun. I just thought "oh microwaveable chips!! great!" and then one day i was like OMG MICROCHIPS! and felt really embarrassed

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 17:39 (twenty years ago)

i guess, if you have longed for an old pun that you hadn't heard for ages, you can post about it here too.

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 17:40 (twenty years ago)

I don't think I realised the Beatles was a pun until I was about 25.

― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 17:42 (twenty years ago)

I didn't realise "Yerself is Steam" by Mercury Rev was a pun until someone mentioned it on ILM.

My brother never realised that Manda Rin out of Bis was a pun either.

― ailsa (ailsa), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 17:50 (twenty years ago)

yerself is steam. ha. i get it now.

― peter smith (plsmith), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 17:51 (twenty years ago)

There's a mattress company here in NYC called "Sleepy's" and their more recent ad campaign has following tagline:

Trust Sleepy's For the Rest of Your Life!

I thought, "hmmmm.....that's an awful lot to ask of their customers...lifelong brand loyalty!" The pun of it being the rest of your life (as in relaxed slumber) was completely lost on me until just recently.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 17:53 (twenty years ago)

the arrow in the FedEx logo

― Frankenstein On Ice (blueski), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 17:55 (twenty years ago)

The arrows in the old British Rail logo. The shame.

― beanz (beanz), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 18:14 (twenty years ago)

my roomate got this silly mailing from cingular announcing their merger with at&t but it was in the format of a wedding invitation. At the bottom it said 'reception to follow' and I thought 'so where's the party at?' - little did I know that I was stupid.

on arrested development joe or whatever his name is bought a boat called the 'seaward.' my other roomate pointed out that it was a pun for c-word, that I didnt pick up on.

― still bevens (bscrubbins), Tuesday, 30 November 2004 18:48 (twenty years ago)

The michaael jackson video where MJ and girl are eating popcorn. The film ends and the announcer says "See you next tuesday".

Mmmm.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 12:15 (twenty years ago)

Frank's APA.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 12:16 (twenty years ago)

I'm still wondering if 'Rock The Vote' is an allusion to the phrase 'rock the boat'.

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 12:19 (twenty years ago)

The fact that there was a link between the alter egos of the rappers Blak Twang and Fallacy (Tony Rotton and Danny Vicious) escaped me until about a week ago.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 12:36 (twenty years ago)

is 'Trading Spouses' (the american version of 'Wife Swap') a pun on 'Trading Spaces' (the american version of 'Changing Rooms' (which is itself a pun) which is itself a pun on 'Trading Places')?

my brain hurts.

― koogs (koogs), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 12:39 (twenty years ago)

Mother of god, I can't believe I had to sit here and say 'yerself is steam, I don't get it' about four times before I got it. Me am tick.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 12:41 (twenty years ago)

I only realised THIS MORNING that Adam Ant was a pun.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 12:44 (twenty years ago)

I still don't get 'yerself is steam' :( :( :(

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 13:05 (twenty years ago)

Your self-esteem.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 13:08 (twenty years ago)

(That's a pretty bad pun, innit?)

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 13:08 (twenty years ago)

I didn't get that either, Archel.

― caitlin (caitlin), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 13:11 (twenty years ago)

It took me decades to figure out the joke in "If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?"

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 13:14 (twenty years ago)

your self esteem -- it's not a very good pun.

― dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 13:14 (twenty years ago)

[i]I only realised THIS MORNING that Adam Ant was a pun.[/i]

OMG!!! I hadn't seen that either! How embarrassing.

― Hanna (Hanna), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 13:15 (twenty years ago)

Haha, neither had I!

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 13:16 (twenty years ago)

Conclusion: all these puns are rubbish.

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 13:31 (twenty years ago)

"Don't think twice, it's alright" I was listening to this last night and *ding* it's saying both "don't bother" and "don't even begin to think leaving me was okay."

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 13:32 (twenty years ago)

That's not a pun; it's just ambiguity

― caitlin (caitlin), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 13:37 (twenty years ago)

the self esteem one works better in certain accents.

― ken c (ken c), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 13:39 (twenty years ago)

I only got Aladdin Sane ("A lad insane") like last year or something. That was embarassing.

― papa november (papa november), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 13:43 (twenty years ago)

I never got that... wow.

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 13:43 (twenty years ago)

It took me decades to figure out the joke in "If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?"

Yep, me too.

― papa november (papa november), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 13:47 (twenty years ago)

i knew the "insane" bit but never thought of "a lad"!

― ken c (ken c), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 13:47 (twenty years ago)

isn't it about bowies brother, who had severe mental problems & committed suicide?

― DJ Salinger (joni), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 14:00 (twenty years ago)

Haha, I never got any of these before (Yerself is Steam, Adam Ant, Aladdin Sane)!

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 14:05 (twenty years ago)

It was "See you next Wednesday" in the Thriller video, which isn't a pun, but it is a phrase director John Landis puts in every one of his movies.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 15:21 (twenty years ago)

The michaael jackson video where MJ and girl are eating popcorn. The film ends and the announcer says "See you next tuesday".

I so don't get it.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 15:32 (twenty years ago)

i think the answer lies in mark's tenuous grasp of 'pun'.

― mark p (Mark P), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 15:34 (twenty years ago)

.. and I was fibbing anyway.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 15:37 (twenty years ago)

that's like C U Next Tuesday, right?

― ken c (ken c), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 15:54 (twenty years ago)

I never got the visual pun of the 7-Up "Uncola" glass until some advanced age of decrepitude.

― Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 16:07 (twenty years ago)

walking up some steps just the other day, it struck me:
Rap City ... Rhadsody!

also, i amazingly didn't get Lipps, Inc. until quite recently. sheesh.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 19:01 (twenty years ago)

I am now worried that there are loads of puns out there I haven't got yet.

Is I Love Everything a pun?

― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 19:17 (twenty years ago)

This happens to me absolutely all the time, and in some cases -- even worse -- with that nagging must-be-a-pun sense that drives one nuts: I'm happy to have the Mercury Rev one finally worked out for me. I can't think of any good recent examples, though: the last one I recall was hearing a Spinanes song and noticing the "inane" in there.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 19:34 (twenty years ago)

I didn't get Yerself is Steam either. Knew all the others mentioned here, although admittedly it took a while for me to realise with Manda Rin.

Perry Farrell took a while, too.

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 19:39 (twenty years ago)

In similar news I had a long and frustrating conversation with someone wherein I was pointing out, with amazement, that the title of Philip Roth's The Human Stain could be read in two different ways, and that ads for the film version seemed to be inflecting it in the one of those two ways that I hadn’t thought of. Unfortunately I couldn’t seem to make the different inflections clear to the person I was talking to. I’ll try it with you guys: I had always read the title (without having read the book) as being “The Human Stain” like “The Human Condition”; the film trailer suddenly made me realize it was possibly supposed to be “The Human Stain” like “The Human Cannonball” or “The Human Calculator,” referring to the individual character.

I share this only because I need some reassurance that I wasn't being a bonehead in this conversation.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 19:40 (twenty years ago)

And wait, what's the pun with Perry Farrell? (If it's supposed to be "peripheral," that is the worst thing I have ever heard.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 19:40 (twenty years ago)

It's not a pun, it's a spoonerism.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 19:43 (twenty years ago)

yes Nabisco, peripheral.

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 19:46 (twenty years ago)

Suddenly that's better than the "Ferry Peril" Spoonerism I thought Dan was hinting toward.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 19:47 (twenty years ago)

Aw.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 19:48 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 1740 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

I'm reasonably sure I'm going to regret this, but what did you think the 'mancer' in neuromancer is doing, other than forming a word with the same root as necromancer?

― Andrew Farrell, Sunday, 30 March 2025 21:58 (three months ago)

The pun arises from misreading it as neu-romancer rather than neuro-mancer. The latter comes from the ancient Greek manteía, which is a form of divination. So a necromancer uses dead bodies to practice magic, whereas a neuromancer uses neurons also to practice magic, although in the context of the novel several characters actually are dead, so that was probably the pun William Gibson was going for.

But in a wider sense the novel is a scientific romance, which comes from rōmānicus, which is the Latin for Roman, because there were few things more sexy than Romans. Admittedly Neuromancer doesn't have much kissing in it. It's hard to write about kissing, you know?

― Ashley Pomeroy, Monday, 31 March 2025 15:27 (three months ago)

Her lips were blue electric neon, sparking soft lightning forks direct to my neural port

etc

― death of a northener (Matt #2), Monday, 31 March 2025 15:46 (three months ago)

now that's some hot ram

― master of the pan (abanana), Monday, 31 March 2025 16:03 (three months ago)

Just encountered a triple pun in the wild! I'm at some community center and it says "fancy 15 hours of toddler FREE time?" As in, it costs you nothing, the kids are free to do what they want, and you are free of them for hours.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 31 March 2025 16:11 (three months ago)

This isn't exactly a pun that I had missed but a local cover band that has apparently existed for 24 years and I only found out about them 5 minutes ago: Silicon Carne

― StanM, Monday, 31 March 2025 16:43 (three months ago)

do they play '60s boogaloo and latin soul covers in the style of kraftwerk?

― budo jeru, Monday, 31 March 2025 17:27 (three months ago)

unfortunately not, just pop hits

― StanM, Monday, 31 March 2025 17:47 (three months ago)

silly con

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 31 March 2025 17:48 (three months ago)

This isn't exactly a pun that I had missed but a local cover band that has apparently existed for 24 years and I only found out about them 5 minutes ago: Silicon Carne

"Silicon Carne" is also one of the B-side tracks on the 1979 debut single of The Monochrome Set.

― anatol_merklich, Monday, 31 March 2025 21:08 (three months ago)

do they play '60s boogaloo and latin soul covers in the style of kraftwerk?

Would you believe this record already exists?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Baile_Alemán

― The Last Air ETC (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, 1 April 2025 05:48 (three months ago)

I spent a good twenty seconds looking at Silicon Carne and thinking "is that rude" and "is it a pun on Silicon Arrived", and "Silly-con-came?" until it dawned on me that kerning was my enemy, not the Normans.

― Ashley Pomeroy, Tuesday, 1 April 2025 17:48 (three months ago)

Silikerning

― I pity the foo fighter (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 2 April 2025 02:21 (three months ago)

several xp but I think what you've got there is a neologism, from neo-, new and logos, word. I'm not clear how it makes more sense to think of it as a pun than to describe neurosis as a pun on halitosis.

― Andrew Farrell, Saturday, 5 April 2025 12:52 (three months ago)

is this, from the album covers thread, a pun?

The Harp Wears A Lei

― koogs, Saturday, 5 April 2025 19:46 (three months ago)

I wondered that when I posted the cover... I don't think so?

― Kim Kimberly, Saturday, 5 April 2025 19:51 (three months ago)

I finally figured out Deflatormouse's screen name.

― I think we're all Bezos on this bus (WmC), Thursday, 17 April 2025 02:28 (two months ago)

oh! I didn't notice that either

― jaymc, Thursday, 17 April 2025 12:35 (two months ago)

I'm sure was covered in depth waaay earlier in this thread! or another thread - who can say

― kinder, Friday, 18 April 2025 07:21 (two months ago)

When I was a child my parents were weirdly into light opera

― I pity the foo fighter (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 18 April 2025 10:43 (two months ago)

> Jane Dark

jean d'arc?

(see also: Large Door)

― koogs, Monday, 28 April 2025 12:34 (two months ago)

I've been aware of the band Fischer-Z for about 40 years and have only just realised that their name is a pun.

― bored by endless ecstasy (anagram), Tuesday, 29 April 2025 08:47 (two months ago)

Errrrrr... what?

― Blake the Messenger (Tom D.), Tuesday, 29 April 2025 08:48 (two months ago)

fish's 'ead

― bored by endless ecstasy (anagram), Tuesday, 29 April 2025 08:52 (two months ago)

Had to look it up. That seems very weak – not surprised you didn't get it. Do people even talk about fish's heads? Just fish head is the norm, isn't it?

― Alba, Tuesday, 29 April 2025 08:52 (two months ago)

It's so dire I hate them now.

― Blake the Messenger (Tom D.), Tuesday, 29 April 2025 08:54 (two months ago)

huey smith's "rockin' pneumonia" = walking pneumonia

― budo jeru, Monday, 5 May 2025 22:29 (two months ago)

yes and boogie woogie flu = Ougadougou Flu

― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Tuesday, 6 May 2025 16:41 (one month ago)

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, 6 May 2025 16:50 (one month ago)

xp definitely a reference to an avian flu of foreign origin, but i'm assuming you're joking with the "ougadougo"

― budo jeru, Tuesday, 6 May 2025 18:49 (one month ago)

indeed i am joking. but if I had to guess I would venture that "rockin' pneumonia" is in fact intended to be a pun on "walking" and it is one that I too missed until pointed out here. just having a lil fun

― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Tuesday, 6 May 2025 20:25 (one month ago)

heh, i thought it was cute but i had to ask because this is one of those threads where sometimes you just can't tell!

― budo jeru, Tuesday, 6 May 2025 21:39 (one month ago)

I like to think I had noticed it years ago, but Massive Attack's Mezzanine mentions "all these half-flaws / will lead to mine" in the title track. A mezzanine being a half-floor.

― assert (matttkkkk), Saturday, 10 May 2025 09:01 (one month ago)

The internet suggests that "half floors" is the actual lyric.

― Kim Kimberly, Saturday, 10 May 2025 16:07 (one month ago)

https://i.imgur.com/kZfpeiS.jpeg

― jaymc, Saturday, 10 May 2025 16:10 (one month ago)

Who you callin a diphthong

― zydecodependent (Ye Mad Puffin), Saturday, 10 May 2025 20:48 (one month ago)

This is giving me flashbacks of a sketch from 'hilarious' 1980s comedy duo Little & Large that went approximately like this: "Is this lift OK?" "It's flawless" (man steps into lift and plummets) "I told him it was floorless". I guess this doesn't work in America (unless you're from Long Island?).

― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Saturday, 10 May 2025 21:59 (one month ago)

Pawn by which I mean the chess piece, not pawn as in salacious material

― zydecodependent (Ye Mad Puffin), Saturday, 10 May 2025 22:09 (one month ago)

Same model as the Sandie Shaw pun that (most) Americans don’t get

― Josefa, Saturday, 10 May 2025 22:23 (one month ago)

It doesn't work in parts of the UK either.

― Blake the Messenger (Tom D.), Saturday, 10 May 2025 22:32 (one month ago)

imagining Massive Attack sung in a Zummerzet accent

― assert (matttkkkk), Saturday, 10 May 2025 23:04 (one month ago)

Exactly, it doesn't work in Bristol!

― Blake the Messenger (Tom D.), Saturday, 10 May 2025 23:15 (one month ago)

four weeks pass...

Taco hell

― doe on a hill (Deflatormouse), Saturday, 7 June 2025 05:34 (four weeks ago)

Because it got mentioned elsewhere on ilx today:

B.C.'s Quest for Tires is a horizontally scrolling video game designed by Rick Banks and Michael Bate and published by Sierra On-Line in 1983.
[...] The game's title is a play on the contemporaneous film Quest for Fire.

― Kim Kimberly, Thursday, 12 June 2025 15:24 (three weeks ago)

this is embarrassing but somehow I only just realized the other day that Paramore = paramour

― rob, Thursday, 12 June 2025 15:35 (three weeks ago)

really a spoonerism, but the volker kriegel track "mindwill"

― budo jeru, Saturday, 14 June 2025 23:39 (three weeks ago)

Aerosmith’s album Draw The Line features a caricature line drawing as cover art.

― once beloved, recently troubled (Dan Peterson), Thursday, 19 June 2025 15:57 (two weeks ago)

Boy, that ain't the only meaning either behind that one.

― pplains, Thursday, 19 June 2025 16:44 (two weeks ago)

lol yeah. Wiki lists many reasons other than the cover: "Draw The Line is a classic title that says it all, the coke lines, heroin lines, drawing symbolic lines and crossing them all – no matter what."[17]

― once beloved, recently troubled (Dan Peterson), Thursday, 19 June 2025 17:42 (two weeks ago)

The shared discovery of the multiple references inherent in Draw The Line surely produced giggle fits amongst the band that went unmatched until the Night In The Ruts title was conceived.

― henry s, Thursday, 19 June 2025 17:55 (two weeks ago)

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