puns that you had missed

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (1840 of them)

View Previous Page...

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)

Someone reassure me about The Human Stain, though, please.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 19:50 (twenty years ago)

I always assumed it referred to what was left after someone jumped off a building.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 19:51 (twenty years ago)

i finally thought about that "rock the vote/boat" one last week. i suppose it doesn't exist over here so i don't feel too dumb.

i realized abt two years after the film was released that "con air" was a pun.

― m. (mitchlnw), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 19:52 (twenty years ago)

So y'all never heard the joke:

A man phoned me last night, singing "Stand and Deliver". I told him he'd got the wrong number, but he was Adam Ant.

― Steve.n. (sjkirk), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 19:52 (twenty years ago)

I am dumb. How is Con Air a pun?

― ailsa (ailsa), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 22:11 (twenty years ago)

http://www.conair.com/conair/index.jsp

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 22:12 (twenty years ago)

That's the part of the pun I got -- it took me a while to notice that the plot was about a convict being transported by an airline.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 22:16 (twenty years ago)

Oh nabisco...

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 22:18 (twenty years ago)

In my own defense, I didn't see the movie and had no interest in seeing it: it mattered very little to me what it was about. All I knew was that it was one of those movies from that season where every movie had a shot of an explosion and a piece of CGI debris flying directly into the camera.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 22:20 (twenty years ago)

I'm confused. What do blowdryers have to do with Con Air?

― mark p (Mark P), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 22:20 (twenty years ago)

I'm confused. What do blowdryers have to do with Con Air?

http://www.ociojoven.com/ezimagecatalogue/catalogue/variations/150x500/17042-150x500.jpg

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 22:23 (twenty years ago)

"that season"

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 22:26 (twenty years ago)

I take it that Con Air's an American thing = I am not as dumb as I thought.

― ailsa (ailsa), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 22:39 (twenty years ago)

I hate to chide, but anybody who gives somebody a hard time for not getting the not-gotten pun is not being a good netizen.

― Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 22:45 (twenty years ago)

i'm neither american, nor have i seen con air.. but... AIR CON, ppl!

― m. (mitchlnw), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 22:58 (twenty years ago)

That's rubbish (as in, I didn't even think of that, and neither did anyone else, therefore too subtle, therefore rubbish).

Puns should be really obvious.

― ailsa (ailsa), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 23:09 (twenty years ago)

Je ne voudrais pas CONtinuer cette CONversation!

― Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 23:21 (twenty years ago)

Why is con air = air con (or hairdryers for that matter) a pun for the film? I still dont get it.

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 23:37 (twenty years ago)

Dumb pun for even dumber movie.

― papa november (papa november), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 23:38 (twenty years ago)

I also never spotted the Yrself Is Steam one, thats grate!

Is Perry Farrell seriously a deliberate joke and therefore presumably not his real name, then?

xpost haha too true.

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 23:38 (twenty years ago)

Another fun hairdryer fact! The German word for hairdryer is Fön, from the word Föhn, meaning the dry wind that comes down from the mountains and makes Bavarians cranky. Fön, fön, fön, till her Vati takes her hairdryer away.

― Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 1 December 2004 23:47 (twenty years ago)

Yes, it is Trayce. No, it's not his real name.

― oops (Oops), Thursday, 2 December 2004 01:10 (twenty years ago)

the roth thing makes sense, nabisco.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 2 December 2004 01:25 (twenty years ago)

Baby Shambles.

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 2 December 2004 08:41 (twenty years ago)

oh right - i thought that con air was a pun on Continental Airlines like maybe whoever made the film once had a bad flight with them and wanted to paint the airline with a bad name of being full of convicts or something. and now i find out it's about blow dryers. great.

― ken c (ken c), Thursday, 2 December 2004 10:36 (twenty years ago)

Con Air might have something to do with the fact that Con means twat in French. And in turn Con Air sounds a bit like connard, which means something like knobhead.

The pun I missed for a long time was Sue is Fine = suicide. I just took the tracklisting's word for it.

On a similar-ish theme, on the Point album by Cornelius, I actually failed to check that the chorus that sounds like SU-MO... is in fact s-moke.

― Japanese Giraffe (Japanese Giraffe), Thursday, 2 December 2004 13:48 (twenty years ago)

Con in French
See my French post above. It's something Anna Karina says to somebody she's tired of talking to in "Made in USA."

― Ken L (Ken L), Thursday, 2 December 2004 13:53 (twenty years ago)

I always think that a good pun is a bit like one of those magic eye pitures. Once you've seen the pun, you can never go back to seeing it other way.

The Human Stain, I like it.

I have to admit that I had read the name Diagon Alley twice or maybe even three times before I copped it. And that's about as obvious as it gets.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Thursday, 2 December 2004 17:11 (twenty years ago)

(hahahahahaha I am still crying at the "Con Air" controversy!)

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 2 December 2004 17:12 (twenty years ago)

Ha me too accentmonkey, and even then I didn't make the leap and get 'Knockturn Alley' for a few more months. Dense, me.

I had only thought of The Human Stain in the 'human condition' sense. I think I like the other sense better.

― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 2 December 2004 17:14 (twenty years ago)

Je ne voudrais pas CONtinuer cette CONversation!
-- Ken L (lauter...), December 1st, 2004.

Soz, Ken, i didn't pick up in this straightaway.

― Japanese Giraffe (Japanese Giraffe), Thursday, 2 December 2004 17:16 (twenty years ago)

i didn't get Lee Ving for a while. duh. stupid! stupid! *pounds forehead with clenched fist*

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Thursday, 2 December 2004 17:32 (twenty years ago)

It took me a long time to clue into 'deangulberry'.

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 2 December 2004 20:28 (twenty years ago)

Then there was that Voice of The Beehive album title.

― Ken L (Ken L), Thursday, 2 December 2004 20:38 (twenty years ago)

Oh! "deangulberry"! I never thought to think about it being a pun!

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 2 December 2004 20:46 (twenty years ago)

Is Perry Farrell seriously a deliberate joke and therefore presumably not his real name, then?

His real name is Perry Weinstein, I believe.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 2 December 2004 21:56 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

So like seven, eight years ago my best friend and I are on holiday somewhere thinking up stupid pseudoyms we are gonna use when we're international software-design stars (we were about 13). His is Pep Sicola, which SHOULD HAVE CLUED ME IN.

So I sort of forget about mine until the internet happens and I use it as a pseudonym for a bit, for e-mails and stuff, about six months all in all.

Then three days ago I decide to revive it and write off another mail and it is only when I am going through my own sent-messages folder that I REALISE R.SIPIENT CONTAINS A PUN.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Monday, 10 January 2005 01:18 (twenty years ago)

A possible close second: it took me eight years since I saw 'True Lies' to realise there was any sort of contradiction in the title. I just assumed it was, like, "veritable lies".

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Monday, 10 January 2005 01:19 (twenty years ago)

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

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 (three 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 (two weeks ago)

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

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

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

― budo jeru, Saturday, 14 June 2025 23:39 (two 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 (one week ago)

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

― pplains, Thursday, 19 June 2025 16:44 (one week 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 (one week 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 (one week ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.