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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-one 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-one 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-one 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-one 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-one 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-one 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-one years ago)

yes Nabisco, peripheral.

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

Aw.

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

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

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

I am dumb. How is Con Air a pun?

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

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

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

Oh nabisco...

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

"that season"

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

Je ne voudrais pas CONtinuer cette CONversation!

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

Dumb pun for even dumber movie.

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

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

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

the roth thing makes sense, nabisco.

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

Baby Shambles.

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

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

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

Then there was that Voice of The Beehive album title.

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

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

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

six years pass...

Decades to see Space Merchants as pun on spice merchants. Probably as kid read "The Space Merchants" years before I heard of spice merchants. Lay Off The Space Merchants

― Mayne of Fules (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 30 October 2011 11:59 (fourteen years ago)

I only got 'Camper Van Beethoven' earlier this year. Just thought that Camper was an unusual forename, I guess.

― sunn :o))) (Merdeyeux), Sunday, 30 October 2011 15:13 (fourteen years ago)

Skipping 1802 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

The double meaning of "The truth is out there".

― Alba, Friday, 17 April 2026 12:06 (one month ago)

one month passes...

This one's for the parents out there

Eminently popular children's book/learn-to-read series Elephant and Piggy by Mo Willems, featuring Piggy and Elephant Gerald

Elephant Gerald

Ella Fitzgerald

my mind is suitably blown

― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Thursday, 28 May 2026 15:10 (two weeks ago)

Needs a supporting character named Ascot Fits, who helps people try on silk neckwear at the department store.

― Doctor Casino, Thursday, 28 May 2026 17:47 (two weeks ago)

Art Bears took their name from a sentence in Jane Ellen Harrison's book Ancient Art and Ritual (1913): "Even to-day, when individualism is rampant, art bears traces of its collective, social origin". Chris Cutler explains that it was a deliberate out-of-context quote, but that "not too much should be read into this; it just sounds intriguing, has an animal in it, plays with ambiguity and is mildly ridiculous".

― bendy, Sunday, 7 June 2026 15:50 (five days ago)

i know some art bears

― The Immortal Bird of Avon (Boring, Maryland), Sunday, 7 June 2026 15:52 (five days ago)

I've seen some art bares.

― nickn, Sunday, 7 June 2026 17:44 (five days ago)

Not a pun exactly, but I’ve known of the existence of The Stanky Brown Group for years and only today realized the meaning behind the name.

― cinematic hobo hip-hop rock ‘n’ roll blues-jazz soul-review (Dan Peterson), Monday, 8 June 2026 01:02 (four days ago)

is it shit

― The Immortal Bird of Avon (Boring, Maryland), Monday, 8 June 2026 01:31 (four days ago)

Yes. I honestly thought it was the name of someone in the band. “Stanky” never dawned on me.

― cinematic hobo hip-hop rock ‘n’ roll blues-jazz soul-review (Dan Peterson), Monday, 8 June 2026 01:48 (four days ago)

Alien Nation

― Cow_Art, Monday, 8 June 2026 03:01 (four days ago)

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