History Main / FunWithHomophones

* ''Gunpowder God'' in the ''[[HBeamPiper Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen]]'' series. A commander visits his wounded troops in the hospital, and comments on the attractiveness of their nurse. "She has been most marvelously chaste," replies one of the men mischievously. "Of course she has [been chased]," roars the commander, "but has she been caught?"

* [[http://www.moytura.com/reflections/garden.html The Garden of Daily Living]]

* Invoked and lampshaded in ''Discworld/FeetOfClay'': When Dragon King of Arms (an ancient vampire) tells Vimes "Pray, enter", Vimes (who hates vampires) thinks to himself that he hears it as "Prey, enter."

** On a similar note, the joke name for a divorce firm: "Ditcher, Quicke and Hyde"

** Two army officers are sitting around smoking pipes and reading the paper. One calls for his batman [[note]]"a soldier assigned to an officer as a servant"[[/note]], and an actor obviously confused about his part comes in dressed as Batman. AT this point it's revealed that what we're watching is the production of a film.

* In a short sketch on ''Series/TheBennyHillShow'' a doctor comes on a serious TV talk show to discuss euthanasia. Unfortunately, the talk show's topic of the day was "Youth in Asia".

* Music/{{Rammstein}}'s song "Du Hast". In German, "du hast" means "you have," and "du haßt" means "you hate," and they're pronounced almost identically. So the lines, "Du. Du hast. Du hast mich," are commonly heard as, "You. You hate. You hate me." (The sentence fully sung is, "Du hast mich gefragt, und ich hab nichts gesagt," meaning, "You asked me, and I said nothing.")

* A joke: Why will you never go hungry in the desert? Because of all the sandwiches [= "sand which is"] there!

'''Lien:''' Your uncle was a very private person, sir. He forbade anyone from tonching his junk.\\

** The CrowningMomentOfAwesome for HulkSpeak delivered by [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0367.html thog]]: it's mind-blowingly accurate while utterly incomprehensible when spoken. [[spoiler:[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo etc.]]]]
--->'''Thog: not nale, not-nale. thog help nale nail not-nale, not nale. and thog knot not-nale while nale nail not-nale. nale, not not-nale, now nail not-nale by leaving not-nale, not nale, in jail.'''

!! Examples:

[[folder: AnimeAndManga]]

[[folder: {{Film}}]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3'', {{Barbie}} says to Ken, "Nice '''ass'''-cot."
* ''Film/{{Megamind}}'' names his protege "Titan", and Titan promptly decries the name as stupid. It's not until he writes his own super-name [[spoiler: across the city, in 20-meter-long letters of flaming destruction]] that the viewers learn he thought his new name was ''Tighten''.
* ''FlushedAway'' has a phonetic pun across two different speakers:
-->'''Roddie St. James:''' ''What the ...''
-->'''Sid the Sewer Rat:''' '''''Hell'''o!''

[[folder: Literature]]

[[folder: Live Action TV]]

--> ''I hope we can find a place for you in the Doe administration... I hope you can understand that ... and if you, Kent... I mean can't ...''
* In a short sketch on ''Series/TheBennyHillShow'' a doctor comes on a serious tv talk show to discuss euthanasia - unforntunately the talk show's topic of the day was Youth In Asia.

[[folder: Music]]

[[folder: Theatre]]

-->'''Norma:''' Last year I read "The Prophet" aloud at my parents' seder. My mother cried. She didn't understand. I wanted them to hear "The Prophet" so they could understand love - but too many people spell it f-i-t.
-->'''Phil:''' F-i-t?
-->'''Norma:''' Yes, ironic, isn't it? That's how they spell everything.
-->'''Phil:''' F-i-t spells "fit."
-->'''Norma:''' I know. That's why "The Prophet" is meaningless to them.
-->'''Phil:''' Oh, they spell ''Prophet'' f-i-t.

[[folder: Video Games]]
* In ''Videogame/{{Portal}}'', [=GlaDOS=] tells Chell, "When the testing is over, you will be...missed/mist." The subtitles only state "will be missed", as expected. Subtitles have difficulty properly rendering an ambiguous spoken homonym. Considering the flames at the end of the testing course, most of Chell ''will'' be mist, and pretty quickly too. In the event, [[spoiler: Chell is fine because she used portals so that the flames missed her. So [=GlaDOS=] was literally telling the truth!]]

* ''{{Uncharted}}'' has Sully, who sullies everything he comes in contact with.

[[folder: Web Animation]]

[[folder: Other]]
* A joke: Why will you never go hungry in the desert? Because of all the sandwiches [= "sand which is"] there!
* A lot of Stirlitz jokes, from RussianHumour, are based on this. It's often difficult to translate them.
* The joke name for a law firm: "Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe".

[[folder: Real Life]]

-->“We paean the DPRK. We paean the Korean people. We paean their great leader Kim Il Sung”

[[quoteright:337:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tombraiderlegendbolivia1_7253.jpg]]

-->--'''Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band''', "Her Strut"

* In ''Theatre/PiratesOfPenzance'', the Major-General and Pirate King get very frustrated with each other, when the Major-General asks the pirates who have sworn to never molest an orphan (and word has gotten around), "Do you know what it means to be an orphan?", to which the Pirate King answers, "Often!".

* In WesternAnimation/ToyStory3 Barbie says to Ken, "Nice '''ass'''-cot."

** Rita Skeeter says "The ''Prophet'' exists to sell itself, you silly girl." Thus hinting that the reader should have known all along that ''The Daily Prophet'' wasn't concerned with anything but its own ''profit''.

* ''Gunpowder God'' in the ''[[Main/HBeamPiper Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen]]'' series. A commander visits his wounded troops in the hospital, and comments on the attractiveness of their nurse. "She has been most marvelously chaste", replies one of the men mischievously. "Of course she has [been chased]," roars the commander, "but has she been caught?"

* The OHenry short story 'Sound and Fury' is the 'fun' variety of this. An author is dictating a story to his stenographer, and her comments indicates she keeps getting it wrong. Their names are respectively Mr. Penne and Miss Lore, so they also have PunnyNames.
--> [[AC: MR. PENNE]] (''dictates'') "...Cortland, with his arm firmly entwined abouther waist, knew nothing of her sighs--"
--> [[AC: MISS LORE]] Goodness! If he couldn't tell her size with his arm around--

* In ''Series/{{BlackAdder}} I'', a horse is being questioned on the witness stand in Black Adder's trial for being a witch. Upon answering with a neighing sound, the prosecutor asks for clarification "Was that a 'neigh' or a 'nay'?" (The subtitles spell this out.)

* In an episode of LoisAndClark, Tempus, who became the President, addresses Superman on television and states:
--> ''I hope we can find a place for you in the Doe administration... I hope you can understand that ... and if you, Kent... I mean can't''

* Music/{{Rammstein}}'s song "Du Hast". In German, "du hast" means "you have," and "du hasst" means "you hate," and they're pronounced almost identically. So the lines, "Du. Du hast. Du hast mich," are commonly heard as, "You. You hate. You hate me." (The sentence fully sung is, "Du hast mich gefragt, und ich hab nichts gesagt," meaning, "You asked me, and I said nothing.")

[[Theatre]]
* Discussed & spelled out in Elaine May's one-act play ''Adaptation'' (no relation to the [[{{Film/Adaptation}} film of the same name]]):
-->Norma: Last year I read "The Prophet" aloud at my parents' seder. My mother cried. She didn't understand. I wanted them to hear "The Prophet" so they could understand love - but too many people spell it f-i-t.
-->Phil: F-i-t?
-->Norma: Yes, ironic isn't it? That's how they spell everything.
-->Phil: F-i-t spells "fit."
-->Norma: I know. That's why "The Prophet" is meaningless to them.
-->Phil: Oh, they spell ''Prophet'' f-i-t.

[[folder: VideoGames]]
* In ''Videogame/{{Portal}}'', [=GlaDOS=] tells Chell "When the testing is over, you will be...missed/mist." The subtitles only state "will be missed", as expected. Subtitles have difficulty properly rendering an ambiguous spoken homonym. Considering the flames at the end of the testing course, most of Chell ''will'' be mist, and pretty quickly too. In the event, [[spoiler: Chell is fine because she used portals so that the flames missed her. So [=GlaDOS=] was literally telling the truth!]]

* ''FlushedAway'' has a phonetic pun across two different speakers:
--> Roddie St. James: ''What the ...''
--> Sid the Sewer Rat: '''''Hell'''o!''

* Once in the Australian Parliament, Sir Winston Turnbull was giving a speech that included the words "I am a country member." Gough Whitlam interjected: "I remember."