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{{trope}}
[[File:discotent 948.jpg|link=
{{quote|''"<code>[Name]</code> was savagely beaten to death with their own shoulder-blades shortly after making that pun."''|'''Internet User''' }}
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Feel free to groan, but the fact is that people like to put puns in their work, [[Incredibly Lame Pun|whether or not the puns are any good]]. If done right, they can be funny or intriguing, and they stretch out minds, possibly in [[Multiple Reference Pun|several directions]]. Done wrong, or overused, they aren't even good enough for a cheap laugh. Wordplay at your own risk. See [[Punny Stuff]] for an index of all pun related tropes.
''If somebody ignored the advice [[Don't Explain the Joke]] and linked an actual pun to this page, go ahead and remove that link. There's no need to [[Lampshade Hanging|hang a lampshade]] on obvious puns, and the non-obvious ones are more fun if you get them in a moment of [[Fridge Brilliance]]. Yes, even if this does mean you're [[Late to the Punchline]].''
{{examples}}
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* [[All The Tropes]]' official cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich.
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Japanese in general is an awesome language for making puns in. Several dialects, four different writing systems, and complex naming schemes provide rich soil for wordplay, and then you also get a very limited system in which sounds can be combined into words. Much is due to the influence of Chinese. Since Japanese lacks the rich<ref>and frustrating</ref> Chinese system of intonation, many Chinese words become indistinguishable when imported into Japanese.
* [[Rumiko Takahashi]]'s first breakaway success, ''[[Urusei Yatsura]]'', is filled to the brim with puns—its name, for example, can be read half a dozen ways depending on Kanji, Kana, and the use of spaces, each one of them a pun or joke.
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** Frieza's family has a cold motif; Frieza = Freezer, Coola = Cooler, Chiller, and King Cold
*** Additionally, all of Frieza's minions (the Saiyans as vegetables, other aliens as fruits, and the Ginyu force as milk products) are named after things you would keep in a refrigerator, or perhaps freezer.
** The [[Non-Human Sidekick
** There are several
** Chow, Mein, and Pilaf from the original Dragonball series.
*** The English translation managed to take the pun further, by saying their goal was to bring about the "Reich Pilaf".
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{{quote|'''Misa''': I would never dream about living in a world without Light!
'''L''': Yes, that would be dark. }}
* In ''[[Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei
* This is apparently the mindset of [[4Kids! Entertainment]] whenever they [[Macekre]] an anime, most notably ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh (anime)|Yu-Gi-Oh]]'', ''[[One Piece]]'', and ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]''.
** To be fair, though, ''[[One Piece]]'' lives and breathes puns regardless. Attack names (most of Zoro's sword moves, notably, also resemble types of sushi when written), character names, and in the seventh movie over half the lines of the plot-central prophecy were puns.
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* ''[[Martian Successor Nadesico]]'' has a ''lot'' of puns.
** Izumi Maki is particularly guilty of this, to the point that she barely speaks at all without a translator's note appearing.
* ''[[Spice and Wolf]]''{{'}}s first season OVA episode is titled "Wolf and the ''Tail'' of Happiness". The pun is actually reversed, since Holo speaks of 'snatching the tail of happiness' as a metaphor in the story.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
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{{quote|'''Scott''': You once were a ve-gone, and now you will be gone.}}
* ''[[Spaceballs]].'' The radar gets jammed, they comb the desert, and of course there's the Druish princess.
== [[Jokes]] ==
* Too many to mention. There are several entire books devoted to joke cycles which are built on puns.
* The entire point of [[Knock-Knock Joke]]s. Think about it.▼
** Orange you glad you thought about it?▼
{{quote|One day, a man "lets one rip", and out comes this strange sound - "HONDA". Confused, he initially shrugs it off. However, over the next few days, every time he farted, it would do the same thing - "HONDA". Becoming concerned, he visited his family doctor. The doctor couldn't explain it, and gave him a referral to another doctor, who also was at a loss. From one doctor to another he went, seeking an explanation for the strange sound being made by his wind. Eventually, he visits a doctor who happened to be Chinese. The man explained to the doctor that whenever he let one off, it made that strange sound. The doctor asked for a demonstration, and sure enough - "HONDA". The Chinese doctor nodded understanding, and asked the man to drop his trousers and bend over. He did so, and then heard the sound of scissors snipping something. The doctor said "try again now". The man once more passed wind, and was elated to find that it was back to its normal sound. He turned to the doctor, saw the abscess that had been cut off, and asked "That's amazing, doc. Why was it happening?" The doctor shrugged and said "Everybody knows {{spoiler|Abscess makes the fart go Honda}}".}}▼
*** Also, The Longest Joke in the World, {{spoiler|Better Nate than Lever}}▼
== [[Literature]] ==
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** Why the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden is traditionally thought of as an apple - ''malum'' is Latin for evil and apple.
* Ancient puns also appear in Plutarch's ''Parallel Lives'', for example: "one of the sons of Crassus who was thought to resemble a certain Axius, and on this account had brought his mother's name into scandalous connection with that of Axius, once made a successful speech in the senate, and when [[Cicero]] was asked what he thought of him, he answered with the Greek words "Axios Krassou" (meaning "Worthy of Crassus").
* [[Piers Anthony]]'s recent{{when}} ''[[Xanth]]'' books are a good example of [[Hurricane of Puns|overdosing on this trope]]. The worst part is [[Don't Explain the Joke|a lot of the puns are explained in recent books]].
** Take the Hippo-crite. Instead of actually ''being'' hypocritical, he just said, "I never mean what I say."
** There's been a steady increase in puns throughout the series. The first two books had only a handful of puns. After that, Piers Anthony started making the series more comedic, and adding more puns as part of the process. Then he started accepting reader-submitted puns and it and got completely out of control. Naturally, a great many Xanth fans were thrilled by this opportunity to actually be a part of their favorite series, even if only in a small way, so the puns flooded in ever-greater numbers, to the point that Anthony frequently has several books' worth of pun backlog. In-universe, Xanth is even described as being ''made of puns''.
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** Really, the series has puns ''everywhere'', including the titles of all the books and of the series itself.
* Ian Watson is another author who has an inordinate fondness for bad puns.
* [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Discworld]]'' series has the "Oh God of Hangovers" in ''[[
** ''[[
*** And the Fat Mines contained BCBs (Burnt Crusty Bits) that Vimes said died because they were battered to death.
*** There's also an example of him being entirely unable to stop himself with the story of Fingers Mazda, who stole the secret of fire from the gods. He was unable to fence it, it was too hot. He really got burned on that deal.
*** Granny Weatherwax's lodgings in the Shades are made are all the better for being next door to a notorious reseller of stolen items. Because good fences make good neighbours.
*** Magrat believes that broomsticks are sexual metaphors when witches ride them. But this is a phallusy.
** The name of the countries Djelibeybi and Hersheba. Terry Pratchett's realization that American audiences weren't getting the Djelibeybi pun inspired the creation of nearby Hersheba, which most audiences in general aren't getting. (If you've heard of the candy, the Djelibeybi pun is criminally easy to get, due to it being mentally pronounced the same way, ''[[Viewers are Morons|and]]'' [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] when we're told Djelibeybi means "[[wikipedia:Jelly Babies|Child of the Djel]]." Hersheba is not as easy—this is due to variation in pronunciation ({{spoiler|Her-[[King Solomon's Mines|Sheba]] or Hershe[y]-ba[r]}}), the fact that it doesn't have a lampshade, ''and'' it doesn't have a book focused on it.)
* [[Peter David]] loves puns, especially name puns. This includes naming people just for the pun: Sir Umbridge in ''[[Sir Apropos of Nothing]]'' is offered to him as the knight he squires under, and refusing would be a horrible offense, so "in order to not cause offense, I had to take Umbridge".
* In [[Jasper Fforde]]'s ''[[Thursday Next]]'' novels, the name of ''every'' character (except for fictional characters from other works) is a pun.
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* Too many to go into, but during the early years of ''[[Dilbert]]'', Scott Adams was REALLY REALLY into puns (very little office humor was involved, Dilbert was ostensibly an engineer just to provide a context for nerd-jokes and nerdy jokes).
* ''[[Finnegans Wake]]''. Every sentence.
* The commander in Jerome Bixby's "The Holes Around Mars" is extremely fond of puns, to the irritation of his crew.
* [[J. K. Rowling]] poured a lot of puns into the [[Harry Potter]] series, especially in the names - there's a lot of overlap with [[Meaningful Name/Literature|Meaningful Name]] (and [[Bilingual Bonus]]).
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
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* ''Words, Words, Words'' by [[Bo Burnham]].
** ''Anything'' by [[Bo Burnham]]. Ever.
* Many individual album titles are based on double meanings of words, ranging from "No Jacket Required" to "Crimes Of Passion".
== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==
* [[TNA]] wrestler Shark Boy's entire gimmick at this point is based around borrowing [[Stone Cold Steve Austin]]'s old catchphrases and mixing them with nautical puns, e.g. "Gimme a shell yeah!" and "And that's the fishin' line, 'cuz Shark Boy said so!"
== [[Radio]] ==
* ''[[Canada Reads]]'', a cross between a book club and a reality show, bills itself as a "title fight".
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
=== Roleplaying Games ===▼
* The ''Toon'' expansion ''Toon Tales'' (in the Way-Out West section) includes an optional rule for Punslingers, whose puns ''actually do damage''.▼
* From the same publisher, ''[[GURPS]]'' has "Rapier Wit", which allows characters to use puns as weapons. Cutting remarks, indeed.▼
=== [[Card Games]] ===
* Show up regularly in ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]''. Such as [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=29785 ''He exercises his right to bear arms''.]
** If you attached equipment to it, would that mean you're exercising your [https://web.archive.org/web/20120518102442/http://www.basicjokes.com/dquotes.php?aid=1173 right to arm bears?]
*** If you are the master of ursine infantry, then it is within your power to make sure that they stick to a vigorous physical training regiment to ensure their battle readiness. Don't let anybody tell you different, you have the right to exercise armed bears.
**** I'm pretty sure bears exercise their right arms regularly.
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* ''[[The Spoils]]'' has got quite a few, too. Pick five cards at random, and there's a pretty high chance that at least ''one'' involves at least one pun.
* [[Munchkin (game)|''Munchkin'']] has more than a few - "Faun and Games", "Unnatural Axe", and "Pants Macabre" are all titles of supplement packs, and there are others in the cards themselves.
▲=== Roleplaying Games ===
▲* The ''Toon'' expansion ''Toon Tales'' (in the Way-Out West section) includes an optional rule for Punslingers, whose puns ''actually do damage''.
▲* From the same publisher, ''[[GURPS]]'' has "Rapier Wit", which allows characters to use puns as weapons. Cutting remarks, indeed.
== [[Theater]] ==
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* ''[[Evil Inc.]]'' can barely go a strip without some horrific example or other cropping up. It's as if Brad Guigar enjoys punishing his readers.
* ''[[Narbonic]]'' once devoted [http://www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/narbonic_plus/series.php?view=archive&chapter=41040 a Sunday strip] to a pun, including several paragraphs of set-up. (This built on elements introduced earlier in the story, but works just as well in isolation.) Unfortunately, it appears the song that is the object of the pun isn't widely known outside the US, so [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmPer3yNGHg here's] a recording.
* ''[[+EV|Plus EV]]'' is full of them, mostly [[Poker]]-related. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130130145216/http://plusev.keenspot.com/d/20070305.html Big Blind], [https://web.archive.org/web/20130401075323/http://plusev.keenspot.com/d/20081009.html Pocket Pear]...
* Nepeta Leijon, Feferi Peixes, Eridan Ampora, and Meenah Peixes from ''[[Homestuck]]''. The former uses cat-related puns, while the latter three use fish-related puns.
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'''Mr. Know-It-All:''' No wonder I couldn't open it. It's ''jammed!'' }}
** [[Once an Episode|Every single episode]] of "Peabody's Improbable Histories" ended in a terrible pun.
** Lampshaded in the "Upsidasium" story, when the armored fighting vehicles come over the ridge:
{{quote|'''Rocky''': Tanks, Bullwinkle!
''[[beat]]''
'''Rocky''': I said, "Tanks, Bullwinkle!"
'''Bullwinkle''': Ah, do I ''have'' to say it?}}
* American cartoons also love a good pun: anything said by Genie in the ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' movie or series, the names in ''[[DuckTales (1987)]]'' and ''[[Tale Spin]]'', and ''[[Animaniacs]]'' and ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'' made heavy use of them as well.
* In ''[[Kim Possible]]'', everyone's name is a pun.
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(As Mojo is blasting a man whose shirt reads “PROV.”)
'''Narrator''': Things aren’t looking too Gouda for you, Mojo! So leave that Prov alone and prepare to be shredded! }}
** The [[Homage]] to ''[[Rocky and Bullwinkle]]'', "[https://web.archive.org/web/20130124200120/http://www.cartoonlair.com/the-powerpuff-girls/610-a-i-see-a-funny-cartoon-in-your-future-video_1b6e4dce8.html I See A Funny Cartoon In Your Future]".
*And how can we forget ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' and his love for puns? It's even lampshaded in the [[Christmas Episode]]:
{{quote|'''Ghostwriter''': And now, face the wrath of my monster nutcracker!
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== [[Real Life]] ==
▲* The entire point of [[Knock-Knock Joke]]s. Think about it.
▲** Orange you glad you thought about it?
▲** [[Knock-Knock Joke]]s aren't the only jokes that are punishing. For instance, one classic one goes like this:
▲{{quote|One day, a man "lets one rip", and out comes this strange sound - "HONDA". Confused, he initially shrugs it off. However, over the next few days, every time he farted, it would do the same thing - "HONDA". Becoming concerned, he visited his family doctor. The doctor couldn't explain it, and gave him a referral to another doctor, who also was at a loss. From one doctor to another he went, seeking an explanation for the strange sound being made by his wind. Eventually, he visits a doctor who happened to be Chinese. The man explained to the doctor that whenever he let one off, it made that strange sound. The doctor asked for a demonstration, and sure enough - "HONDA". The Chinese doctor nodded understanding, and asked the man to drop his trousers and bend over. He did so, and then heard the sound of scissors snipping something. The doctor said "try again now". The man once more passed wind, and was elated to find that it was back to its normal sound. He turned to the doctor, saw the abscess that had been cut off, and asked "That's amazing, doc. Why was it happening?" The doctor shrugged and said "Everybody knows {{spoiler|Abscess makes the fart go Honda}}".}}
▲*** This is also a {{spoiler|Spoonerism}}
▲** Also, The Longest Joke in the World, {{spoiler|Better Nate than Lever}}
* In post-war Europe, America ran various covert operations to gather intelligence from Soviet soldiers. One particularly successful campaign in Italy hinged on the fact that getting gonorrhea was a serious matter for a Soviet soldier; it guaranteed a recall back to the Soviet Union (where none of them wanted to go back to) and perhaps harsher punishment. So, the Americans got in touch with a doctor who ran a clinic that secretly treated gonorrhea and recruited the doctor, in exchange for money and free medicine. Then, the doctor would pick up anything he could from casual conversation and see if there were any likely defectors in the group. What did the Americans call this endeavor? {{spoiler|Operation Claptrap. [[Don't Explain the Joke|For those that don't get it]], "claptrap" was slang for "nonsense conversation". Meanwhile, "the clap" is slang for gonorrhea.}}
* In a similar vein to the above, American soldiers in [[World War II]] referred to the Good Conduct Medal as the "no clap award" for 2 reasons: 1) all you had to do to get it was not get in trouble for 3 years so it wasn't really worthy of applause and 2) getting an STD disqualified you.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]▼
[[Category:Just for Pun]]
[[Category:Punny Stuff]]
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[[Category:Everything's Better with Indexes]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Worldwide Punomenon, A}}
▲[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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