Stealth Pun/Real Life

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Stealth Puns in Real Life include:

  • In the famous F.A.O. Schwarz Toy Store, New York City, there are a pair of life-sized stuffed animals over the display case for board games. They don't say, but they are, of course, cheetahs.
  • While certainly not intentional, one of the largest elevator manufacturers in the world is the Schindler group. Schindler's Lift.
  • Arguably the AT-4 disposable rocket launcher. You'd only really get it if you knew a lot about guns, but it fires 84 mm rockets. AT-4. 84. Geddit?
    • Also the Kel-Tec P-3AT. Guess what round it fires?
  • Solaris uses the magic hexidecimal number 0xDEFEC8ED in certain debug outputs... specifically, core dumps.
  • Cockney Rhyming Slang.
  • The local highschool for Papillion, Nebraska, has "The Monarchs" for its mascot. Given that the town's name comes from the French word papillon, or butterfly...
    • The mascot Arkansas School for the Deaf: Leopards.
    • Lanphier High School, in this troper's hometown of Springfield, IL, has students who sport "Lanphier Pride" sweatshirts. The school's mascot? Yep, it's a lion.
  • The Alice and Bob nomenclature, when used in cryptography, has a few of these. Alice is trying to send a message to Bob, without letting the contents be revealed to Eve (an Eavesdropper), or subverted by Mallory (a Malicious active attacker).
  • When a US military weather station experiences an earthquake, it is required to fill out a SEXX bulletin describing the event and any damage that occurs. Yes, you disseminate the SEXX bulletin when the Earth moves.
  • Mensa groups in the Chicago area host an annual "HalloweeM" gathering, in which extremely smart people dress up to embody the pun of their choice. As these costumes are designed by, and intended for the amusement of, Mensa-caliber intellects, the puns are usually coy enough to qualify for this trope.
  • The official Dive Sign used by professional scuba divers to indicate they forgot to bring something along is to point at your eye, then your left nipple, and finally your rump. Eye ... Left Tit ... Behind.
  • This shirt design. "The Batmobile lost a wheel (and the Joker got away)".
    • Threadless.com also sells a T-shirt with Lenin, Mao, Castro, and Stalin, all in little hats and carrying drinks.
    • And one with a fish in a glass military tank. On description it doesn't really sound that stealthy, but you would not believe the amount of people who see it and say "Why is there a fish in a ta-- OH."
    • Many of the shirts from Woot.Com are pun based. Good luck if you get the random pack and then finally get it while in the middle of the street.
  • Actress Jean Harlow was allegedly at dinner with Margot Asquith (wife of Herbert Henry Asquith, the former British Prime Minister), and kept pronouncing Mrs. Asquith's name with the 't' at the end. Eventually Asquith told her "No, Jean, the 'T' is silent, like in 'Harlow'".
  • The University of Connecticut has, as its sports mascot, the Huskies. Huskies are a breed of sled dogs normally found in the Yukon. University of Connecticut = U. Conn.
  • Allegheny College's sports teams are called the Gators. The word "Allegheny" is often abbreviated as "Alle." Thus making the team the "Alle. Gators."
    • San Francisco State University, also the Gators. Hint: they're the Gators, and one of the school colors is gold. Golden Gators=Golden Gaters
  • Subverted with the University of North Texas' college radio station, KNTU.
  • One Seattle transport system was originally set to be called the South Lake Union Transit. It was changed when someone pointed out the acronym issue, but many t-shirts still celebrate the original plan. "I Took a Ride on the South Lake Union Transit"...
  • This Troper's university once nearly dubbed a building, funded by the titular donors, the Christopher Center for Library and Information Technology. After the sign announcing its future location had been up for a few months, it mysteriously became the CCLIR instead. This was, of course, never openly acknowledged.
  • The cafeteria at Rowan University has a circular stove called "360 Degrees." Not only would that be approximately the temperature the food is cooked at (or maybe higher, if calculated in Celsius) but... there are 360 degrees in a circle.
  • In Spanish, "Mano" (hand in English) is feminine. It's a rare exception to the "-o" masculine/"-a" feminine rule. Think about it for a second.
  • Either unintentional, or the powers that be have a strange sense of humor. A troublesome or rowdy samurai is typically depicted as chewing a tooth pick, or else a fish bone for the same reason. So this samurai "has a bone to pick."
  • Titan, the largest moon of the planet Saturn, and the second-largest overall, is actually one letter short away from the name of its surface color. Hint? Titan is a light yellowish-orange in appearance.
  • Kennywood in Pittsburgh has an inverting pendulum ride called the Aero 360. It's shaped like... um, the Kennywood logo. (Hint: Say the name out loud.)
  • Not a conscious pun, but anyways. Danish people are often fond of the slightly sexist joke that when you get a girlfriend or wife, you'll have to use half your money on her. The Danish income tax is one of the highest in the world, about 50%. Coincidentally, the Danish word "skat" can both mean "tax" and be a term of affection, just like the English "honey" and "baby". (It can also mean "treasure", by the way).
  • The University of Tampere, a Finnish university, has three major buildings, which have meaningful names. The main building is named "Päätalo", Finnish for "main building". A castle-like building nearby is named "Linna" (castle). The faculty of sciences, located near a stream is named "Virta" (current). They sound like Incredibly Lame Pun, but they have actually been named of three Tampere cultural icons: writer Kalle Päätalo, writer Väinö Linna and musician Olavi Virta.
  • The musician Blixa Bargeld's name is a pseudonym. Since Blixa is a brand of pen, it's a literal "pen name".

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