Literary Puns Politics and History Puns Miscellaneous Puns
Death of a Salesman and its Wordplay
Sanskrit Wordplay in Gulliver's Travels
Pundemonium.com: Great puns categorized by history, adult, politics, etc. Accepts submissions.

When Pope John Paul II died, the new pope became Benedict XVI. When he dies, he will be Ex-Benedict.

There is the word amortize, "to liquidate a debt by installment payments; to write off expenditures by prorating over over a certain period". It must have been created by some sort of joker/punster because the word derives from two Latin words: ad, "to, towards", and mors, "death".

Be sure to read Guam With The Wind, the heart-wrenching story of a monsoon which devastated one of the Mariana Islands.

Here is an interesting pun I found concerning the lack of originality in theater plays: C'est la meme shows. Cf. Fr. c'est la meme chose, "it's the same [old] thing".

In the mid-1960's, there was a TV program called NYPD (no relation to NYPD Blue). In one particular episode, the police were investigating the producer of porno sex films, which were illegal in those days, and his name was Kabron, pronounced "kuh-brawn". Cf. Sp. cabron, "fucker".

When they captured Saddam Hussein, American soldiers blew a golden opportunity to create history by not voicing this potentially-classical pun: "You're bagged, dad".

Supposedly, Caesar said, "Veni, Vidi, Vici" ("I came, I saw, I conquered".) after a victory in Asia Minor. However, this is in complete error. You see, in Classical Latin, the letter v is actually pronounced like a w; similarly, i is pronounced "ee", and the c is like a k. Therefore, what he really said was:
Wienie ("wimp")
Weedy ("scrawny")
Weaky ("weak")
"I came, I saw, I conked out".

El Paso Gas: a Tex-Mex fart.

I asked a German friend, "Which Hindu god is the second member of the Hindu triad?" He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Vish I knew."

The Nahuatl (Aztec) language has the word TEOCUITLA, which is used to refer to gold, but what is its literal translation? Time's up!! You never would have guessed it anyway!! Literally, it means "god excrement". (Source: two Nahuatl dictionaries.)

San Francisco became the center of the drug culture. Therefore, it is prophetic that it was originally known as Yerba Buena, which means "good grass/weed" in Spanish.

Speakers of ancient Anglo-Saxon had to remember to cross their t's and to dot their i's but also to cross their d's.

Ancient British ruler, Arthur, had a wife, Guinevere, but she was messing around with Lancelot. "He has a lot of lance," she always said.
"Yes, I 'Avalon one, longer than Arthur's Sexcalibur" he often boasted.
Nor was it unusual for Kink Arthur and Galahad to dress up in drag, whereupon Arthur would sing his composition, I Had a Gal Named Galahad.
Obviously, the members of the Kink Arthur's court were horny and "Came-a-lot".
There was, of course, Sir Safer (a real knight of the Round Table), who used condoms

After leaving Tokyo, Godzilla gobbled up Beijing, China, but was hungry an hour later.

When his religious predictions came true, the Shiite cleric/seer gloated, "Ayatollah you so!"

Have you ever started ready a book, only to think that perhaps you read it long ago? This is de'ja' lu, "already read", from the French.

Since Afghanistan's Taliban outlawed the viewing of television, shouldn't they be called the Telly Ban?

King Louis Seas had a wife, Marine Antoinette, who said, "Let them eat hake!"

Osama been laden with many bombs lately.

There is the Buddhist author, Thich Nhat Nanh (Anglo pronunciation: "tick not hawn"). If you wish to look up his books at the library, you need to know this: His last name is not Hanh, it's Nhat Hanh.

Latin-English pun:
I've got some good gnus, some bad gnus, and some great gnus:
First, the good gnus: benignus.
Now the bad gnus: malignus.
The great gnus: magnus.

In the movie Deep Impact (starring Robert Duval, Tea Leoni and Morgan Freeman), a huge comet/asteroid is going to impact with the Earth, so USA and Russia send a spaceship out to meet it. They are going to drill a deep hole into the comet and then place a nuclear warhead into it for the purpose of blowing it up into small pieces. In the process of doing so, one of the astronauts is accidentally swept off the fast-moving comet and sails out into space, never to be seen again. The character's name was Gus Partenza. Cf. It. partenza, "a departure, a leaving".

Lots of good French wine: plasterer of Paris.

What is the most difficult and most sluggish time of the year for Jews?
Schleptember.

Noah was dealing drugs during The Flood. When the waters receded, he landed on top of a mountain. But the Drug Enforcement Agency was there too. Aware that he had been betrayed, he stuttered, "A-ra-rat!" And that is the story of Noah's Nark.

People trying analyze the mind of Saddam Hussein haved asked him, "What's your bag, dad?"

Followers of Judaism believe their god is a heavy dude, man. In fact, they often ask, "How much do Yahweh?"

Ron Insana is a famous financial analyst on TV. Trouble is, his last means "insane" in Italian. Would you trust him with your money?

Curly of The Three Stooges says, "Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!" Cf. Skt. ny-uc, "to take pleasure in something".

In a drunken stupor, you suddenly get this unusual, eerie feeling and notice that you are surrounded by lots of beer cans that are empty. This is a case of de'ja' bu, "already drunk".

What is the source of the word pun? Oxford English Dictionary says, "Appears first...soon after 1660. Of uncertain origin".
I would like to volunteer these Sanskrit words/root-words as possible sources:
PUNTH, "to give or suffer pain"
PUN.D.ARIIKA, "lotus flower, a symbol of beauty"
PUNS, "the soul-spirit of humanity"
PUN.YA, "meritorious, auspicious"
PUN~JA, "a heap" (of what?)

What is the difference between Sp. pin~ata, the children's game, and pun~eta, "masturbation"? You beat the former with a stick, and with the latter, you beat your own stick.

An edict from the Vatican is called a papal bull, also known as pope poop.

French philosopher Rene Desfartes said, "I stink, therefore I exist."

According to Biblical accounts, Delilah cut Samsonite's hair, whereupon he lost all his luggage.