some word play
This page has some word play I've came up with. There is also an RSS feed for updates
- general word play (Updated September 20, 2024)
- cross language word play (Updated September 20, 2024)
- word avalanches (Updated September 22, 2024)
- toki pona word play (Updated September 20, 2024)
general word play
September 20, 2024word play that doesn't fit in another category
a ska group's low end is horrible. a boy is depressed that he doesn't know a place where lots of girls go, so he lies down. this doesn't cheer him up, so he sarcastically builds a sandcastle. in short:
bad bass backs brass bandlad lays, lacks lass land
sad stays, stacks sass sand
in this poem, each word rhymes with the word in its position in all the other lines (e.g. "bass, lays, stays") and each individual line uses alliteration for every word
cross language word play
September 20, 2024Word play that involves two or more languages.
"ili lekis" is "sike lili" backwards. "ili lekis" means "they licked" in Esperanto while "sike lili" means "small balls" in toki pona. Taken together, this is a cross-language emordnilap meaning "they licked small balls."
The following is a toki pona haiku which is an anagram of (one of) its English translation
jan pi mun anteli noka e palisa
lon telo nasa
an alien man
punts a pole to
jank oil (as in ale)
Here is another such toki pona haiku that anagrams an English translation
tenpo ale lami taso li lon ma ni.
ni taso li lon.
in all time
i am all alone
nonstop isolation.
and a third toki pona english anagram
toki sin pi nimi musi li wile e tenpo mute a. mi nasa.new puns take a lot o' time. plus, i-i-i-i-i'm-i'm-i'm insane.
a short toki pona poem where both lines are anagrams, have perfect assonance with each other, and a reasonable English translation is a pun.
mi lon anpami o lanpan
I am down
I am down to steal
word avalanches
September 22, 2024Word avalanches are a form of word play where you repeat sounds without repeating meaning. Usually, these come with a contrived situation as the setup (ideally without including any words that are in the avalanche) and then the avalanche is another way of phrasing the situation.
Cops completely consumed their supply of an opioid
The law did allotted Dilaudid. Did all it.I work in solar. Had to explain the family business to my kid after he sold a customer his sperm and phones. I said:
Son, sell sun cells; unsell son cells, son's cellsA barbershop quartet mugged me. They sang that they'd break my leg if I didn't pay them. I realized their business plan has 3 steps:
harmony -> harm a knee -> harm moneygoth girl gained good girthiness; packing Poseidon pounds
gothic got thicc; got thick god dick(alternatively: goth girl gained good girthiness; lord gets his giga dong, it go in her" ("lord gets his giga dong, it go in her" is an anagram of "goth girl gained good girthiness"))
Above colorful arches of post-drizzle light, people accessorize to express discontent with said drizzling
Somewhere over the rainbows some wear over-the-rain bows.That shopping center sucks; do a complete tear down
The mall is shit. Demolish it.got my peepers cleaned, then took a long look and concluded that I'd been given a vasectomy
sterile eyes stare, realize sterilized.i went to the magic show where they do the "cutting somebody in half" bit
saw a man saw a manThey compliment a man who believes the earth is a disk by pointing out his stomach is thinner
Flatter their flat earther: "flatter there"Caffeine suppository for dinner. Analingus for stimulation.
ass upper as supper. ass supper as upper.my second ghoul is also attending that spooky Swedish band's concert
ghost two goes to Ghost, toomy job is to protect the guys who polish the machines we use to polish the extra space we allot (just in case) for any extra equipment we have (just in case), but thankfully i only work with the more muscular guys
i'm a buffer buffer buffer buffer buffer bufferThe party for shy people with poor shell skills is at capacity
bashful bash fool bash fulltoki pona word play
September 20, 2024Wordplay in or using toki pona
It has been theorized that billions of years ago, a meteorite crashed into the ocean, and the minerals in that meteorite allowed aquatic life to form and breed. In other words:
unpa kala li lon mun pakala(English: "fish sex occurred in a broken celestial body" - the pun does not translate well)
a person runs a bakery where the food is so good, it's orgasmic. the slogan:
mi lon e unpa lon esun pan(English: (most literally) "i put the sex in the bread business" - though a valid translation that preserves the pun is "I put the 'nut' in 'donut' store")
a misunderstanding in the doctor's office:
jan: jan misikeke o! mi jan pakala! o pona e mi.jan misikeke: n, sina nanpa kala... seme?
jan: ala! mi jan pakala!
jan misikeke: sina lon anpa kala... o tawa sewi.
jan: ala! mi jan pakala!
jan misikeke: sina lanpan kala! a! mi o toki e ni tawa jan lawa!
(English: the doctor mishears "jan pakala" ("damaged person") as "nanpa kala" ("fish number") then as "anpa kala" ("beneath fish") and then as "lanpan kala" ("fish theft"))
The longest nimi pu taso sentence which only uses the vowel "i" and has a (relatively) meaningful translation
pipi pilin pi sinpin kili lili sin ni mi li nimi pini kin.English: The heart bug (lygus pratensis) of this new small fruit wall of mine is (also) named completely(!) - the "(also)" and "(!)" correspond to "kin" which could mean either depending on your nasin. The "pipi pilin" as "heart bug" is a stretch, but lygus pratensis is cute so i don't care (and you can swap "pilin" and "nimi" to also make a meaningful sentence)
lygus pratensis - a bug with a heart shaped spot on its wings
mi pi len sama la mi pilin sama - "those of us with the same clothing feel similar"
sina moku e telo jelo nasa mute la, insa sina li pakala. tan ni la, sina jelo. toki ante:
selo sijelo li jelo tan telo jelo(English: Drink a bunch of beer (nasa yellow liquid) and your organs will be damaged. Because of that, you'll turn yellow (jaundice). In other words, the body's skin will yellow because of beer (the assonance doesn't translate))
a palindrome:
utala uta la tu ala tu?(English: will there be two mouth fights?)
"mi seli e moku" ("I'm cooking sausage") - an image of sausage cooking while arranged in the shape of the sitelen pona glyph for "seli."
pi phrases where the modifier is the phrase in reverse word order:
tomo sona pi sona tomo - architect schoolkalama musi pi musi kalama - songs from music games
tawa musi pi musi tawa - dances from dancing games (or more generally, the fun movements from any movement game)
kama sona pi sona kama - learning of future knowledge
len linja pi linja len - a knitted scarf.
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