Getting the joke 30 years later - just me?

[HappySquid]

I have just realised that Shaun the Sheep's name is a play on words (Shaun/shorn). Feeling rather sheepish.

Has anyone else come across a joke that only sunk in many years later or is it just me?!

Moonlicker? Lmao. Is that what I think it means or am I reading into this too much?

lol, how was it possible you missed it? Funny though! But we all at some time miss the obvious! It happens. All the best.

Thanks. Just been educated, never knew what a homophone was!

So do I. English. Otherwise it would be shon..

That’s not pronouncing the r @JawsCushion. The r sound is dropped and there’s a compensatory lengthening of the vowel sound.

I know. Shon is not saying the r

shorrrrrrn is saying the r

I’m not sure what English accent you have, but if it’s a non-rhotic one, as most of them are, you won’t be pronouncing the r in shorn, but will elongate the vowel instead.
So shorn will sound like Shaun.

Some English accents, eg West Country, are rhotic and do pronounce the r.
So shorn does not sound like Shaun,

I have a feeling you know all this though😉

Good doesn't rhyme with food in my accent, but I still "got" the Coop strapline "good with food" when it was on adverts. Because they do rhyme in some accents.

To be fair, we’d all have immediately understood the joke if they said ‘Shaun was shorn’ or something similar, and especially if they’d written it down while saying it like the Co-op ads do 😂

I saw the film back when it came out and was completely confused about why Wallace suggested calling the sheep Shaun so confidently, it made no sense to me. I only discovered from a Mumsnet thread. And as a PP said the word 'shorn' is not said in the film, Shaun is shaved. And most Scottish farmers would talk about sheep clipping anyway not sheep shearing. Since we speak Scots not English.

Another one I recently discovered was that 'roarsome birthday' is suppose to be 'awesome birthday'.

If you grow up with an accent you hear words differently because your brain adapts to that accent. Which is why as we've just seen in @JawsCushion 's post people with southern english accents think they say the r rather than using it as a vowel modifier.

I do. I think you're talking about the complete opposite.

@JaninaDuszejko I'm not posh and certainly not a southerner. Why you'd assume that, goodness knows

Where I'm from you're all southern. FWIW though there are pronounciation maps from the 1950s which make clear that non-rhotic accents only existed in the south east back then, TV plus phonics have spread the non-rhotic accent further.

I didn't say anything about being posh though, that's in your head.

I think you probably misread ‘post’ as ‘posh’ @JawsCushion.

I think you're talking about the complete opposite.
I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what you mean by this. Could you explain it a bit further please?

My one was what people used to say about things that happened before you were born - before you were a " twinkle in your daddies eye".
I was about 25 before I suddenly understood what that meant.And wished I hadn't 😬

@AndThereSheGoes I think that's one that is intended to be misunderstood by a child when it's said to them, so you're definitely not the only person who has suddenly realised as a young adult.

Will you all stop using the word ‘rhotic’

Well it's pretty necessary in a discussion about why some people don't get the pun in Shaun the Sheep. Maybe don't read a nearly 700 posts long thread about pronounciation if you don't like the work. It's like going onto a thread about football and complaining about them using the word 'goalie'.