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?!

Ahhhh. Got it now!

But I don't agree that it's most British accents at all. I'd say having them rhyme is less likely than not.

Not in my Scottish accent. The sound in the middle is just an o sound. Not quite as short as in Bob i suppose more like the o at the start of awkward.

Not in most English accents except cut glass RP. The B side of the orginal Teddy Bears Picnic record (1940s or 50s) had a song about birds that rhymed 'lawn' with 'gone' (gorn). I don't think anybody talks like that any more.

This is the most intellectual thread or anything I have read in a long time… 🌷

Now that I've tried to
Talk to you and make you understand
All you have to do is close your eyes
And just reach out your hands and touch me

I've always hated that song because it definitely sounds like coercion.

It's fascinating. I found myself awake and on here saying these words out loud to try and see how they sound.

I've often wondered how teachers teach phonics in places with strong accents.

As a northerner it annoys me in Stick Man when laugh and scarf don't rhyme and I have to remember to say it the southern way otherwise it's all wrong.

When the film 'Dr Dolittle' came out and everyone was so excited about him talking to the animals, I just thought 'well, it's nothing new, Johnny Morris could do that, I saw him on Animal Magic.' His conversations with Dotty the Ring Tailed Lemur were epic.

I had no idea whatsoever that he was voicing Dotty etc himself.

And no, I am not sharing with you how old I was when I twigged that ....

Mispronounce 😆

Like a massive proportion of the country? Including Pete Sallis when he originally introduced the name? It's not mispronunciation just because they don't speak like you!

Sorry I’m not getting what you mean.
In my accent sauce definitely rhymes with boss and not source.

Don't be so silly

You then said it will also rhyme in most British accents. That's what's being disputed.

Only if you say sauce as soss or boss as borse. To me sauce has a long sound like the au in autumn and boss has a short o sound.

It’s really interesting isn’t it, how different brains work?

I can easily imagine other accents and hear how they “shape” the words but I really struggle with written puns.

For example I got Diagon Alley because is looks so like “diagonally”, but, as they say, I was today years old when I got Grimmauld Place and Knockturn Alley. Probably because when I read the books I pronounced Grimmauld (in my head) as though it was French (no idea…) and Knockturn was clearly a composite of two words, so I gave it no more thought.

I wonder if I’d seen the films first I’d have heard the puns.

Have read the first page of comments...the only one I actually knew was Central Perk!

I will add Peperami...it's a bit of an animal.

I did specify English in my post not British.

I don't get peperami.

This is your original post:

GetDownkeith · Today 06:56
It rhymes in my Scottish accent. I can’t make sauce rhyme with horse sauce definitely rhymes with sauce. It will in most British accents I can think of apart from the south of England.

Definitely British.

'Mispronounce'

Some of you are so rigid

Yes, that’s the bit I take issue with too. I think that Shaun and shorn actually do rhyme in most British accents.

Heres a Read Write Inc sound chart where you can see ‘au’ and ‘or’ in the same column - ie same sound:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Read-Write-Inc-PHONICS-2006-02-02/dp/B01K93BR0Y/ref=asc_df_B01K93BR0Y?mcid=4efcafb9020331648315713bd79a7c5a&tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=696450770351&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6554322922974363175&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=t&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006879&hvtargid=pla-1658379964735&psc=1&gad_source=1

I still don’t get the Smarties one..? 🙈

Smart people have answers

Smarties = clever people (I only got this in my 20s!)

That chart isn't accurate for all accents.

"Is there anybody there? Knock once for yes twice for no"
It only dawned on me in my late 20's that there must be somebody there to knock no! 😂🤦

Count von Count!