Tom Swifties

[Buzz Dixon]

On another thread the subject of Tom Swifties came up (tip o' the hat to Sarah Beach). A "Tom Swifty" refers to a verbal pun written in the manner of an old Tom Swift dime novel; Tom never just "said" anything, he exclaimed, he pronounced, he articulated, etc.

And thus...

"I'll have a martini," she said dryly.

"I'm getting dressed," he panted.

"Only one for each customer," she purred.

Or my favorite:

"You know what the penalty for theft is," the Ayatollah said off-handedly.

Anyone else want to play?

[Rik Levins]

Everything old is new again, I guess. I remember these from the early Sixties.

"It's a steam radiator," he hissed.

"Your toes are frostbitten," the doctor said coldly.

"It's a rusty portcullis," he grated.

"Look, the cat's all tangled up in the yarn," she snarled.

"My name is Lorena Bobbitt," she said shortly.

"Turn off the damn stove!" he said heatedly.

[Michael P]

"I've got to stop masturbating so much," Tom said jerkily.

[GozertheGozarian]

"My name is Lorena Bobbitt," she said cuttingly.

How's that?

[Buzz Dixon]

"There's a Korean," she said icily.

[Paul McEnery]

"There's a Korean," she said icily.

That's another 90 more years in purgatory for you.















He said in a sentence.

[PatrickG]

"This is a Chuck Austen comic", she said while humping his man loins naughtily.

[PatrickG]

"This is a Garth Ennis comic", he said with a vaguely bitter ennui so heavy, you could commit shrieking hours of sodomy with it.

"This (active-being) (article) Grant Morrison sequential fiction suit. QUALIFIED: Hypersigil? Affirmative! 10111011101101! You honestly didn't expect me to fall for your trick, did you? I'm in control of your pulsating neurons right now and with the twitch of my wrist I turn the dial up, increasing the resistance in your nerves and rewriting your neural engrams to match my own. Watch your vision flicker as your perceptual constraints re-adapt. You are me and if I were you after what you've done to me, I'd probably kill myself. Poetic, isn't it?", he said metatextually, echoing through the rippling silver veneer of the quaking, pulsating fourth dimension, its flow screaming with the agony of a godboy's dying pup amidst the orange dusk of the prehistoric proto-Norwegian atomic test site.

[Shades0077]

Back in the day when I was in Scouts, I would get Boy's Life Magazine, and they would always have a bunch of these on the jokes page. I think my favorite one was

"Look at that crook go down the escalator," Tom said condescendingly.

[KevinTBrown]

"Oh look, a funny thread," he chortled.

[Sally Sensational]

"What's that quote about water that runs deep?" asked Tom Stillwell.

[Darediva]

A variation on one above: "Is this elevator going down?" Tom said condescendingly.

"You ran over my foot!" Tom said flatly.

"I want my sandwich toasted," Tom said crustily.

My dad loved Tom Swifties. So they've been around for a long time. I'm sure more will pop into my head. Sorry about that, she said shamefully.

[OzBat!]

What's really sad is that I do this almost compulsively, but could never remember the influence. He said lamely.

[Pink Bat Maxine]

"This is where you need to drill," Ethel said boringly.


(Is 'boringly' a word?)

[Buzz Dixon]

"I'm not using bleach," he lied.

[DaveRothe]

"Gail is a Woman" he said Wonder-fully.

[Pink Bat Maxine]

"What's going on?" he asked obliviously.

[Tad Sivana]

"Canary....Black Canary", he parroted.

[DaveRothe]

"Gail and Chuck write for DC" they Marvelled.

[Buzz Dixon]

"I'm afraid I still have to restrict your movie, IT CAME FROM URANUS, to those 17 and older unless accompanied by a parent," he reiterated.

[CutterMike]

"I love hot dogs," Tom said frankly.
"I need more ketchup." he said, saucily.
"I've just been 'mooned'," he said cheekily.
"The center of that support needs to be higher," he said archly.
"This appears to be a piece of music," he noted.
"Someone has erased all of my work," he said blankly.

[section 8]

"i'll have a Coke," he snorted

[Pink Bat Maxine]

"i'll have a Coke," he snorted

Okay, that's hawt.

[section 8]

"Who Farted?" he gassed silently

[section 8]

"I wanna candy bar" he snickered

[Tad Sivana]

"You've tangled up my webs!" Spiderman snarled.

[Tad Sivana]

"Nice rack!" he tittered.

[Buzz Dixon]

"Nice rack!" he tittered."Look at those boobies," he tittered.

Linked it by bird puns; sorry, the editor in me couldn't resist.

[JamesRitcheyIII]

"I'm afraid I still have to restrict your movie, IT CAME FROM URANUS, to those 17 and older unless accompanied by a parent," he reiterated.

"I've had the idea for a satirically Heinleinesque Juvenile called 'Up, Uranus!' for almost two decades..", Jim mentioned, pointedly. :biggrin:

Man--why'd Robert Asprin hafta die He'd be all over this...

As a side note, the one time I met him he was a total dick--why are people I consider so-so creatively always preemptively rude (not to speak ill of the dead)--?

[Rob Allen]

"Justice Ginsberg isn't here," he said ruthlessly.

"The 'Venus de Milo' is my favorite classical sculpture," he said disarmingly.

[JKCarrier]

"Hey, you! Sign this petition to bring back Hal Jordan!" he said heatedly.

"Elektra keeps trying to poke me with those metal forks," Daredevil sighed.

"I love it when Chynna Clugston slips those '80s music references into her comics," he said adamantly.

[Buzz Dixon]

"It's taking me a long time to learn sign language" the armless man said with defeat.

[section 8]

"NO SMOKING" he steamed

[DaveRothe]

"I've got the target in my sights!" said the blind gunman to the deaf air pilot. "Listen for my signal and I'll guide us in when I see the landing strip." The paraplegic mute co-pilot screamed as he struggled with the hand controls to keep the engineless plane airborn. Alas the flight plans were cut short as they were never cleared for takeoff by the midget mime air traffic controller that screamed at them with his big styrofoam hands.

[Tad Sivana]

"Hey, if I wanna be an asshole, who's gonna stop me?", he dickered

[section 8]

Somebody shut that baby up" he cried

[Buzz Dixon]

"I'm not sinking," the mummy said in denial.

[Karen El]

"What a load of crap!" She pooh-poohed.

[Spike-X]

"Miles Davis was a genius!" he trumpeted.

[Grazzt]

"Kobra is my favourite DCU villain," he hissed.

[Sarah Beach]

"You guys are vile," she barfed.

[DaveRothe]

"The British are coming!" Paul revered.

[section 8]

"The British are coming!" Paul revered.

good one!!

"I forgot" He recalled