Who's on First? in literature.
- There's a short story about a trickster who fools a rich man and others by using fake names. He tells the guard that his name was "Myself", to the rich man "Hold me", to his wife "The moon", the daughter "The sauce" and the maidservant "The cat". Hilarity Ensues.
- A short story by Soviet writer L. Panteleev involves the narrator teaching the alphabet to a little girl. When they reach the last letter, Я ("ya"), troubles occur since the little girl mistakes it for a pronoun meaning "I", and understands the letter as "ты" ("ty", you). It culminates in her reading the phrase Якову дали яблоко ("Yakovu dali yabloko", Yakov was given an apple) as Тыкову дали тыблоко ("Tykovu dali tybloko"). Eventually, the narrator himself refers to the letter as "ty" when the girl finally gets it right.
- Animorphs: In the first book told from the perspective of local good-guy alien Ax, Marco brings Ax over to his house. He knows that Ax has trouble with metaphors (even pronouncing multi-syllable words is tricky), so he warns him to only answer questions by saying "Yes" or "No". Sure enough, Ax gets left in the same room with Marco's dad, and we get this:Peter: [walking in] Hello?
Ax: No.
Peter: I'm Marco's dad. Are you a friend of his?
Ax: Yes.
Peter: What's your name?
Ax: No.
Peter: Your name is "No"?
Ax: Yes.
Peter: That's an unusual name, isn't it?
Ax: No.
Peter: It's not?
Ax: Yes.
Peter: Yes, it's not an unusual name?
Ax: No.
Peter: Now I'm totally confused.
Ax: Yes.
Peter: Hey, Marco? Marco? Would you...um...your friend is here. Your friend "No" is here.
Ax: No.
Peter: Yes, that's what I said.
Marco: (running down the stairs) Whoa! Um, Dad! You meant my friend?
Peter: No?
Marco: What?
Peter: (shakes his head) I must be getting old. I don't understand you kids.
Ax: Yes.
- For the rest of that book and on at least one other occasion, Marco's dad refers to this friend of Marco's by the name No.
- In one of Isaac Asimov's Black Widowers stories ("The Next Day"), an employee of a publisher asks the group to help him figure out why an important manuscript had yet to arrive when the author had announced that it would be delivered tomorrow several weeks before. There was a rival publishing firm called "Morrow and Company" which received the manuscript.
- The Blue-Nosed Witch has this played with; when Blanche gives her name and clarifies that it's just Blanche, Butch reasonably says her name is Blanche Witch. This results in the cowboy calling her "which witch" and children going "she's Blanche Witch, that's which witch!" and singing it as a chant.
- In Lawrence Block's The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams Bernie claims that he and Carolyn were discussing funny names and singer Geraldine Fitzgerald came up.Bernie: Anyway, I said her name sounded to me like a recipe for a perfect relationship. Get it? Geraldine fits Gerald.
Ray: Geraldine Fitzgerald. So?
Bernie: Geraldine. Fits. Gerald.
Ray: That's what I just said. What the hell's supposed to be so funny about that?
Bernie: I guess you had to be there. - In the book version of Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, Dave discusses an awkward conversation with an airport check-in staff member, who speaks with a strong Northern Irish accent and pronounces the French city Nîmes the same way he pronounces the word "name". Dave spends the first part of the conversation getting confused over whether he's asking Dave for his name or confirming the destination of his flight.
- Discworld
- In Jingo, Fred Colon accidentally gives himself and Nobby a cover story when infiltrating Klatch, by uttering "Ur" when asked for his hometown — Ur being the Klatchian city commonly joked to be the town of idiots.
- Then there's Rincewind's encounter in Interesting Times with an actress from the Noh school of theatre. "You don't understand. We are Noh actors." "Oh, you weren't that bad."
- In Making Money, the Glooper, an economic modeling system using the flow of water, tends to leak, so anyone visiting its inventor needs a raincoat. Mr. Bent introduces Moist von Lipwig as "Mr. Lipwig," then Moist introduces himself by saying "I am Moist." The inventor's reply is "Perhaps we should have put the raincoats nearer the door."
- The Down Girl and Sit series focuses on the adventures of two dogs that are named Happy and Dot but who respectively believe their names to be "Down Girl" and "Sit" because this is what they usually hear from their owners. In Bad to the Bone, they are sent to the park for an obedience school session along with two other dogs that go by "Hush" and "Stay". During the session, all four of the phrases are said variously to each of the dogs, causing them to believe that their owners have become confused regarding their names.Down Girl: Sit and I gave up. We decided to just sit down until our masters started behaving. "Good girls," the teacher said. I rolled my eyes. This could have gone on forever, but thank goodness a squirrel ran past. We all jumped. We barked and tried to chase him. Our masters yanked on our leashes. "Down, girl!" "Sit!" "Hush!" Finally! They got our names right. Now they might pass the class.
- The Feather Merchants by Max Shulman has a variation on the Abbott & Costello routine as part of a servicemen's entertainment:Now a pair of comics came out and rocked the joint with some snappy patter concerning a baseball game: "Who's on first base?" "No, Who's pitching. Why's on first base." "Why?" "Because he's the first baseman. What's on second base." "What?" "Yes," etc., etc.
- In Flashman and the Dragon one of the Chinese leaders is Prince I. At one point a British officer is incensed about something "I had the effrontery to say"Second Officer: You said that?
First Officer: No, of course not! I said it!
Flashman: And I swear they went straight off into a debate about the first person pronoun! - In Fletch's Fortune, the titular protagonist (whose full name is "Irwin Maurice Fletcher") introduces himself as "I.M Fletcher", leading to his interlocutor mishearing it as "I'm Fletcher" and telling him off for introducing himself so pompously.
- Done twice in The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley with Leo talking about Hugh to Marian. The first time she hears it as Who, the second as You.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: In Life, the Universe and Everything, after the events of the last book Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect end up stranded in prehistoric Earth. Ford and Arthur stumble upon a Chesterfield sofa in the middle of a field, and Ford explains it's there because of "eddies in the space-time continuum". A confused Arthur replies "And that's his sofa, is it?"
- Stephen King's novel It, and the titular monster which is simply named "It", can make for some confusing sentences.
- Used (but only in the English version) of Judge Dee, with "you" and "Yu". Other translations lampshade this wordplay, as it implies the judge is speaking English in sixth-century China.
- A boy tricked one of The Fair Folk by telling her he was My Own Self
; when she was injured and complained to her mother, the mother blamed her because "My Own Self" did to this to me. - The Ur-Example is Homer's The Odyssey, where Odysseus told the cyclops Polyphemus his name was "Nobody" (μη τις). When Polyphemus started screaming that he had been blinded, his brothers asked who had done this foul deed. Polyphemus replied that "Nobody has blinded me," so his brothers told him to shut up with the screaming over things that hadn't happened; or alternatively figured the Gods blinded him (for whatever reason) and just stay away from him. So this trope is officially Older Than Feudalism.
- The word is also a pun; in the original Greek, "Nobody" (μη τις) would have sounded similar to a word for "cunning" (μητις), for which Odysseus was known. However, this additional pun would not have worked in the Greek of Odysseus' day, as "mequis" (μηϙις, "nobody"*) had not yet merged with μητις as in "cunning"*.
- Jules Verne used the same pun in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea — Nemo's name also means "nobody" — although it wasn't made obvious until Alan Moore has Nemo himself explain the joke in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
- There are a number of fairy tales where a man introduces himself to a giant under the name "Myself" or "I". Shouting at the neighbors "I took my eye out" is an even better way to keep them away from you.
- Used for a brief but inevitable gag in the first Nevermoor book, when it's revealed that Morrigan's father Corvus has gone through so many assistants, he doesn't bother learning their actual names, calling them "Left" and "Right" based on what side of him they stand on.Left: It's—it's Bid Day tomorrow, sir. You're expected to make a speech for the local eligible children.
Corvus: Good lord, you're right.
Morrigan, thinking: Nope. He's Left. - In the children's book Nobody, Him, and Me, those are the actual names of three mouse siblings. When they beat up a talking cat, the cat's owners ask him who beat him up. He asks, "It was Him", which offends the man because he thinks he's talking about him. Then, he says, "Nobody did it. It was Me," leading to the owners thinking he's insane and sending him to a cats' asylum.
- In Prelude to Foundation, it is a bit of a Running Gag that an important region on Trantor is called Wye, pronounced the same as "why". For example, at the end, Seldon, alongside Dors and Raych, are taken there. When they ask where they are and the one who is keeping them prisoner tells them "Wye", they wonder why she asked the reason for their question."What sector are we in?"
"Wye."
"Because I want to know!"
- Their interlocutor quickly resolves the confusion.
- Ramona Quimby: In one book, Mrs. Quimby asks if she could turn left. Beezus replies, "Right" (as in correct), but Mrs. Quimby turns right.
- Similar to the above examples, there's a scene from the Spellsinger series in which Clothahump prepares a powerful spell in the basement. Jon-Tom asks Sorbl why he's reluctant to assist his wizard master with this spell; Sorbl replies that he's afraid of "nothing" in the basement, and this trope ensues. (He really should've said "nothingness" instead.)
- In Neil Gaiman's Stardust, an evil witch's slave will be freed when "two Mondays come together in a week" — at the end, a character named Mr Monday gets married, creating a Mrs Monday. Thus. This is probably an allusion to Edgar Allan Poe's short story "Three Sundays in a Week," in which the impossible condition is fulfilled simply by making use of circumnavigational time differences.
- Şüräle by Ğabdulla Tuqay, a Tatar poem, uses a pun similar to the one in The Odyssey (with identical outcome). The titular creature is outwitted and trapped by a woodcutter, and on asking the offender's name gets the reply "Byltyr", which in Tatar means "last year".
- The classic version in Tong Lashing, along with various other Chinese name-based plays on words. Played with in the end of the routine — the whole discussion was in "Chinpanese", and upon realising what has just happened the narrator lamented that the word for "who" was the same there as in his native language.
- Defied in William Pene DuBois' The Twenty-One Balloons when the narrator's host, Mr. F., tells him all the people on the island are named after letters, up to the T. family. When the Professor asks if he's going to be Mr. U., F. says no, and then explains the misunderstandings that would doubtless arise.
- Unsong gives us Sohu as in "SO WHO’S GOT THE COJONES TO TRY TO STOP ME?"
- Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger does this for the chapter Pet Day. All the kids' pets have names like this, such as a cat named Dog and a dog named Cat.
- This happens in real life, too. A zoo had a manatee named "Turtle," as well as two turtles in the same tank. Clarification ensued.
- In the Warrior Cats book Crowfeather's Trial, this happens a couple times with a cat named Yew. ("You? Like, 'hey you'?")
- During Welkin Weasels: Gaslight Geezers, Spindrick Sylver's anarchist group take days of the week as codenames. This leads to awkwardness when Spindrick needs help to carry the barrels of gunpowder just as his comrades start to walk away."Hey!" he shouted. "Saturday!"
Saturday turned around, thinking Spindrick was asking about the date for the next meeting. "Can't make it," he said. "Not at all."
Spindrick thought he meant now, because he had something wrong with his legs or back or something.
"Well, what about Monday?"
"Monday's no good either," said Saturday. He was about to add "dentist's appointment" when Spindrick said, "Well, of course he isn't. None of us are up to any good. We're gunpowder plotters."
"What about Tuesday?" Saturday asked. "Is Tuesday alright?"
"Of course I'm alright," Spindrick snapped. "What about me?"
"Well, what about you? We don't know whether you can make it. We only know if we can."
"I'm not asking you to help me make it, just carry it across the river." - What Is the Name of This Book? by Raymond Smullyan does a Title Drop without giving an answer, until the very last page:Oh, one last thing, before I forget: What is the name of this book? Well, the name of this book is: "What Is the Name of This Book?"
- In the short story Whychwood, a man gets lost in the eponymous wood, and when he asks a little boy what the name of the wood is, he tells him. The man doesn't understand and keeps replying, "This wood!".
- Spy School: In "Spy School Revolution" there's the new the Double Agent Detective Division (DADD) which keeps causing Mr. Ripley to think that they're addressing him when the acronym is said out loud.
- The Scholastic video for The Scrambled States of America Talent Show ends with states talking about their abbreviations, which causes confusion with cases like OH (Ohio) and HI (Hawaii).
