Tonight I was reviewing homophony in Koine Greek (maybe a post on that tomorrow) and I was reminded of the classic German pun:
"Man ist was er isst."
We would say, "You are what you eat." The German, however, is literally "One is what he eats." However, when you say this aloud, another, separate meaning can result -- ""One eats what he is" -- a playful inversion of the English pun. Don't tell me that language never "swallows" meaning when sounds overlap!
Note: Sometimes "man" is repeated in the German.
