Puns in German

German is not a language for puns.

For the record, the OED dryly defines "pun" as "the use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more meanings or different associations, or of two or more words of the same or nearly the same sound with different meanings, so as to produce a humorous effect; a play on words."

My favorite pun is bilingual:

Why do the French only eat one egg for breakfast? --Beacuse one egg is un oeuf. 

See? One sound, double meaning: one egg = un oeuf = enough.

Here's another favorite:

A Freudian slip is when you say one thing, but you mean a mother.

Get it? Another? A Mother? Freud? Funny, right?

In German, puns operate more like this American English device:

TruxTop.

Get it? It's a truck stop called "TruxTop." The letters XT make the same sound as CKST, but a play on spelling rather than meaning does not a pun make.

Now behold a pun from Berlin, auf Deutsch:

Farschule B-Standen. "Traffic School B-STANDEN."

B-STANDEN is the name of the traffic school. In English, it means "B-Stood." Stefan and his niece say it's a funny name because "B-STANDEN" sounds like "Bestanden," which means "Passed." Get it? "Traffic School Passed." Like, you go to this traffic school, and you pass. But instead of calling it "Traffic School Passed," they call it "Traffic School PAS-sed." Or maybe "Traffic Skool Passed"? Or "Traffic School P-Assed" (which is a little more passive-aggressively funny in English than B-STANDEN is in German). It's hard to translate, but in any case, it's about as subtle and clever as TruxTop--which is to say, it is neither subtle nor clever.

I have tried making up puns in German, but Germans are linguistic literalists, and they simply stare at me with blank faces. Think there's potential to do something with Abfall/Apfel (trash/apple)? Nope. One means trash, the other means apple, and the words don't sound remotely similar. How about Mutter/Mutter (mother/screw nut)? No, the meaning is clear from context. And who would call their mother a screw nut anyway? (See? That's already funny in English.) Perhaps in Bavaria, pining for spring, one could wistfully sigh, "ja Mai"/"ja mei" (yes May/oh my)--but it probably wouldn't be funny.

Of course, I'm a non-native German speaker, with limited exposure to the nuances of the language. Know a pun in German that's actually funny? As funny as un oeuf or a mother? Please share it in the comments section!