Table 1.

Example sentence from each category. Identical homophone sentences contain phonetically ambiguous words that have identical homophones; near homophone sentences contain phonetically ambiguous words that have near homophones. Pun sentences were selected from a pun website; non‐pun sentences were selected from an online dictionary (see main text for details)

Homophone	Type	Example
Identical	Pun	The magician was so mad he pulled his hare out.
Identical	Non‐pun	The hare ran rapidly across the field.
Identical	Non‐pun	Some people have lots of hair on their heads.
Near	Pun	A dentist has to tell a patient the whole tooth.
Near	Non‐pun	A dentist examines one tooth at a time.
Near	Non‐pun	She always speaks the truth.