Use space swell

[zompist]

On Twitter I noticed people referring to

THE SUPERB OWL

Which is cute! What other phrases can shift in meaning and pronunciation simply by moving the spaces?

A recent New Yorker cartoon provided another example: a man yells "It's one word!" at the guy painting his occupation on his office door as

PSYCHO
THE
RAPIST

Can anyone cite or devise more?

[Vijay]

There's a children's cartoon magazine in Indian English, and in one of them, one character* is renting out his house and tells the other to put up a "To Let" sign (this is the usual way in India of advertising this). But he accidentally writes them as one word and separates them with a |, so it reads "TO|LET," and everyone who sees the sign laughs because it looks like "TOILET."

*I'm trying to make the relationship between the two main characters in this story sound as neutral as possible. The reality of that relationship in the broader context of Indian society probably makes the joke not so funny.

[Buran]

Reddit's /r/keming has plenty of good examples, among them "Bon Ape tit", "Le tItS now", "Faculty o fArts", and "The Wig and PenIs Open for Business".

[gestaltist]

Reddit's /r/keming has plenty of good examples, among them "Bon Ape tit", "Le tItS now", "Faculty o fArts", and "The Wig and PenIs Open for Business".

Yeah.

"Penis mightier than the sword" is a well-established one.

[Magb]

There's always the classic Experts Exchange -> Expert Sex Change.

[Zaarin]

A superb owl would be a lot more interesting than the Super Bowl.

[Vijay]

It really would be, wouldn't it?!

[linguoboy]

QI had some examples of domain names which were easily misdivided. The only one I can recall offhand is penisland.

[2+3 clusivity]

Oh, yeah! Superb Owl. That was how the Colbert Report always covered the Super Bowl.

Not quite spot on, but the American show Arrested Development used these near examples which were mostly in the spoken context:

methadone (clinic) <-> method one (acting clinic)
Anal(yst & The)rapist <-> anal-rapist <-> anal rapist

[clawgrip]

One IRC typo I will never forget:

I suck at it. I suck a tit.

[ivazaéun]

QI had some examples of domain names which were easily misdivided. The only one I can recall offhand is penisland.

The Italian site of energy company Powergen: power genitalia

[Pole, the]

The Italian site of energy company Powergen: power genitalia

Oh, the same was used in a Polish adult cartoon „Generał Italia”.

[2+3 clusivity]

In a similar vein to mine above, a main character in Arrested Development had middle-life crisis and bought a car with the license plate ANUSTART. Ha, yeah.

[Jonlang]

I used to work with a guy called Mike Hunt. You can do the space-shift yourselves. Unsurprisingly he tended to use his middle-name, John.

[Pabappa]

QI had some examples of domain names which were easily misdivided. The only one I can recall offhand is penisland.

molestationnursery.com

Not a daycare center for kids, but a tree nursery in Mole Station, Australia. I believe they went so far as to rename their whole business, not just the domain name, to get away from the jokes. Googling suggests that theyre now doing business as "Mole River Nursery".

[Jonlang]

QI had some examples of domain names which were easily misdivided. The only one I can recall offhand is penisland.

molestationnursery.com

Not a daycare center for kids, but a tree nursery in Mole Station, Australia. I believe they went so far as to rename their whole business, not just the domain name, to get away from the jokes. Googling suggests that theyre now doing business as "Mole River Nursery".

I don't understand why Mole Station suggests a child daycare centre yet Mole River does not.

[Zaarin]

QI had some examples of domain names which were easily misdivided. The only one I can recall offhand is penisland.

molestationnursery.com

Not a daycare center for kids, but a tree nursery in Mole Station, Australia. I believe they went so far as to rename their whole business, not just the domain name, to get away from the jokes. Googling suggests that theyre now doing business as "Mole River Nursery".

I don't understand why Mole Station suggests a child daycare centre yet Mole River does not.

Try reading that URL again...

[Jonlang]

QI had some examples of domain names which were easily misdivided. The only one I can recall offhand is penisland.

molestationnursery.com

Not a daycare center for kids, but a tree nursery in Mole Station, Australia. I believe they went so far as to rename their whole business, not just the domain name, to get away from the jokes. Googling suggests that theyre now doing business as "Mole River Nursery".

I don't understand why Mole Station suggests a child daycare centre yet Mole River does not.

Try reading that URL again...

Oops. My apologies. In my defence I am suffering with flu and my grey-matter doesn't seem to be functioning too well.