The Joke
Customer: Waiter, what do you call this soup?
Waiter: It’s bean soup, sir.
Customer: I don’t care what it’s been. What is it now?
Vocabulary
Bean (noun) = a common vegetable
To call (verb) = to name
Soup = cooked food in a liquid form
Been = Past participle of the verb To Be
Why is it funny?
Been (past participle of To Be) is pronounced the same as bean (the vegetable). The customer thinks the waiter is using the present perfect tense and saying, “It’s (It has) been soup”. In other words, it was soup in the past, but it is something different now. The customer wants to know what it is in the present tense. Really the waiter is saying however, is that “It is bean soup”.
