I like to imagine they envisioned the strings themselves being "pumped" up by inserting new characters in the center.

I took a brick and mortar automata class a long time ago and a classmate who clearly wasn't reading the text before lecture, insisted the prof called it the "plumping lemma" because it was about growing wider strings. That might have been the only funny thing that ever happened in automata class, unfortunately.

Education by satire / humor is a sadly under-explored field. "A satirical approach to linear algebra"... not sure if I'd kickstart support that, or turn around and start running. In the eternal spirit of "anything that sounds interesting and impossible is a great startup opportunity" I propose that someone ... etc etc, you know.

My professor has had some quality quotes this quarter:

"Misspell Chomsky's name as Chompsky, and I'll give you a pass; Misspell Turing as Turning or something? I'll flunk you"