Could "giving aids" be ambiguous?
Just to be clear, you're asking what is meant when someone says "Do you have aids?" or "Do you want aids?" in the context of spoken English, and possibly humour.
There are only two possible interpretations (owing to the aides/AIDS homonym):
-
"Do you have/want AIDS?"
- They are asking about the syndrome resulting from HIV
-
"Do you have/want aides?"
- They are asking about your assistants (people)
Anything else would grammatically incorrect and also not-colloquial enough to make a joke out of. This is because "aids" as you use in your question can not stand on its own in "Do you want aids?" It would have to be "Do you want aid?" (as in assistance, which is help-- not to be confused with "aides", as in assistants, who are people)
Edit: I spent some time considering marital aids (things that help in the bedroom such as sex toys, ED medications, etc) and came up with the following dialogue...
Jack: So me and the Mrs. got some new marital aids; it has really spiced things up.
Henry: Oh yeah? What sort of... *wink* aids?
Jack: I'd rather not go into details...
Henry: Right, probably for the best.
It's grammatically correct... and it makes sense. However using "aids" in this sense is VERY context specific and only works because of the previous dialogue. You would never use the word "aids" without having mentioned what kind previously, for context. Which is why if someone said something that sounded like "Do you have aids?" the meaning would almost never be ambiguous except for the AIDS/aides issue mentioned earlier.
Incoming bad joke:
Steve is the Director of Human Resources at BigCorp. George is his long time friend who works in a different department. They are out for drinks after work...
Steve: So the new VP wants me to give him aides.
George: I know it's not the death sentence it was 30 years ago, but what a strange request. (Makes the expression: ;D)
Steve: Haha, you know what I mean.
First
My question was not as good as I thought when it came in my mind so I am posting a proper answer based on comments (principally of @DanBron and @Mari-LouA)
The mistake
Three major meanings steered me to post this question :
- AIDS, Acquired immune deficiency syndrome,
- aid, mass noun synonym of help,
- aids qualified with adjectives (medical, navigational, etc)
Why those meanings are not ambiguous :
- AIDS, someone wishing you this is not worth rub shoulders with or is a terrible joker
-
aid is a mass noun, and in the sense of "rendering assistance" simply is not pluralized. We don't say "assistances", we don't say "helps" (as a plural noun) and we don't say "aids" (as a plural noun). (Dan's comment)
- aids in its plural refers to objects and is always preceded by an adjectives to indicate what is the purpose of the tool (visual, hearing, ...).
And to conclude another Dan's comment :
That ambiguity ("multiple instances of the act of assisting" vs "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome") will never occur.
From where the mistake came
My question is coming from online gaming. It is a team game, where you don't often know your mates. There is multiple roles which are complementary and you have to play well alone and with your team to succeed to beat the enemy team.
People are not always nice and insults are coming very fast when you are starting to fail. Moreover, it is an international game in which natives are not the majority and english is not often correct.
After, have done a mistake, I was asked if I wanted aids. I refused politely because I was not sure about what it was and came here to ask.
The phonetic similarity between AIDS and aids or aides is sometimes used for dark comedic effect, either intentionally (as in the South Park episode “Jared has Aides”) or unintentionally (as in 1970s Ayds commercials).