Counteract Puns

I was at the beach and my wife and I were doing a crossword puzzle. She is a teacher and much more vocabularily knowledgable than I am. After filling in a few, one of the words she answered was unknown to me.

Me - "Babe, is that a word?"

Her - "Yalta? it's a city."

Me - "Yalta?" and as nonchalantly as is possible, I say "Why I Yalta."

She confusingly looked at me trying to understand what had just come out. She then laughs, proclaims "you are such an idiot," and continues laughing for a good while after, even to this day. Daily stupid joke quota filled.