Only joking!

Yesterday I stumbled upon a page containing jokes in Irish and was pleased to find that I could understand them and that I ‘got’ the jokes. Understanding humour in other languages can be quite difficult, especially when puns and plays on words are involved. When you can ‘get’ jokes in a foreign language, you know that you’ve reached quite a high level.

Here are some humour-related Irish words:

scéal grinn (funny story), cúis gháire (cause for laughter) = joke
cleas = dodge, fiddle, hoax, lark, ploy, practical joke, prank, stunt, trick
bob = hoax, practical joke, prank, trick
cleas a imirt ar, bob a bhualadh ar = to play a joke on
cleas suarach = dirty trick
ag magadh atá tú! = you’re joking!
gáire a bhaint as duine = to make somebody laugh

Do you know any sites with jokes in other languages?

12 thoughts on “Only joking!

  1. P.s.: I just noticed – after posting the previous comment, it still says “No responses” at the top of the comments section for this topic as well as on the homepage…. Is it meant to be like that ? or are you trying to tell me something ? 😉

  2. I know that there are several Yiddish speakers who frequent this blog. My understanding with Yiddish jokes is that you almost have to be a part of the culture to understand them. They reflect they some resignation, other times ingenuity of the culture against unsurmountable circumstances. I don’t speak Yiddish, any thoughts from those who do?

    ———————
    The rabbi says, “What’s green, hangs on the wall, and whistles?”

    The student says, “I don’t know.”

    The rabbi says, “A herring.”

    The student says, “Maybe a herring could be green and hang on the wall, but it absolutely doesn’t whistle.”

    The rabbi says, “So it doesn’t whistle.”

  3. Since I’m learning French, I could imagine that there would be a lot of jokes (with all its words that sound the same, like in Mandarin), but I don’t know of any right now.

  4. Juliette – I’m not sure why the comments are behaving like that. It’s something to do with the settings.

  5. “Gréasán Idirlín” is website in Irish, not “Suíomh idirlín” (previous entry).

    I liked those jokes and that site.

  6. Simon – it’s weird – I checked back here to see what other replies you’ve had and I see now that my first comment is gone completely….

    Hmm.. oh well…

    Here is the link I posted again: http://moppen.startpagina.nl/
    It’s a link page with links to Dutch joke sites – I haven’t fetted the linked sites, so it will probably be a mix of the good, the bad and the downright crap 😉

  7. Today I met a page named http://desciplo.pedia.ws
    is a parodical page about the famous Wikipedia. I it intersting, I read that in Portuguese, but they say you can read it in English. As Simon kwnos Portuguese, a good site is www. charges.com.br it is Brazilian page of jokes with videos very funny.

  8. Software Development Cycle

    1. Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free.
    2. Product is tested. 20 bugs are found.
    3. Programmer fixes 10 of the bugs and explains to the testing department that the other 10 aren’t really bugs.
    4. Testing department finds that five of the fixes didn’t work and discovers 15 new bugs.
    5. Repeat three times steps 3 and 4.
    6. Due to marketing pressure and an extremely premature product announcement based on overly-optimistic programming schedule, the product is released.
    7. Users find 137 new bugs.
    8. Original programmer, having cashed his royalty check, is nowhere to be found.
    9. Newly-assembled programming team fixes almost all of the 137 bugs, but introduce 456 new ones.
    10. Original programmer sends underpaid testing department a postcard from Fiji. Entire testing department quits.
    11. Company is bought in a hostile takeover by competitor using profits from their latest release, which had 783 bugs.
    12. New CEO is brought in by board of directors. He hires a programmer to redo program from scratch.
    13. Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free…
    —-——–
    A grade school teacher was asking his pupils what their parents did for a living. “Tim, you be first. What does your mother do all day?”
    Tim stood up and proudly said, “She’s a doctor.”
    “That’s wonderful. How about you, Amy?”
    Amy shyly stood up, scuffed her feet and said, “My father is a mailman.”
    “Thank you, Amy” said the teacher. “What does your parent do, Billy?”
    Billy proudly stood up and announced, “My daddy plays piano in a whorehouse.”

    The teacher was aghast and went to Billy’s house and rang the bell. Billy’s father answered the door. The teacher explained what his son had said and demanded an explanation. Billy’s dad said, “I’m actually a system programmer specializing in TCP/IP communication protocol on UNIX systems. How can I explain a thing like that to a seven-year-old?”

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