Talk:Bilingual pun

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On the French Wikipedia, I found an article called Chou about the Egyptian god Shu. I moved it and translated the article about cabbage. Someone else merged them. I'm still waiting for the other chou to drop.

arr arr arr ... mais oui!!! Christopher Mahan
Far funnier than any of the examples on the article page. Hajor

There's one joke in Mandarin Chinese and English about a Chinese man (assumed to be elderly) and needs to get through American customs at an airport. It includes a play on "Washington," "shopping," and perhaps another word.

The man is supposedly from a region in southern China that drops its ng's. The customs officer asks him, "What was the name of the first president of the United States?" to which he responds, "Wo xing Deng," thinking that the officer had asked him his name. What he said basically meant "My surname is Deng"--Deng is a rather common surname--but since he drops his ng's, it sounds much like "Washington" through a heavy accent.

I heard it on a tour bus but don't remember it very well--perhaps someone else knows it and can type it here.

24.44.59.60 02:28, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Explanations of each would be helpful. ThereIsNoSteve 03:48, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hillarious! Mark Richards 23:15, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

- May we? - Mais oui! ^^


Contents

[edit] Norwegian/Swedish

All of the puns listed under Norwegian in the article work very well in Swedish as well. I've seen or heard the first two several times in Swedish. Maybe this should be pointed out somewhere. Worth pointing out is that the puns listed here as Swedish do not work in Norwegian, though. --EldKatt 13:34, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] French/English

Would it lower the highly intellectual tone of this page to add a pun regarding the fact that the French word vainquer, meaning winner, sounds very much like the English insult wanker?

Ahkayah cuarenta y siete 17:10, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Italian

Can anyone find any example of an Italian-English pun? Or a couple of words which could be used in such a joke? I'd be very grateful.


[edit] Gronings (Grunnings)

I know a couple of nice ones in Gronings/English; Gronings not really being a separate language but more of a dialect spoken in the northern Dutch province (and city) of Groningen. It has quite a rich written and oral tradition. Would this also count as bi'lingual' pun?

--Maike 18:30, 25 May 2006 (PST)

I think it would count as a bilingual pun, since Gronings is a not a dialect of English. (However, if someone claimed that the Cockney-Standard English pun ("Did you come here to die?" "No, we came yesterday") is bilingual, I would be groaning.) Maybe you should make a Dutch section and Gronings a subsection under it.Punainen Nörtti 15:12, 24 May 2006 (UTC)


Perhaps a subsection on "dialect/regional" puns could be included: and a link to the "funny sounding place names" page.

Are there any trilingual puns? Jackiespeel 18:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "laugh to tears"

This photograph is likely to make any French speaker able to read Greek laugh to tears

All I can say is: the French must be very easily amused.
(Appears rather less funny than "Q. Why do French generals have Greek letters on their caps? / A. Because they'd look pretty damned silly if they had French letters on them"). -- Picapica 22:52, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi

Are the Hindi examples really bilingual puns? They seem to me to simply be Hindi puns with an English setup? What is the English word that is being punned? Ashmoo 05:16, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Just awful

Is it me or do others find these unfunny and unencyclopedic? --Henrygb 17:48, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, most of them seem pretty forced to begin with, and when you need an explanation to understand them, they generally cease being particularly amusing. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 11:00, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Just putting them in a long list is likely to take out the humor value, and the encyclopedic value for that matter. For humor value, you need a more selective list, with suitable attention to context, timing, etc; for encyclopedic value you need more of an explanation of how a bilingual pun differs from, say, a bilingual mondegreen or a bilingual homophonic translation, and whatever other bigger issues they raise, with examples but examples chosen to illustrate some point. Kingdon 18:41, 11 November 2007 (UTC)