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play0:00 / 3:02DESCARTES WALKS INTO A BAR, AND THE BARTENDER ASKS "WOULD YOU LIKE A BEER?" DESCARTES REPLIES "I THINK NOT" AND POOF! HE VANISHES. Wha... -
play0:00 / 3:28This joke came from Aaron Karo on Ruminations.com #ESL #ELT #ELL #ELD #ESOL #EFL #TESOL #ESOL #English #language #twinglish #joke #ingle...
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Whatsofunny My pleasure Oto, I hope you like the transripts. I've just started posting them. Before it was audio only
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OtoRodrigues lol... I guess we could apply much of the categories listed here to the Congress of my country, too. By the way, thanks for the follow.
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Whatsofunny DID YOU KNOW THAT A LARGE GROUP OF BABOONS IS CALLED A CONGRESS? THAT EXPLAINS A LOT, DOESN’T IT? What’s so funny about this? This is a great opportunity to talk a little about collective nouns. These are words that we use to describe groups or collections of other nouns, so they apply to people, animals, places, things, ideas. Most of the collective nouns we hear every day, such as group or bunch, can refer to anything and are not specific to one noun. These are not very interesting. But there’s a large sub-group of collective nouns, called terms of venery. These are much more fascinating because they only apply to one animal and not to any others. A typical example is a “pride of lions” or a “gaggle of geese”. This practice goes back to hunting traditions in France and England during the middle ages. Both languages developed very specific collective nouns for specific animals. Many of these are no longer in use, but many are still with us. BTW a “school of fish” seems to be the exception to the rule of being specific. But we do have a “pod of whales, a sneak of weasels, a culture of bacteria”, and of course the one in the joke, a “congress of baboons”. As you can tell some of these are contradictory, while others are correctly descriptive. Lions do appear to have a lot of pride. Weasels are considered to be sneaky animals so a sneak of them makes sense. But exactly how cultured are bacteria? Maybe fish are dumb so they need to be in schools. And baboons? In general, this ape does not have a great reputation personality wise. They are considered (incorrectly) to be big and stupid. They can be quite aggressive, cunning, tricky, stubborn, and they have these big red behinds which they are always scratching. So with all of these characteristics, how did they ever earn the collective name congress? Maybe we should ask which came first, the US Congress or a congress of baboons? Of course if we look at all of these characteristics of baboons closely, then we come to realize that it’s a perfect name for the US Congress. And THAT’s what’s so funny! This joke came from Aaron Karo on Ruminations.com
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play0:00 / 3:58This joke came from Puns@omgthatspunny #ESL #ELT #ELL #ELD #ESOL #EFL #TESOL #ESOL #English #language #twinglish #joke #ingles #wordp...
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Whatsofunny WHAT DO YOU CALL A FAKE MACARONI? AN IMPASTA. What’s so funny about this? This joke is a pun based on pronunciation rather than a homonym. It’s short and sweet and should be easy to understand. I live in New York, which has a very large Italian population, meaning they are either immigrants who were born in Italy or they are descended from Italian immigrants. Italians have been migrating to New York in large numbers since the late 19th century. Italy is a large country and there are many dialects of Italian spoken in various parts of the country. Brooklyn and Staten Island, two boroughs of New York City, have many Italians who come from the southern part of the boot (on a map, Italy looks a lot like a boot), as well as from Sicily (which remind people of a ball being kicked by the boot). The Italian language varieties have also affected the English translations of a number of words. Which brings us to our joke. Italians do like to eat pasta, macaroni, spaghetti, etc., on a daily basis. The trouble is, exactly what is this stuff? Is it all the same or all different? And what about rigatoni, tortellini, manicotti, and so on? It IS all basically the same except it looks different due to the different shapes. However the first three items are less specific than the next three. Depending on where you live in New York City, pasta, macaroni and spaghetti can refer to EVERYTHING. All three can be generic words encompassing a multitude of shapes. The same is true for what goes on top, especially in southern Italian cooking. Usually it’s something made from tomatoes, but is it sauce? Is it gravy? The answer is yes! Leaving aside the fact that it’s not really possible to get a clear mental picture of the food we are talking about, the joke asks us to consider identifying fake macaroni. The answer to the question of what is fake macaroni, is the pun. Pronounced correctly the answer should be an imposter, meaning fake or pretend. But in NY, New England and even Old England, many of us like to drop our final R’s and so the word becomes IMPASTA. This brings me to my final Italian word Basta, enough! And THAT’s what’s so funny!
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play0:00 / 3:32I GOT INTO A FIGHT WITH A REALLY BIG GUY AND HE SAID, “I’M GOING TO MOP THE FLOOR WITH YOUR FACE.” I SAID, “YOU’LL BE SORRY” AND HE SAID ...
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play0:00 / 4:13This joke came from philosophy professor, Ted Cohen #ESL #ELT #ELL #ELD #ESOL #EFL #TESOL #ESOL #English #language #twinglish #joke #i...
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Whatsofunny AN EXHIBITIONIST WAS THINKING OF RETIRING, BUT HE DECIDED TO STICK IT OUT FOR ONE MORE YEAR. What’s so funny about this? Right now you are probably either laughing or scratching your head. One of the interesting things about the English language is that it reflects the prudery of the cultures which produced it. Prudery refers to being shocked by sexual things, including nudity. In language sexual words are called dirty or vulgar. When used they are very informal. They are not considered proper, especially in mixed company; in other words when men and women are present. I guess the very fact that men and women are together when they hear these words must be dangerous because they might get aroused. Of course, that philosophy or attitude completely neglects gay men and women. Typically, words of a sexual nature are more acceptable when it’s among a group of all women or all men. We’ve talked before about euphemisms, words that stand for less acceptable words. The word “it” is one of the best euphemisms because it can pretty much stand for anything you want it to. Another one of my favorites is “thing”. To figure out what word a euphemism is standing in for, you need to look at the topic, and context of the nearby words. In the case of this joke, the set-up tells us that it’s about an exhibitionist. This word itself is kind of euphemistic because it could refer simply to someone who exhibits stuff, like art. We’ve all heard of art exhibitions. However, that’s not what the word means. It’s actually about a person, in this case a man, who likes to exhibit himself, that is, show himself off. I’m not talking about somebody jumping up on a stage and yelling “look at me!” An exhibitionist does like to show himself off, all of himself, especially the parts that that are normally kept hidden, that is his/her sexual organs. Just hearing this word in the set-up alerts us to the fact that this might be dirty joke, a sexual joke. The second part of the joke tells us that he won’t retire this year, maybe next. “Stick it out” can have at least two meanings. The first is an idiomatic expression meaning that despite not wanting to do something you will do it anyway for a certain period of time – in this instance one more year. BUT “stick it out” can mean literally taking his sex organ out of his pants and showing it to anyone interested in looking. That’s what IT stands for. The exhibitionist really enjoys exhibiting himself because of the shock value, since it’s taboo in our society, except in private. Publically showing off your genitals is not considered acceptable. Can you accept that? And THAT’s what’s so funny!
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