And here is a joke which puzzles even the best learners of English as a second language. As with many jokes, it too has been around for some time but we were recently reminded of it as it is mentioned in Mark Haddon’s excellent novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.
Most jokes lose their value and humour when explained but for anyone who struggles with this, we shall leave an explanation in the comments in a couple of days!
Most jokes lose their value and humour when explained but for anyone who struggles with this, we shall leave an explanation in the comments in a couple of days!
Joke: His face was drawn, but the curtains were real.
Si has d'explicar un acudit, perd la gracia, pero .... aquest té gracia perque és gairebe un triple significat, no un doble com es habitual amb els jocs de paraules! Drawn, ve del verb draw/drew/drawn que normalment significa "dibuixar", per tant, a primer vista ens diu "la seva cara estava dibuixada ...", pero la primera gracia es que drawn també vol dir "cansada"!
ResponEliminaPer tant, un acudit no tan bo - podriem dir "his face was drawn but his clothes were real" - la seva cara estava cansada (dibuixada), pero la seva roba era de veritat!
No obstant aixo, si en escrivim "curtains/cortines" en la segona part, donem un altre gir a l'acudit, perque el tercer siginifcat de "drawn", es tancar les cortines; o sigui podem dir "his face was drawn but the curtains were not drawn" (no tancades) ... i si combinem els tres parts, el acudit juga a tres bandes, i es surrealment gracios - pero impossible de traduir ..... (la seva cara estava cansada/dibuixada/tancada, pero les cortines eren de veritat!)