Tag Archives: Joke

Luna

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 56
Occupation: Electrician
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 04/19/2018
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Main Piece: Luna

The following was an interview of a Participant/interviewee about a folk riddle that is passed within his community. He is marked as AO. I am marked as DM.

AO: Les voy hacer una adivinanza. Quiero que me digan una palabra de cuatro letras que cuando le quitan una letra queda una.

DM: I don’t know. No puede ser porque si le quitas una letra no mas queda tres letras es impossible.

AO: No si hay. Queres ver?

DM: Si a ver.

AO: Mira la palabra es L-U-N-A (writes down luna on paper). Si le quitas una letra (crosses out L) queda U-N-A.

Translation:

AO: I am going to tell you guys a riddle. I want you to tell me a word that has four letters and when you take one letter away one is left.

DM: I don’t know. It’s impossible because if you take one away you are left with three.

AO: Yes there is away. Want to see?

DM: Yes, lets see.

AO: The word is M-O-O-N (writes it down on paper). If you take away one letter (crosses out M), one is left.

Background/Context:

The participant is 56 years old. He grew up in Mexico City, Mexico. Alberto, who is marked as AO, is my grandpa. When I was growing up, my grandpa loved to tell me and my sisters jokes or riddles. He would tell us it helped us develop a different way of thinking. This joke only works in Spanish since it a wordplay riddle. The word “luna” means moon and the word “una” means one, but “una” is also the last three letters of the word “luna”. The riddle is to find a word that when you take away one letter “una”, “una” is left meaning taking away one letter, which is the L in “luna” leaves “una”. Below is a conversation I had with AO for more background/context of the joke, which was originally in Spanish.

DM: Why do you know/ like this riddle?

AO: I like to tell this riddle because I want to make people think. The word was also very popular in Mexico.

DM: Where and from who did you learn this riddle from?

AO: I learned this joke in Mexico from my brother, Gavino.

DM: What does this riddle mean/ signify to you?

AO: Telling jokes or phrases that make people think was a tradition in Mexico. Also, since there was no internet or tv in my time, this was a way to pass time. Telling stories, jokes, riddles was a game or form entertainment to us.

Analysis/ My Thoughts:

Every time I heard this joke I never thought about it as a way to pass time or a game. I think it is important to know that at one point riddles were a form of entertainment in some communities. The fact that people in Mexico would sit around telling each other proverbs, jokes, and riddles that learn from their families and to not think about it as folklore is amazing. The fact that one daily conversation can turn into something that will last forever.

Jar of Butter

Nationality: Lebanese
Age: 51
Occupation: Small business owner
Residence: Los Feliz, California
Performance Date: 04/04/17
Primary Language: Arabic
Language: English

This is a joke told by my friends dad:

Uh… There is this guy, lets say his name was Ali Babah. So he …uhhh… he was planning, he has this … he had a cow or whatever you know. He was, he was trying to…. I mean, he had accumulated one jar of butter. He took him like maybe, one or two years to accumulate to make you know this big jar of butter. And he was hang it behind it. He was sitting down and ….. and he was planning out his life, you know his future. So he said “you know what, now is time since I have this big jar of butter I’m going plan on marriage now, you know. (Laughs) You know what I’m saying! So …. He was trying to like sort, you know, the wife and the kids he’s gonna have. He planning “ I’m gonna get a nice wife, pretty wife that she understands me. I understand her. And we gonna plan and having you know some kids. The first kids, if it’s a boy I’m gonna teach him very well, send him to school. And make him obedient to me. And if he listens to me, and if he’s going to be obedient I say ok. And if he isn’t” … He was carrying a stick and “im going to beat the shit out of him,!” he broke the jar of butter and it fell and everything fell… hahaha!

Salvadoran Joke Proverb

Nationality: Salvadoran
Age: 50
Occupation: Chief Building Engineer
Residence: North Hills, California
Performance Date: 04/20/17
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

” No te mais, aquien temio”

Literal Translation: Do not be afraid, of he has been afraid

Joke translation: Do not be afraid, of he who has peed on you

The literal translation comes from the proper Spanish from Spain. The way it is used in El Salvador is they make the last word into two words turning it into “pee.” This joke is usually told to  friend or close family member that is having a bad day or is anxious. My father heard this joke from his friends.

I asked my dad for some folklore while walking to the store.

My informant is a building engineer. He migrated to the United States form El Salvador when he was 16 years old. He grew up in a city in El Salvador. Lots of the folklore he has heard has come from his family.

What is interesting about this piece is how a slight shift in space of a word can change the meaning of the whole proverb. Salvadorans are known for being jokers. They like to call it being “trucha.”

I have to go to the bathroom.

Age: 7
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: March 2017
Primary Language: English

“Knock, knock”

“Who’s there?”

“Banana”

“Banana who?”

“I have to go to the bathroom”

This knock knock joke was collected in a second grade classroom in South Los Angeles. The active carrier of this joke was a student in that classroom who heard it from her neighbor while playing one day. After finishing the joke, the entire class burst out in laughter at the nonsensical punchline. It should be noted that the joke told to the class right before had a logical punchline, but did not receive such an enthusiastic response. The less successful joke was “Don’t trust atoms, they make up everything”.

There are a few reasons why this joke received such a great response compared to the one that preceded it. First of all, it was clear that the majority of the young students lacked the scientific background that was required to understand the joke. The bathroom joke did not require the application of any outside knowledge. Second, the unexpected nature of the punchline was worthy of a greater response than a logical joke would, regardless of what it actually was. There is something about being caught off guard that makes any story or joke more worthy of a response. Perhaps the most obvious reason that the knock knock joke was considered to be funnier is the fact that it contains a mention of a bathroom. Bathroom humor is inherently funny to a large portion of the human population, regardless of age.

This joke is a derivation of a classic joke in which the second, third, and fourth lines are repeated as many times as the performer sees fit before replacing “banana” with “orange” and ending with “Orange you glad I didn’t say banana”. The countless versions of this joke are examples of the multiplicity and variation that is characteristic of folklore.

It is important to note that this joke had been passed on from child to child. The student who shared the joke initially heard it from her neighbor while playing. She then shared the humorous passage with her classmates who received it with enthusiasm. This piece of folklore circulates exclusively within groups of children and would not have elicited the same genuine response if performed in front a group of adults.

Un dólar y pico

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 24
Occupation: Student
Residence: Fontana, CA
Performance Date: 4/25/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Informant: Liz is a 24-year-old student born and raised in Southern California. Her mother is from a town near Guadalajara, Mexico. Liz returns to Mexico sometimes to visit family, but speaks Spanish at home.

Main Piece:
Original: “¿Cuanto le regreso el cajero al pato después de que le dio 5 pesos por una volsa de semilla de 3 pesos 25 centavos? Le regresó un dólar y pico.”

Translation: “How much did the cashier give back to the duck after he paid 5 pesos for some seed that cost 3 pesos and 25 cents? He gave him a dollar and change.”

Per the informant, “the joke is funny because, in Mexico, pico can mean either ‘change’ or ‘beak’, like a duck’s beak. So it’s a pun, although it doesn’t translate that well into English”

Background Information about the Performance: The informant was told this joke by her cousins when she was in Mexico.

Context of Performance: This joke is told between people when bored or just as entertainment.

Thoughts: I thought this joke was interesting because it resembles another joke in English, namely: “What did the duck say to the waitress? Put it on my bill” or something similar. That such a joke can exist cross-linguistically is notable. The joke is also a good example of how poorly puns translate into other languages, as this joke makes very little sense in English.