puns

Raise the steaks

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A video advertisement for a diet food delivery company boasts that its services “raise the stakes”. At that moment, the video shows a steak (in a frying pan, and not being lifted on a spatula or fork). They missed the opportunity to “raise the steaks”, haha. (Aurally we wouldn’t know anyway, but visually we might.) Not surprisingly, “raise the steaks” has a number of uses related to food, from cattle farming to feature nights at restaurants to reviews. (After seeing the ad again, I’m certain that the stakes/steak concurrence is deliberate.)

There is an old joke about a rancher who retired and left his ranch to his sons, and suggested that they call it Focus, because …

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IGIN, gin and Jin

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In Seoul, I saw many advertisements for the products of a company called IGIN, including fruit tonics and fruit gins. So is IGIN pronounced as in ‘gin’ or as in ‘begin’? In English, it’s impossible to say (see also the debate about ‘gif’). But the hangeul text underneath clearly shows that it is as in ‘begin’, being spelled 아이긴 (a-i-gin). In hangeul there is no ambiguity – either it’s ㄱ (g) or ㅈ (j) and there’s no way that ㄱ is ever pronounced ㅈ (though sometimes it’s pronounced closer to k).

Another ad has Jin from BTS (the only way I knew that was that his name appears under his photo) spruiking Jin Ramen, with the text saying something like (in Korean) “Does Jin like Jin Ramen?” “진짜!”

Further research shows that there is a connection: Jin is the co-founder of IGIN. Calling it 아이진 would have been a double pun on his name and the product.

Book a rest

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During an exchange of country-and-city-related puns with a colleague, I said “Bulgaria is a good place for a relaxing holiday. You can book a rest (Bucharest)”. My colleague looked at me for several seconds and said “That’s Romania”. I can’t remember if either of us actually said “You can remain ‘ere as long as you want” or that’s my esprit d’escalier.

Hell is bright

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The small town of Hell, Michigan is known only for its unusual name and occasionally freezing over. 

This evening a German organist named Felix Hell played a recital in Sydney. Beforehand, some of us were discussing his unusual surname. The scope for jokes in English is obvious, but what does it mean in German? I had to check. Fortunately it means bright, changing him from happy hell to happy bright. Conversely, hell (English) is Hölle. I can’t remember that I’ve encountered either hell (German) or Hölle in the course of singing or reading about German. I’m slightly surprised that none of the moderately- to highly-experience classical choristers knew either word. 

Back to Hell, Michigan, there is no acknowledged reason for its name. Wikipedia lists four theories: German travellers arrived one sunny afternoon and said “So schöne hell!” (So beautifully bright!); early explorers faced difficult conditions including mosquitoes, thick forest cover and extensive wetlands; early settler/businessman George Reeves paid the local grain farmers with home-distilled whiskey, leading their wives to comment that their husbands had gone to Hell again at harvest time; and Reeves answering the question of what the town should be called with “I don’t care. You can name it Hell for all I care”.

Some people don’t find hell a joking matter.

A pizza the action

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A few days a colleague spontaneously suggested ordering pizza and eating together in one of the meeting rooms. Just before the agreed time, one of our colleagues went to collect and bring them them back. As he passed my desk I said “Time for a pizza the action” (a piece of the action, haha).

I was suddenly reminded of a 1970s pop song with those words. A search found another song which I also remembered, then the one I was thinking of. The first one is Piece of the Action by the English pop group Buck’s Fizz, and is actually from 1981. But that’s pop rock; the one I was thinking of is driving rock. The second one is Action by the English glam rock band Sweet, from 1975 (which includes the words “a piece of the the action”). The words in context in each song are:

“Well I know it sounds funny
But I don’t wanna be in love
Just wanna piece of the action”

and

“Everybody wants a piece of the action!
Everybody needs a main attraction!”

I can honestly say that I have not consciously thought about either of those since approximately 1976 and 1982. I can’t remember that they been on any compilation I’ve listened to or watched (unlike one other by Buck’s Fizz and several others by Sweet), or popped (or rocked) up as a random Youtube suggestion. But I could definitely remember the second, and remembered the first when I heard it.  

Not surprisingly, there are actual business with the name A Pizza the Action. Searches for A Pizza Reaction show various people reacting to various pizzas, and also serious discussions about the heat-related changes which happen while dough and topping are baking. 

the Otterman emperor

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A colleague greets us every morning by informing us of a selection of celebratory or commemorative days, mostly light-hearted, sometimes serious, mostly from this site. Yesterday was End of the Middle Ages Day and World Otter Day (coincidentally – the former is celebrated on 30 May and latter on the last Wednesday in May). The end of the middle ages is pegged to the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453. Our manager responded with photos of Benedict Cumberbatch imitating photos of otters. (I later found this video.)

I commented “First they said ‘You otter be an actor’. Then they said ‘You actor be an otter’”. I wish I could say that I then commented “Obviously, he’s the Otterman emperor”. Well, I did say it, but not until this morning, because I didn’t think of it until after I logged off yesterday afternoon. Sigh … l’esprit de l’escalier is a fine thing.

The whole concept of the middle ages has been questioned, which I was going to discuss at greater length, but I’ll leave you with this. Certainly a lot of things happened between about 1400 and 1550, and life would never be the same again.

seven days

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May is the beginning of cold and flu season in Australia. I had a milder cold earlier this month, and have had a moderate-to-bad one since last week. Today we had an online team meeting. At the end, I said I felt tired, because “Having a cold for seven days makes one weak”. No-one responded. I said it again. One colleague responded and explained it to the others.

There is a slight difference in stress. ‘makes one week’ is more-or-less equally stressed. ‘makes one weak’ has less stress on ‘one’ (compare ‘makes me weak’.)

I’ve been working part-time and taking part of my sick leave. I haven’t had a wee cough. (<think about it)

Korean dad jokes

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In one class in the hagwon I taught at during my first stay in South Korea was a student with the English name Jamie. One day she was late – maybe she’d been absent for a few days. As she came in I said “Jamie 있어요!” (approx Jamie is here! but it sounds the same as 재미있어요 (jae-mi-iss-eo-yo, it’s/he’s/she’s fun, interesting). No-one responded.

I have been watching the travel videos of a young Korean-American women in the USA, Europe and South Korea. In one, she meets a friend named Jamie, and misses the opportunity to say “Jamie 있어요!”. 

I mentioned this to our niece, and she said “That’s such an 아재개그” (a-jae-gae-geu, uncle/Mr gag, basically dad joke). 

A few days ago I saw an article in the Korea Herald titled Humor in Korea: Navigating the line between what’s funny and not and introduced “Beneath Koreans’ laughter, intricate interplay of sensitivity to hierarchical structures, power relations in different group settings”. It quotes one female office worker saying:

“Male superiors mostly make ‘ajae’ jokes, which are hardly ever amusing,” she said. The term, based on “ajae,” a word for middle-aged men, is roughly equivalent to a “dad joke.”

“It is not really funny, but we just go ‘hahaha’ to avoid an awkward atmosphere,” she said.

Office humour is difficult to gauge (?gag) at the best of times, even in generally egalitarian country like Australia. Some of my colleagues have a dark sense of humour which would probably get us (including me) into trouble elsewhere. 

An online search found a page of Korean & Konglish Jokes That Everyone (Especially Dad) Will Love

Much ado about adieu

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One item on many lists of English usage mistakes is without/with no further adieu for without/with no further ado. I can’t remember that I’ve ever encountered it in real life, like many (maybe most) items on many (maybe most) lists of English usage mistakes. I don’t use either ado or adieu a lot anyway. I also pronounce them differently, with a /j/ (‘y’ sound) in adieu, which I had assumed was the standard pronunciation, but Dictionary.com lists the pronunciation as ‘ado’ first. 

I recently encountered “without further due” in a Youtube video. I first thought the high-level English-as-a-second-language speaker said “without further adieu” with the schwas elided, but after listening to it many times, I’m sure he says “due”. This appears in the subtitles, which seem to non-automated, because there is sometimes further explanatory material as well the transcription of the voiceover, there are no auto-subtitling mistakes, and several English-as-a-second-language speaker infelicities. He and I pronounce due with a /j/ sound. 

Without further due also appears on some lists of English usage mistakes but I hadn’t seen it before, or encountered it in real life. To me, without further adieu makes sense only in the context of saying goodbye and departing from somewhere, not when introducing  a topic. Without further due only just makes sense, if you use due as a noun, which it is in give them their due.

Google Ngrams and a general Google search both show that without/with no further ado is used many times more often than either adieu or due. Many of the first results are dictionaries, usage guides etc, but there are enough instances of adieu and due to say that they are used, mostly in informal contexts. 

Ngrams shows that without further ado is 96 times more common than without further adieu, and 522 times more common than without further due. Search shows 35 and 187 times, respectively. (There are obviously discrepancies between how Ngrams and Search use their data, but for general purposes the numbers above are sufficiently similar. The ratios are almost exactly the same.)

In lists of usage mistakes or elsewhere, no-one seems to fulminate against without further adieu or without further due in the way that they do against irregardless, so it may be much adieu about nothing. Speaking of which, much ado about nothing (I used that phrase in my post about irregardless) is either about 10,000 (Ngrams) or 1,485 (Search) times more common than much adieu about nothing. A brief skim of the results for much adieu about nothing shows that it is reasonably likely that people are using it deliberately, as a pun. It is also possible to use without further adieu deliberately …

So adieu

adieu

…