To each his own bouc émissaire (“scapegoat”, literally, meaning “the butt of a joke”): For a long time, les Anglais (the English) picked on les Irlandais (the Irish); the Americans on their “Southerner” Rednecks; the Egyptians on their own version of “Southerners”, so to speak, the Sa’idis (From la Haute-Égypte, or Upper Egypt); les Canadiens on their Newfies (the inhabitants of Newfoundland)—and les Français -in case you managed not to know this yet- on their “upstairs” neighbors, les Belges (Belgians)!
In France, like anywhere else, les stéréotypes are the “bread and butter” (ok, the butter may be missing in the picture above) of so many blagues (jokes)
But French jokes need not be éthnique !
Like it’s the case for any other nation, the French obviously have their fair share of the “transnational” type of jokes, such as the all-too-unavoidable blagues sur les blondes (“blonde jokes.”)
“Special Blondes: This interdiction also applies to other color shades of vehicles”
(By far not the meanest of French “blonde jokes” out there!)
Yet, one thing that is remarkable about les blagues, in general, is that they are too often untranslatable from one language to another, since most of the puns, or the “double-entendre“, which usually make up la chute (the punch line), is often lost in translation!
Here are two examples of “lost in translation” jokes from French to English:
- Quel est l’animal le plus malheureux? (What is the saddest animal?) Le taureau… (The bull…) Car sa femme est vache! (Because his wife is “cow”)—Obviously doesn’t sound too funny, unless you already knew that “vache” is actually French slang for “mean”!
- Quel est l’animal le plus heureux? (What is the happiest animal?) Le hibou… (The male owl…) Car sa femme est chouette! (Because his wife is “a female owl”—Not too funny either, unless you know that “chouette” also means “great” in French slang!)
- Un écureuil se gare devant un panneau de stationnement interdit (A squirrel parks in a non-parking spot.) Un policier le prévient (A policeman warns him): Dites donc, vous voulez une amende? (Hey there, do you want a “fining ticket”—but the word “amende” sounds like “amande“, meaning “an almond.”) Oh, si ça ne vous fait rien, répond l’écureuil (Oh, if it’s all the same to you, replied the squirrel), je préférerais une noisette (I’d rather have a nut!)
