Broken Jokes
I love jokes. One-liners, story jokes, puns, you name it. I follow Nigahiga on Youtube mainly for his wonderful puns. But of all the kinds of jokes, I have a special place in my heart for bad jokes. Yes, I adore dad jokes. I just love seeing people grimace at a particularly large amount of cheese.
In Cantonese, bad jokes are called 爛GAG (laan6 gek1), or a broken joke. The Canadian Canto slang master, Carlos Douh, made an excellent video about this topic.
I am pretty bad at making up my own jokes, but sometimes I do when I'm feeling inspired. I've forgotten most of them, unfortunately (I need to write them down), but I do have one that I pull out fairly consistently. Cute in Cantonese is 得意 dak1 ji3. So whenever I see a duck, especially a cartoon or a stuffed animal, I love pointing to it and saying "Wah, hou dak ji!" See? Because duck and "dak" are the same sound, so....ok, never mind.
The other day, I really cracked myself up. I was eating Indian food with my friend Mark. As I was nibbling on a samosa, I heard him say the word "gwai" but I wasn't sure which "gwai" it was.
"Gwai like hou2 gwai3 (very expensive)?" I asked.
"No, not that one. That's 貴."
"Is it gwai like syut3 gwai6 (refrigerator)?"
"No, that's 櫃."
"Then is it gwai like gwai2 mui1 (Caucasian girl)?" Now I was just being silly, since I knew he hadn't said that (no rising tone).
Mark rolled his eyes and kept on eating. He pulled out his phone and showed me a picture of a turtle.
"This is the gwai1 I mean. 龜." He shoved another spoonful of curry into his mouth.
"Ohhhhhh. That gwai."
I felt kind of stupid. I had learned the word for turtle ages ago but it had somehow slipped my mind. When I had first asked my security guard how to say turtle, he had told me "ter toi." I dutifully said "ter toi" for almost a year until I realized that was just the way he said the English word "turtle." Anyway. I shook my head, my mind flipping back to the "gwai" matter.
"Mark, why are there so many gwais in Cantonese? 點解呀? Dim2 gaai2 aa3?" Just then, a jolt of inspiration hit my head. "Dim gwai ah?"
I grinned at my new discovery, eyeing Mark to see if he had caught my ingenious pun. He was paying and studiously ignoring my brilliance.
"Dim gwai? Get it, Mark?" A new sense of elation filled me, not unlike the feeling of stumbling across an amazing yet unexpected coffee shop in the middle of nowhere. We pushed our way out of the glass door into the muggy night. I poked him in the arm. "Aren't I funny? I'm so funny!"
Mark just groaned and mumbled, "爛GAG."
Mark's reaction did nothing to squelch my joy. It was time to head home and try out my new joke on my unsuspecting roommates. Broken or not, a gag is still a gag.
In Cantonese, bad jokes are called 爛GAG (laan6 gek1), or a broken joke. The Canadian Canto slang master, Carlos Douh, made an excellent video about this topic.
I am pretty bad at making up my own jokes, but sometimes I do when I'm feeling inspired. I've forgotten most of them, unfortunately (I need to write them down), but I do have one that I pull out fairly consistently. Cute in Cantonese is 得意 dak1 ji3. So whenever I see a duck, especially a cartoon or a stuffed animal, I love pointing to it and saying "Wah, hou dak ji!" See? Because duck and "dak" are the same sound, so....ok, never mind.
The other day, I really cracked myself up. I was eating Indian food with my friend Mark. As I was nibbling on a samosa, I heard him say the word "gwai" but I wasn't sure which "gwai" it was.
"Gwai like hou2 gwai3 (very expensive)?" I asked.
"No, not that one. That's 貴."
"Is it gwai like syut3 gwai6 (refrigerator)?"
"No, that's 櫃."
"Then is it gwai like gwai2 mui1 (Caucasian girl)?" Now I was just being silly, since I knew he hadn't said that (no rising tone).
Mark rolled his eyes and kept on eating. He pulled out his phone and showed me a picture of a turtle.
"This is the gwai1 I mean. 龜." He shoved another spoonful of curry into his mouth.
"Ohhhhhh. That gwai."
I felt kind of stupid. I had learned the word for turtle ages ago but it had somehow slipped my mind. When I had first asked my security guard how to say turtle, he had told me "ter toi." I dutifully said "ter toi" for almost a year until I realized that was just the way he said the English word "turtle." Anyway. I shook my head, my mind flipping back to the "gwai" matter.
"Mark, why are there so many gwais in Cantonese? 點解呀? Dim2 gaai2 aa3?" Just then, a jolt of inspiration hit my head. "Dim gwai ah?"
I grinned at my new discovery, eyeing Mark to see if he had caught my ingenious pun. He was paying and studiously ignoring my brilliance.
"Dim gwai? Get it, Mark?" A new sense of elation filled me, not unlike the feeling of stumbling across an amazing yet unexpected coffee shop in the middle of nowhere. We pushed our way out of the glass door into the muggy night. I poked him in the arm. "Aren't I funny? I'm so funny!"
Mark just groaned and mumbled, "爛GAG."
Mark's reaction did nothing to squelch my joy. It was time to head home and try out my new joke on my unsuspecting roommates. Broken or not, a gag is still a gag.
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