Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 January 8

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January 8

A joke non-natives may not understand

Hi all, I'm not a native speaker. Recently, I heard a joke I didn't figure out, which goes like this: "Why did the t-rex need a nap? Because he was wiped out". I guess this supposed joke is based on a pun, but I couldn't find out what it was, even though I'm familiar with the regular meaning of every word, separately, in this supposed joke. Could you (mainly native speakers) help? 2A06:C701:7463:BA00:D5A4:C525:C506:B570 (talk) 02:51, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

The Cambridge Dictionary gives a definition of wiped out of "extremely tired". HiLo48 (talk) 02:58, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Got it. Thank you ever so much. 2A06:C701:7463:BA00:D5A4:C525:C506:B570 (talk) 03:03, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I would think they're equating "wiped out" to "extinct". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:10, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

"Extinct" is what the OP seems to call "the regular meaning". Without it they wouldn't say "Got it" after they were told about the rarer meaning by which the whole excerpt could become a pun (hence a "joke")... HOTmag (talk) 04:44, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Your mind-reading skills are exemplary. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:15, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Not mind-reading skills but rather common sense.

What do you think the OP meant when they responded "Got it"? How did they get the pun they'd asked about, without being aware of the regular meaning "extinct"? HOTmag (talk) 06:36, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

What is the "regular meaning" of "wiped out", in your opinion? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:06, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, Wiktionary gives not less than 7 meanings for wipe out:

1. To destroy. 2. To physically erase, 3. To do away with; to cause to disappear. Only the next meaning is: 4. To exhaust (someone), to tire (them) out. It seems that the first meanings (ibid.), which are pretty close to each other (wipe out = remove completely), are a way more prevalent than the fourth one (and than the fifth one and than the sixth one and than the seventh one, ibid.).

@HiLo48: What do you think about this interesting dispute? In other words, why did you only give the OP the meaning of: wiped out = "extremely exhausted", without giving them also the previous meaning (wiped out = removed completely)? HOTmag (talk) 07:58, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Obviously, HiLo48 assumed (IMO quite reasonably), given that the OP had stated they knew a "regular meaning" of wiped out, that this "regular meaning" was the primary meaning, "erased", "destroyed", "obliterated". Clearly, "Why did the t-rex need a nap? Because he was obliterated" does not make sense and is unfunny, so they supplied a secondary slang sense, the one that is applicable here to make the pun work. This does not require mind-reading skills either; just the application of common sense.  --Lambiam 10:10, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

With a dash of nannyism. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:58, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

1. Agree (without any dash of nannyism).

2. Additionally, the OP had stated: "I guess this supposed joke is based on a pun", so they must have known the basic meaning ("obliterated"), without which there would be, not only no joke (as you correctly explained), but no pun either - of which the OP eventually became aware - as clearely provable from their final response "Got it" i.e I understood the joke due to the pun: Yes, actually, they couldn't have understood the joke if they handn't been previously aware of the basic meaning ("obliterated"), because, not only - the theoretical version "the t-rex needed a nap because he was obliterated" - wouldn't be a joke, but also - the alternative theoretical version "the t-rex needed a nap because he was exhausted" - wouldn't be a joke either.

3. However admittedly, even the current version: "because he was wiped out", is a pretty corny dad joke (again without any dash). Here is a better one; or rather, the following dad joke is so funny just because it's so bad... Prepared? So let's get started: What’s brown and sticky? A stick !!! Ha ha... Wow... Here is a better one: Why are elevator jokes so classic and good? Coz they work on many levels !!! Ha ha... Great... I'm proud of myself as a joke teller! Here is a much better one: "Oh mom, how much did it cost? Oh my kid, two. Oh mom, what two? Oh my kid, what how much?" Ha ha... Yes, I'm hearing your laughter, and this makes me satisfied more and more... I'll be glad if you admit my last one was a way more sophisticated than my previous ones, even though all of them are extremely bad, actually worse than any other dad joke I've ever heard, so they really deserve an anti-medal for being the worst ones, don't they?.... HOTmag (talk) 13:25, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't get the last one, although I'm not sure whether it depends on my lack of nativity or my lack of sophistication... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:29, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I presume it's just based on the fact that "how much did it cost" depends on what "it" is, which is never specified. GalacticShoe (talk) 17:47, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Oh, well. I just came up with another corny dad joke, though. -'Would you say Germany makes the world's greatest music?' -'Well, accordion to the Bavarians...' 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 18:00, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, it's supposed to be a bad joke, so no wonder about its meaning is expected. My grandpa told me he had heard it on his visit to Jerusalem in the seventies. HOTmag (talk) 12:57, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Actually, the oldest version of this pseudo-joke, was invented by the Hungarian-israeli comedian Ephraim Kishon, and became well known in the seventies, in a well known Hebrew sketch comedy scene (called "The garage"), preformed by a famous Israeli comedy trio. The Hebrew version is a bit different from what you described, though, but it still involves the same idea, which goes like this:

"The Minister of Finance sits in a restaurant. Suddenly the Minister of the interior enters. So the Minister of the Interior asks him "how much?", so the Minister of Finance says to him: "seven", so the Minister of the Interior says to him: "what seven?", so the Minister of Finance says to him: "what how much?"...

On youtube, in this sketch comedy scene, at moment 7:42, one can hear this pseudo-joke being told in its Hebrew version (described in the previous paragraph), for the first time in history (in the seventies). The teller, who was an actor pretending to have a heavy Hungarian accent, was sure (i.e. pretended to be sure) it was a funny joke, and so did his listeners (actors as well), so they rolled in laughter (all being a part of the comedy), as can be heard in that link. This pseudo-joke is well known in israel for its supidity, and is regarded as a very famous silly pseudo-joke intended to make the audience laugh - not because it is funny - but rather because the teller pretends to think it is, so the mere funny point is only the manner the teller pretends to be sure the pseudo joke is a real joke. 2A06:C701:7463:BA00:D5A4:C525:C506:B570 (talk) 13:32, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

“There is to me” possession

In numerous languages, the way to express possession is by saying something along the lines of “There is to me an A”. For example, a Wiktionary article uses a Latin sentence from Ovid that begins “Est mihi fīlia (I have a daughter),” using this type of construction with the 3rd-person singular form of “sum” with the dative form of the first-person singular pronoun. This is also how to express possession in Hebrew (with the phrase יש לי, conversely אין לי (there is not to me) is how to say “I don’t have) and at least one Celtic language. I think a similar construction is also possible in Japanese, with “I have five siblings” being “私には5人の兄弟がいます” as per Google Translate and DeepL (with both returning the original sentence when translated back to English. What is the explanation for the prevalence of this construction type? Primal Groudon (talk) 18:33, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

We have a paragraph at Existential_clause#Indication_of_possession, although it doesn't attempt to answer the "why" question. Here's one paper that talks about some of the ways possession can be expressed with some discussion of how they might arise: [1]. --Amble (talk) 19:11, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

This type of speech, "there is y to x", or "there exists y for x", is pretty common in logic. For example, the logical (arithmetical) sentence "every integer has a larger integer" is translated into the formal language of logic: "for (=to) every integer there exists (=is) a larger integer".

However, the correspondence between "every x has y" and "there is y to every x" (or "for every x there exists y"), is not a one-to-one correspondence. For example, logic makes a semantic distinction between "for every person there is a father", and "every person has a father". Check: "For every person there is a son" (correct), vs. "every person has a son" (incorrect). This semantic distinction between both expressions, is not easy to understand for native speakers of the languages you've indicated, because they interpret "for every x there exists y" as "every x has y". It's only when students natively speaking those languages start learning the formal language of logic, that they notice the semantic distinction between both kinds of expressions. Anyway, the type of speech you've indicated is well rooted in the way logicians express ideas of "having" and of existence (e.g when expressing "every integer has a larger integer", as: "for every integer there exists a larger integer"). HOTmag (talk) 19:38, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

It's the same in Russian: I have = у меня есть (lit. with me is). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:22, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

The English verb have can indicate possession, but in the sentence I have a petty boss the speaker does not claim that their boss is in their possession. In the Germanic languages there was a sense development from a sense of literally holding something you picked up, to a wide range of senses, including not only that of possession but also a more general one of there being a relationship. Many other languages did not have a similar widening in which the same construction came to be used for holding something and other relationships.  --Lambiam 10:50, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

This Germanic distinction, which can be described as widening, can also be seen as a compromise between consistent use of ‘to be’ and consistent use of ‘to have’. Examples for the former have been discussed above. An example for the latter is Chinese, where ‘have X’ (有X) is used for ‘X exists’. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 08:30, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

There's something similar in Polish too, but only in the negative, so "there is beer" in Polish is jest piwo (word for word: "is beer"), but "there is no beer" is nie ma piwa ("not has beer"). — Kpalion^(talk) 14:46, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

In Serbo-Croatian there exist both nemati and its antonym imati. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 15:00, 10 January 2024 (UTC) (edited 15:05, 10 January 2024 (UTC))

If it's a property of Polish as well as of Serbo-Croatian (and Czech?), then I wonder if it's a common property of many (all?) Slavic languages. Additionally, if it's a property of Chinese as well, then what about other Sino-Tibetian languages? Interesting anyway... HOTmag (talk) 15:15, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Not in Russian, as JackofOz wrote above. In Czech, while nemít is used in some cases for the translation of ‘there is not’, in other cases other words are used: není (<nebýt) and neexistuje (<ne+existovat).[2]. I guess it's not so easy to wrap this into a simple rule. BTW, German is even weirder: Standard is ‘es gibt’ (lit. ‘it gives’), but some dialects in the south use ‘es hat’ (lit.: ‘it has’). But anyway, this is off topic, since none of these includes “... to me”. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 09:56, 11 January 2024 (UTC)