at the next station it wasn't Blanktown so Tsim turned to the Englishman again: 'I thought you said this train went to Blanktown?' John Bloggs replied: 'Look, don't look at me. I'm as surprised as you are!'
'How can you expect foreigners to understand that sort of language,' asked Tsim laughing.
Certainly English wit, delivered in a droll tone portraying a personal character, is firmly established in the British Isles. It is ingrained just as is English 'good sportsmanship.' Nevertheless it is not always easy for foreigners, even if they do speak good English, to understand. In fact the joke regarding junk bonds, with Monica Lewinsky bonds lacking maturity, Al Gore bonds lacking interest and Bill Clinton bonds lacking principle (al), is untranslatable because the necessary characters in Chinese do not have double meanings.
English wit can be clever and amusing. It includes gags about British Rail, watching soccer, the inclusion of the word 'knickers,' deadpan humour (recounted with mock solemnity and an emotionless face and manners), one-liner in-jokes, and witticisms with Brits poking fun at themselves and taking a deprecating view of their own society (Tse, 1997). The surname 'Carruthers' is sometimes used when telling jokes which, on its own, is usually sufficient to raise a smile. A joke, when told by an Englishman, is often preceded by the expression: 'Stop me if you have heard this one.' But the 'tribal custom' is never to stop the raconteur,
Most Chinese dirty jokes are of the 'hard' variety but western smutty jokes also include those which women can listen to as well. For example English humour consists of vulgar postcards with off-colour jokes, which one still finds at the seaside (Orwell, 1945). There is the fat lady with the big bottom and many other cards some of which may border on the unprintable. British humour also consists of burlesque and caricature, where the character of a person is satirised and exaggerated. In turn, fantasy in humour can be imaginative and unrestrictive and farce highlights the ludicrous situation.
The Hong Kong necktie, designed in 1967 by Eric Cumine, a Eurasian architect with Scottish blood on his father's side, illustrates the
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at the next station it wasn't Blanktown so Tsim turned to the English- man again: 'I thought you said this train went to Blanktown?' John Bloggs replied: 'Look, don't look at me. I'm as surprised as you are!'
'How can you expect foreigners to understand that sort of language,' asked Tsim laughing.
Certainly English wit, delivered in a droll tone portraying a perso- nas character, is firmly established in the British Isles. It is ingrained just as is English 'good sportsmanship.' Nevertheless it is not always easy for foreigners, even if they do speak good English, to understand. In fact the joke regarding junk bonds, with Monica Lewinsky bonds lacking maturity, Al Gore bonds lacking interest and Bill Clinton bonds lacking principle (al), is untranslatable because the necessary charac- ters in Chinese do not have double meanings.
English wit can be clever and amusing. It includes gags about Brit- ish Rail, watching soccer, the inclusion of the word 'knickers,' dead- pan humour (recounted with mock solemnity and an emotionless face and manners), one-liner in-jokes, and witticisms with Brits poking fun at themselves and taking a deprecating view of their own society (Tse, 1997). The surname 'Carruthers' is sometimes used when telling jokes which, on its own, is usually sufficient to raise a smile. A joke, when told by an Englishman, is often preceded by the expression: 'Stop me if you have heard this one." But the 'tribal custom' is never to stop the
raconteur,
Most Chinese dirty jokes are of the 'hard' variety but western smutty jokes also include those which women can listen to as well. For example English humour consists of vulgar postcards with off-colour jokes, which one still finds at the seaside (Orwell, 1945). There is the fat lady with the big bottom and many other cards some of which may border on the unprintable. British humour also consists of burlesque and caricature, where the character of a person is satirised and exaggerated. In turn, fantasy in humour can be imaginative and unre- strictive and farce highlights the ludicrous situation.
The Hong Kong necktie, designed in 1967 by Eric Cumine, a Eur- asian architect with Scottish blood on his fathers side, illustrates the
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