A colleague is travelling in the US, and she sent back this picture of her commute to work, with the comment "Traffic jam!"



Having already had my second cup of coffee, and feeling pretty sharp, I sensed the opportunity to make a funny... "Ah," I quipped, "that explains all the honking!"

I looked around at my colleagues, their laughter being the reward for my clever pun. Nope, nothing but expression-less faces, gaping at an Englishman chortling to himself and wondering if he didn't have a few screws loose...

"The geese.... the honking.... Geese honking?" I tried to explain, but to no avail. These non-native speakers weren't going to reward my wordplay, no matter how witty...

So I came to the only place I could: English Forum. And I present to you:


















"Traffic jam!"

"Ah! That explains all the honking..."





(I'll get my coat...)

Don't quit your day job man

..... lost in translation eh ?

I somehow understand you username now.

Wow. Tough crowd.

humour is a foreign language.

I, for one, found it hilarious

I'm not as brutal as him though!

Hey those are ducks in that picture aren't they ?
I hear they are quite yummy with a bit of mint sauce.

Just loved it too

That's why you got a 'Thanked'.

Yeah, yeah...I'm a pussycat.




Surprise, surprise....

At least somebody loves ya....

No, no, no. You've got it all wrong. Ducks QUACK, and that wouldn't be a clever joke at all.

These are geese. Geese HONK. Hence the clever wordplay about the two meanings of honk -- cars honking, geese honking, a traffic jam... (Uh oh. I'm sensing deja vu.)

And mint sauce goes with lamb. Duck is 'a la orange'!

So no sense of humor and no sense of taste... ?

Don't make such a paté of it

zee evening's silly thread..... there's always one

...at least I can read "geese" and know what they look like.

You mean like the Honky Tonk man ?

So these ducks don't go with mint sauce ? Is that what you are saying ?

Well according to the thread title...our learned friend LiB wouldn't 'get it' anyway

Only village idiots don't know that puns are among the trickiest aspects of any language. And among all the languages I speak, English is the language that has by far the most puns, because its grammar has been stripped down to the bare essentials and even below, and because its weird orthographic system allows all sorts of distortions of words.

English puns are a minefield for non-native speakers. And puns can't be translated. That's why many jokes can't be translated either, simply because they are based on puns.

no you can't.. some might be ganders