# All Slavic languages: linguistic puns



## Oletta

English is abundant in puns eg.:

“The artist was great.  He could always draw a crowd.”

I am curious about some of the Slavic puns. Here are some examples of paronomasia in Polish. (I have chosen several  words that most people might not be aware of their ambiguity.)
*piwonie* = peonies (flowers), separately: *piwo nie!* (beer no!, or no beer!);
*srogość* = severity, sternness - separately it becomes a sentence in colloquial Polish: *sro gość* (a fellow is shitting*);
*tulipan *= tulip (flower), separately: *tuli pan *(a man hugs ... sb);
*antykwariat* = antique shop, separately: *antyk wariat* (an old/antique lunatic);
*zjadłwszy = *a participle "having eaten" eg. *Zjadłwszy* obiad, pozmywał naczynia. (Having eaten dinner, he washed up.) but seperately again it builds up a sentence: *zjadł wszy *(he has eaten lice);
*udajemy *= we pretend/we're pretending/we've been pretending, seperately: *uda jemy *(we're eating thighs);
*nie na żarty =* sth is not for fun, it is serious, clipped: *nienażarty *(in colloquial Polish the sentence means that someone has not eaten enough and is still hungry, or describes a person who is always hungry);
*słońce - *sun, but after the separation: *słoń ce *(an elephant C, as if there existed an elephant A, and elephant B, and an elephant C).
I am waiting for your examples ! Or some more examples in my mother tongue.


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## Lilium

Hi, 
I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but reading those Polish puns reminded me of the city I was born in. If you separate the name of the capital of Bosnia *(Sarajevo*) as "*Sara je vo" *it means *"Sara is an ox"*. It's well known in that area.


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## Oletta

It´s precisely what I meant. Puns may be of various kind, the one of yours is a good example, thanks a lot! Similar to the English Liverpool, a liver pool.


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## Lilium

Also, if you google something like "sarajevo sara is an ox" you will probably get a bunch of other interesting examples from Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian forums. People from Balkans seem to be having a lot of fun with words, especially with names.


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## tkekte

I heard Czech has a lot of these.


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## Glitz

Lilium said:


> Hi,
> I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but reading those Polish puns reminded me of the city I was born in. If you separate the name of the capital of Bosnia *(Sarajevo*) as "*Sara je vo" *it means *"Sara is an ox"*. It's well known in that area.


 
I guess *Čiovo (an island) *could be one to, as in "ci ovo," whos is this?

Also I've heard the Joke where an Italian man tells his Croatian girlfriend  "bacco mi amore" (something along the lines of 'kiss me my love,'-ital)
though she thinks she hears, "Baci me u more" (throw me in the sea -cro) so she does.


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## Thomas1

This one someone sent me the other day in one of those funny e-mails:
_ Rolniku myj jaja przed skupem. 
Farmer, wash eggs before purchase._
And if we delve into its other (hidden) meaning it says:
_ Farmer, wash your balls opposite the collection point._

Sorry for being pernickety, but this one, however funny, is actually wrong:


Oletta said:


> [...]
> *zjadłwszy = *a participle "having eaten" eg. *Zjadłwszy* obiad, pozmywał naczynia. (Having eaten dinner, he washed up.) but seperately again it builds up a sentence: *zjadł wszy *(he has eaten lice);
> [...]



You use either _łszy _or _wszy _forming the perfective participle dependig on whether the preceding letter is a consonant or a vowel respectively.


Tom


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## Oletta

Tom, 

OOps, so  "zjadwszy" is the correct one? If so, the google browser shows how many people use the incorrect form, including me. Anyway, the example still works when we pronounce it!


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## tkekte

I think the correct one is zjadłszy. I'm not sure, but I remember it that way from poetry.


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## Oletta

Bravo tekekte! Correcting a native speaker means something! Yes, ¨zjadłszy¨is the correct one, I have just checked it in my spelling dictionary. 

The problem with the correct spelling of the word and some other of the sort is sometimes rooted in the usage of dialects in everyday speech. When you search for both "zjadłwszy" and "zjadwszy" in the Google browser, you will see how many people make the same mistake I did. Just out of curiosity I asked some people at work today morning, and only a few knew well how to spell it correctly. 

Now, when I have found the correct answer, it seems so natural to say and write "zjadłszy", and I can't stand pronouncing or writing it in any other way. It's weird, : ). 


BTW:
I have found another linguistic trap:

Instead of writing: "_próbuję, a nuż, widelec się uda" 

_People tend to write: _"próbuję, a nóż, widelec się uda"

_The first sentence contains an idiomatic expression, however, and is hard to translate.


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## slavian1

Oletta said:


> Bravo tekekte! Correcting a native speaker means something! Yes, ¨zjad³szy¨is the correct one, I have just checked it in my spelling dictionary.
> 
> The problem with the correct spelling of the word and some other of the sort is sometimes rooted in the usage of dialects in everyday speech. When you search for both "zjad³wszy" and "zjadwszy" in the Google browser, you will see how many people make the same mistake I did. Just out of curiosity I asked some people at work today morning, and only a few knew well how to spell it correctly.
> 
> Now, when I have found the correct answer, it seems so natural to say and write "zjad³szy", and I can't stand pronouncing or writing it in any other way. It's weird, : ).
> 
> 
> BTW:
> I have found another linguistic trap:
> 
> Instead of writing: "_próbujê, a nu¿, widelec siê uda" _
> 
> People tend to write: _"próbujê, a nó¿, widelec siê uda"_
> 
> The first sentence contains an idiomatic expression, however, and is hard to translate.


 
Well, this all proves how difficult polish orthography is. 
As form me I have been totally confident, that there is only one way of spelling _*nu¿ *(with ó _in both cases_)_


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## skoros

There is a pun in Serbo-Croatian that's popular with kids. 
It involves the sentence 'Cure se rumene.' meaning 'Girls are blushing.'. Modified version contains pretty harmless toilet humor but I'm not certain if I'm allowed to post it here. I'm sure that native speakers know what I'm talking about.


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## Oletta

Thanks for sharing skoros! Sometimes it's good to know such puns


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## Oletta

I have renectly spotted an ad in a healthy food store which advertises some sort of German wheat bread:

*Jesz i nie tyjesz!  *(you eat and don't get fat)

but it can also sound like:

_*Jesz i nie ty jesz! *_(you eat and it's not you who eats)

After having read the ad I was tempted to write the following note under the statement:
*
Więc kto je? *(so who eats?)  

Another one is told by a friend who is a real estate agent and often has to accompany his customers at a lawer's. Every time she says to his customers:

*"A teraz proszę Państwa dowody"* (and now show your identity cards)

but there's a small pond in the hall where they talk, so he always feels like laughing... it's because another meaning of the sentence is:

_*"A teraz proszę Państwa do wody" *_(and now you are asked to go into the water)


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## Tolovaj_Mataj

Somebody's mentioned a joke?
It reminded me on one linguistic joke in Slovene.

*ananas* - pineapple
*a na nas* - but on/about/of us


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## slavian1

Tolovaj_Mataj said:


> Somebody's mentioned a joke?
> It reminded me on one linguistic joke in Slovene.
> 
> *ananas* - pineapple
> *a na nas* - but on/about/of us


 

This one works also in Polish


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## Oletta

There's also another one:
*
"Pierwszy dzień lata" *- the first day of summer/ the first day flies (but if it flies, the question is "where does it fly"?

Similarily "początek lata", "środek lata", "koniec lata" ...."zwariowane lata"...


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## Oletta

_*Dom niedaleko *_(the/a house located not far away)versus _*Do mnie daleko *_ (far away to me).


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## TriglavNationalPark

Here's another Slovene one:

*"Če čebela ne bi imela 'če', bi bila čebela bela."*

This can't be translated into English without losing its point (or at least I don't know how to do it), but if I tell you that "če" means "if" in Slovene, "čebela" means "bee", and "bela" means "white", I suppose many of you Slavic speakers will get it.


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## Tolovaj_Mataj

TriglavNationalPark said:


> *"Če čebela ne bi imela 'če', bi bila čebela bela."*


 Never heard this one before despite being so obvious! But I know a similar one:
Če čebula ne bi imela "če", bi bila bula in ne čebula.


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## TriglavNationalPark

Tolovaj_Mataj said:


> Never heard this one before despite being so obvious! But I know a similar one:
> Če čebula ne bi imela "če", bi bila bula in ne čebula.


 
Thanks! For those playing along, "čebula" means "onion" and "bula" means "bump" or "lump".


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## Oletta

That's nice, thanks. I would never guess the meaning of "čebela" in the first context as in Polish "cebula" means "onion" and we don't have any "čebela", "a bee" is thoroughly different: "pszczoła".


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## TriglavNationalPark

Oletta said:


> That's nice, thanks. I would never guess the meaning of "čebela"/"čebula" in this context here as in Polish "cebula" means "onion".


 
Well, it also means "onion" in Slovene (just that we have a caron over the "c")! "Čeb*u*la" means "onion", "čeb*e*la" means "bee".


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## Kanes

Bulgarian, 

*kolite - *the cars/you slaughter
*sin* - blue/son
*mahala* - neighbourhood/she have been waiving
*a/na/nas -* pineaple/and to us
*za/edno* - for one/together

too lazy to think of more...


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## Kolan

kanes said:


> bulgarian,
> *a/na/nas -* pineaple/and to us


Учительница даёт задание: "Дети! Придумайте предложение со словом "*ананас*".
Вовочка тянет руку: "Марь-Иванна, от мамы ушёл папа, *а на нас* х.й положил".

Russian linguistic puns are privileged in the most controversial jokes.

*Почётным* - *По чётным* (дням). (анекдот про чукчу).

*Вслепую* - *В слепую.* (анекдот про Штирлица)

But this is rather exceptional. Most of that kind of things in Russian would be composed of swear words or allusions.


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