Geeks, linguists, polyglots: Translate this pun!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

English version:

A zookeeper wants to install a mongoose exhibit. So he writes to his animal supplier. "Dear Sir, please send us two mongooses - " he writes, then scratches it out. "Dear Sir, please send us two mongeese - " That doesn’t work either. Finally he writes, “Dear Sir, please send us a mongoose. P.S. While you’re at it, send us another one too.”

French version:

Le curateur d’un zoo veut monter une exhibition sur le chacal. Alors il écrit à son chasseur: "Monsieur, veuillez nous envoyer deux chacals - " Il l’éfface puis l’essaye encore une fois: "Monsieur, veuillez nous envoyer deux chacaux - " mais cela ne marche non plus. Enfin il écrit tout simplement, “Monsieur, veuillez nous envoyer un chacal. P.S. Ensuite, envoyez-nous-en un autre.”

(There is as yet no agreement in French whether the plural of “chacal” (jackal) is “chacals” or “chacaux”, like cheval-chevaux. Adapted from: Yaguello, M., Cataloge d’idées reçues sur la langue.)

So think of a parallel problem in a language you speak, and come up with a translation of this joke around it. Have fun!

2

How about a botanical garden keeper.

Send us two cactusses cactÆ? Another cactus?

3

When is a raven… oh, nevermind.

4

'Tain’t ‘cactæ’, it’s ‘cacti’.

But damned if I can think of an FL version of the pun in the OP. Will try again later.

5

There is a famous short story in Russian that plays on this. No, I can’t remember the title or the author, although I believe he was the son of Evgenia Ginsburg. You have to know a couple of things.

  1. Russian for fireplace poker is “kocherga.”

  2. In Russian, nouns following numbers change their case. One - nominative singular. Two, three - Genitive singular. Five and up - Genitive plural. Twenty-two, twenty-three - genitive singular. Twenty-five and up - genitive plural. Etc.

  3. The genitive plural is the most irregular case/number in Russian. There is no end to the bizarre morphings that the noun can take in this form.
    The story is set in a factory in Soviet times. They need five fireplace pokers. Forms are acquired, the filling in commences. Then the debate begins. What is the genitive plural of kocherga? Various characters/officials are called in. Some suggest kochereg, some kocherieg, some kochergev, some various other possibilities I can’t remember now. Everyone agrees that it would be a disaster to send in an official document with the wrong word. Much dark musing on what could happen to them. What to do? Finally an old caretaker hears about the fuss and tells them to send in two requisitions: one for two kochergi and one for three kochergi. And there was great rejoicing.

The story is hilarious because the author has an incredible grasp of colloquial Russian, the characters are absolutely dead-on Soviet-era beaurocrats, and no one in Russia actually knows off the top of their heads what the genitive plural of kocherga is.

6

That joke may not be diretly translatable into Spanish, since I don’t believe there are any irregular plurals (though a native speaker may be able to correct me).

7

Almost but not quite. Any number ending in one (except eleven) ending in the Nom Sg. Any number in ending in two, three, or four (except twelve, thirteen, and fourteen) ends in the genitive singular. Numbers ending in five or greater take the genitive plural.

8

Yeesh! Olentzero, thanks for picking that up.

“One two three FOUR,” not “one two three five.”

It’s going to be a long day.

9

What’s the past tense of Shit? Shat?

10

A hospital administrator is working out the schedule for one of the operating rooms and has to send a description of the procedure to the doctor. "Doctor, remove the patient’s appendixes - ", he writes, then scratches if out. "Doctor, remove the patient’s appendices - " That doesn’t work either. Finally he writes, "Doctor, remove the patient’s appendix. P.S. While you’re at it, take out another one too.

Hmm, still something not quite right about that.

11

A college roommate and I would jokingly give the principle parts as “shit, shat, shut.” (No nitpicking! I know we left out “shitting,” but that would ruin the flow of the joke.)

12

That reminds me of “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” for some reason.

13

You might be thinking of this line:

“The three words that best describe you are as follows, and I quote. ‘Stink.’ ‘Stank.’ ‘Stunk.’”

14

I studied in France during the 1995 elections there. One of my professors found the conservative presidential candidate LePen very distasteful. My professor showed us a videotape of a news item about LePen and his wife. Our professor, Dr. Pouvatchy, said:

“Voilà Monsieur LePen et sa femme, Madame LaPeine.”

Nope, it just doesn’t translate. I’ll explain for those of you wouldn’t know. The name LePen doesn’t really mean anything, but the Pen part of his name sounds like the French word peine, which is perhaps best translated as “bother” or “inconvenience”. Le is a definite article, male gender, while la is a definite article, female gender.
Another professor at that university talked about the proliferation of breakaway republics in Russia. He named a few: “La Tchetchnie, l’Ossétie, l’Abkhazie, la Vachkirie…”

Explanation: that last “republic” doesn’t exist. Its name fits the rhythm of so many other new (trying) republics, but la Vachkirie is actually La vache qui rit (or The Laughing Cow, in English), which is a popular brand of cheese in France.
I made up one, myself. While studying the finer points of French with other foreigners, we were asked to put on a skit in which we made up our own commercial for some sort of product. I came up with a campaign for bottled water, which would be called Eau de la source Robinet. To understand this, you would need to know that bottled water in France comes in bottles labeled, Eau de la source Perrier or Eau de la source Évian or Eau de la source Volvic or what have you, where in the U.S., at least, we’ll just put Perrier on the bottle and be done with it. La source means spring as in a spring where water comes from. Eau de la source Perrier, then, would mean Water from the spring of Perrier.

One could then suppose that Eau de la source Robinet would mean the same thing, but it doesn’t. See, Robinet is not a place, but another word for tap. If you drank Eau de la source Robinet, you’d be drinking nothing but tap water!