# In languages with grammatical gender, are jokes/witticisms ever made that take advantage of this? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 12, 2012, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489 "2012-09-12T09:26:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/41 "2012-09-13T16:03:16Z")
Actually, there would be a slight difference in pronunciation between the two meanings, but yeah, it’s slight. And curiously enough, it doesn’t get marked ortographically. Él toca el violín y ella la viOla; he plays violin and she viola Él toca el violín y ella la VIOla; he plays violin and she rapes her ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/42 "2012-09-13T17:25:17Z")
> [@Abortion\_Fanatic](#): > > It is pretty cute, yeah. I grew up with a lot of Filipino friends and Tagalog speakers learning English will often say “he” across the board, for every sex. “Where’s Ella going?” “Oh, he had to go put his makeup on”. > It’s not enough to take you out of the sentence or to be super confusing, enough to sound silly and be cute. I’ve got a filipino gf who speaks excellent english but still occasionally confuses her “he” and “she” which is just “shya” in tagalog. When talking about two people of different genders, it gets VERY confusing when that mistake is made, who she is talking about and sometimes I have to tell her to backtrack cus I’ve been assuming she was talking about the man because she says “he” for “she”. Filipinos also have problems describing where things are, like in/on/around/near because that is all one word in tagalog. My favorite mistake was “Put the bread on the toaster” which sounds hilarious and cute. ---
**Author:** ![mmmbeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecb155/32.png) [@mmmbeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmbeer)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/43 "2012-09-13T19:06:06Z")
In Italian, there is a proverb, “I Fatti Maschii, Parole Femine”. The deeds masculine, the words feminine and the words themselves follow these genders. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/44 "2012-09-13T20:11:33Z")
> [@Pitchmeister](#): > > Nitpick FAIL fail (well, only a small one): _the leader of the leader_ would be _der Leiter des Leiters_. It only works with the masculine plural: _the leader of the leaders_. D’oh! At least the preceding sentence fragment suggests that I did _mean_ to say the right thing, which is that \*der Leiter der Leiter \*can mean ‘the leader of the leaders’. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/45 "2012-09-13T20:29:30Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Actually, there would be a slight difference in pronunciation between the two meanings, but yeah, it’s slight. And curiously enough, it doesn’t get marked ortographically. > > Él toca el violín y ella la viOla; he plays violin and she viola > Él toca el violín y ella la VIOla; he plays violin and she rapes her The lack of orthographic distinction for different pronunciations for different meaning is fertile ground for wordplay. Sign above school doorway: Girl’s Entrance Graffito over sign: They certainly do! God knows the richness in Chinese for such play. I’d love to have some explained to me. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/46 "2012-09-13T20:49:21Z")
> [@Pitchmeister](#): > > German - no. I can’t think of any joke that relies on switching gender, and native speakers do not get genders wrong - there are rules to it, so it’s not that hard. Believe it or not, once in awhile native speakers do get the gender wrong. A few months ago I was listening to Deutschlandfunk, which is sort of like the German analog to NPR in the United States. At one point, I heard the newsreader correct himself on the gender of _Sport_, which of course means the same thing as in English. I was quite surprised by that, and would have bet my life it couldn’t happen until I heard it. I do agree the rules will help you determine the gender of a noun in the overwhelming majority of cases, but doesn’t anyone ever trip up on the exceptions? For instance, in geography most river names are feminine, but many of those names look more like masculine or neuter nouns, e.g. _die Weichsel_ and _die Oder_. (“the Vistula” and “the Oder”.) ---
**Author:** ![sco3tt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@sco3tt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sco3tt)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/47 "2012-09-13T21:24:29Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > God knows the richness in Chinese for such play. I’d love to have some explained to me. It certainly can yield humorous results when [carelessly translated to English](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005195.html). ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/48 "2012-09-16T08:59:28Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > I heard this in music school; I don’t remember from which Spanish-speaking country the guy was who told it to me: > > _El toca el violín, y ella la viola._ > > He plays the violin, and she the viola. > He plays the violin, and rapes her. > > (“La” is feminine article as well as third-person feminine pronoun; viola is the singular verb for “violar,” rape, as well as of course the noun for viola.) A very music school male joke. :smack: The way I put it is just a dig at technique. A common enough burn in music school, but the joke that was told to me (I internally PC-ed it) is: Ella toca el violín, y el la viola. She plays the violin and he rapes her. (Only one feminine object, so joke is clear.) ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2012, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/49 "2012-09-16T11:56:46Z")
An old joke (that doesn’t quite meet the OP’s requirements, because it is not IN the relevant language but ABOUT it). A visitor to the Gaeltacht is learning Irish. In a restaurant in the evening, he wants to show off what he has learned that day. Pointing at a fly, he says “an cuileog”. The waiter corrects him, saying “an c **h** uileog, sir, it’s feminine”. The customer exclaims, “well by god, son, haven’t you great eyesight!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489.md?page=2)