A Side-Effect Of Learning Chinese - Bad Puns

I now understand why my dad (who was a linguist) used to make so many bilingual puns. A word or phrase that sounds similar to a word or phrase from another language tends to leap out at you all the time, and it doesn't require a very sophisticated sense of humour to construct some wordplay around them. Presto! Dad jokes that span languages.

Check these out.

1. 皮鞋 píxié means "leather shoes". And of course, it's pronounced "pee-shee-ay", not "pixie", but the pīnyīn spelling does suggest something else.

2. This isn't really a pun, but I was struck by how similar the phrases for "go to sleep" were in Mandarin and Hindi.

3. Here's popular Indian chef Sanjeev Kapoor holding up a plate of roast chicken and inviting his viewers to eat.

4. I must confess that after starting to learn Mandarin, I cannot see the English word "women" without wanting to pronounce it "wǒmen". 我们 wǒmen means "we" or "us", as discussed in an earlier post.

A single word that conveys sisterhood and solidarity

5. The word 饿 è (pronounced "ugh!" and meaning "hungry") inspired this.

6. The words 别 bié ("don't") and 看 kàn ("look", "see", "read") when put together, sound a bit like a container of alcohol.

7. A play on the word 其他 qítā ("other", "the rest"), which sounds like "cheetah".

8. It's important to save face in Eastern cultures. If you grow a beard (耏 nài in Mandarin), a barber (नाइ nai in Hindi) can help you remove it and literally gain face.

9. I'd learnt that the words for various siblings were 哥哥 gēgē ("older brother"), 弟弟 dìdì ("younger brother"), 姐姐 jiějiě ("older sister"), and 妹妹 mèimei ("younger sister"), but that the word for "siblings" was 兄弟姐妹 xiōngdì jiěmèi, not 哥弟姐妹 gēdì jiěmèi. I then learnt that 兄 xiōng was another word for "older brother", and that 兄弟 xiōngdì meant "brothers" (literally "older brother-younger brother"). Knowing that 熊 xióng meant "bear" and 熊猫 xióngmāo meant "panda" (literally "bear cat"), my mind immediately leapt to the Russia-China relationship.

10. I wonder why I hadn't thought of this before. 不 bù means "no" or "not". That would be a really ironic answer to the question, "Do ghosts exist?"