Monday's Jokes

Below are what I consider to be the best of the jokes I have received in my email during the past week:


A mother was reading a book about animals to her 3 year old daughter.
Mother: "What does the cow say?"
Child: "Moo!"
Mother: "Great! What does the cat say?"
Child: "Meow."
Mother: "Oh, you're so smart! What does the frog say?"
And this wide-eyed little 3 year-old looked up at her mother and in her deepest voice replied, "Bud."


A carpet layer had just finished installing carpet for a lady. He stepped out for a smoke, only to realize he'd lost his cigarettes.

In the middle of the room, under the carpet, was a bump.

''No sense pulling up the entire floor for one pack of smokes,'' he said to himself. He proceeded to get out his hammer and flattened the hump.

As he was cleaning up, the lady came in. ''Here,'' she said, handling him his pack of cigarettes. ''I found them in the hallway.''

''Now,'' she said, ''if only I could find my parakeet.'


Cracking an international market is a goal of most growing corporations. It shouldn't be that hard, yet even the big multi-nationals run into trouble because of language and cultural differences. For example, observe the following examples below.

The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, "ko-kou-ko-le," which can be loosely translated as "happiness in the mouth."

In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" came out as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead."

Also in Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off."

The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, "Salem - Feeling Free," got translated in the Japanese market into "When smoking Salem, you feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty."

When General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova in South America, it was apparently unaware that "no va" means "it won't go." After the company figured out why it wasn't selling any cars, it renamed the car in its Spanish markets to the Caribe.

When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." However, the company mistakenly thought the spanish word "embarazar" meant embarrass. Instead the ads said that "It wont leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."

An American t-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of the desired "I Saw the Pope" in Spanish, the shirts proclaimed "I Saw the Potato."


The British soldier serving in Hong Kong was annoyed and upset when his girl wrote breaking off their engagement and asking for her photograph back.

He went out and collected from his friends all the unwanted photographs of women that he could find, bundled them all together and sent them back with a note saying, "I regret to inform you that I cannot remember which one is you -- please keep your photo and return the others."


The cowboy lay sprawled across three entire seats in the posh Amarillo theatre. When the usher came by and noticed this he whispered to the cowboy, "Sorry, sir, but you're only allowed one seat." The cowboy groaned but didn't budge. The usher became more impatient. "Sir, if you don't get up from there, I'm going to have to call the manager. The cowboy just groaned.

The usher marched briskly back up the aisle. In a moment he returned with the manager. Together the two of them tried repeatedly to move the cowboy, but with no success. Finally, they summoned the police. The cop surveyed the situation briefly then asked, "All right buddy, what's you're name?"

"Sam," the cowboy moaned.

"Where ya from, Sam?"

With pain in his voice Sam replied: "The balcony."


"You are a cheat!" shouted the attorney to his opponent.

"And you're a liar!" bellowed the opposition.

Banging his gavel loudly, the judge interjected, "Now that both attorneys have been identified for the record, let's get on with the case."