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LOL!Quote:
Originally Posted by strannik
The accidental joke isn't really translatable, but it's sort of analogous to this vintage advertisement:
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3238/2...691ed733c9.jpg
(Петушки is the name of a town in the Moscow region, but the slang word петушки -- literally "small roosters" -- is more or less equivalent to US English "faggots." So Петушки голосуют за Путина! can be interpreted either as "The town of Petushki votes for Putin" or "Fags vote for Putin.")
I didn't know that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Throbert McGee
What's funny in this picture?
This advertisement was from Britain in the very early 20th century. The slogan "Have you a little Fairy in your home?" was a play on words -- it meant either "Есть ли у вас дома немного мыла марки «Fairy»?" or "Есть ли у вас дома маленькая фея?"Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus
However, in modern US English slang, "Have you a little fairy in your home?" would be understood as something like "Есть ли у вас дома маленький гомик?" ("Fairy" is a somewhat rude slang term for a male homosexual, but it's less rude than "fag".) And if I'm not mistaken, "гомик" is a rude word, but sounds mild in comparison with "пидор".
P.S. Even today, the "Fairy" brands of soaps/detergents are rarely sold in the US, because the name sounds Too Gay. But when I lived in Moscow in the early 1990s, you could buy imported British мыло для посуды under the trademark «Ultra-Fairy» Washing-Up Liquid. To American ears, this sounded incredibly hilarious -- something like "Ультра-Гомик"!
Блин, как теперь посуду мыть Т_Т
I just remembered a rather similar example...Quote:
Originally Posted by Throbert McGee
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...hite_menbo.jpg
"Одноразовые ватные тупферы" (English: "disposable cotton swabs") were first sold in the US -- beginning in the early 1920s -- under the trademark "Baby Gays", believe it or not!
Within a few years (sometime before 1930) the trademark was lengthened to "Q-Tips Baby Gays" (the "Q" stood for "quality"). By the end of the 1930s, the "Baby Gays" part had been dropped and the brand has been known to this day as "Q-Tips." (And in US English, "Q-tip" is widely used as a generic term for "одноразовый тупфер", just as "to Xerox" is often heard as a synonym for "to use a photocopying machine.")
However, "gay" in the sense of "homosexual" is most likely a neologism from (approximately) the WW2 era, and even then, it was very obscure slang that was heard only within the small гомосексуальное подполье of American cities like New York and San Francisco. And this slang sense probably remained completely unknown to most heterosexuals until, perhaps, the late 1960s.
In short, although the name "Baby Gays" sounds extremely funny today, it could not possibly have had the slightest bit of homosexual meaning back in the 1930s when the manufacturer of "Q-Tips Baby Gays" decided to change the product's brand-name. (I read somewhere that the name was actually changed because of a trademark lawsuit -- a much smaller company was already selling infant shoes under the trade-name "Gay Babies"! So, possibly, it was an example of a small business attempting to get some fast money by suing a larger and richer company for "infringement.")
LOL!Quote:
Originally Posted by pushvv
Again, I'm reminded of similar examples from advertising:
В 1960-ых годах, шведская компания Electrolux продавала свои пылесосы в Великобритании с рекламным девизом "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux". (Дословно "Ничего не сосёт эффективнее, чем Electrolux", а в американском слэнге, "Ничего хуже чем Electrolux нет.")
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Lq7qMGHkuU...lectrolux.jpeg
И вот пакета лапши "быстрого приготовления" (анг. -- "a package of instant noodles") из Ямайки:
http://www.mabox.co.uk/system/upload...e_CockSoup.jpg
As the joke goes, "The English-speaking world is made of many different countries separated by a common language."))))
I'm not sure if this is true in Britain or Australia, however. But if you are in need of a small stick with cotton on the end to clean the snot out of a baby's nose (for example) I can guarantee that 100% of Americans and Canadians will understand the question "Excuse me, do you have a Q-tip?"Quote:
And in US English, "Q-tip" is widely used as a generic term for "одноразовый тупфер"
Looks like more and more regular words are involved to the sphere of tabooed concepts. The same tendency is in Russian.
LOL! (I think that "со всякой фигнёй" is pretty close to English "with all sorts of random crap.")Quote:
Originally Posted by Lampada
В чём прикол первой картинки?
Ahaha, it looks exactly like Paul G. (well, like his avatar)!!!! :ROFL:Quote:
Originally Posted by Doomer
And the comic strip itself is hilarious.
What is the point of this joke?Quote:
Originally Posted by pushvv
All blacks seem to whites similar?
Spring has come to Sakhalin, Russia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycuL3wtzwBw
