OT: terribly bad joke to share

[MaxGunz]

Some time in the past, perhaps when Oleg was just in school:

A Russian couple walks down a street in Moscow when the man feels a drop hit his nose.
"I think it's raining," he says to his wife.
"No, that feels like snow to me, dear," she replies.
Just then, a minor communist party official walks towards them.
"Let's not fight about it," the man says. "Let's ask Comrade Rudolph whether it's officially raining or snowing."
"It's raining, of course" Comrade Rudolph says and walks on.
But the woman insists, "I know that felt like snow."
To which the man quietly says, "Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear."

[Alien]

I thought it would be black humor

[SaQSoN]

Huh? It's probably funny, but I just don't know where to laugh...

[KG26_Alpha]

Almost as bad as the Washing up liquid one...............

BTW: Official Joke thread is here >

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=31613

[Treetop64]

Nice. That's one of those jokes that must be read, and not said.

[Luno13]

Originally Posted by SaQSoN

Huh? It's probably funny, but I just don't know where to laugh...

There's a well-known song in the US called "Rudolph the red-nose reindeer". The joke is a pun and sounds the same.

[sniperton]

Originally Posted by Luno13

There's a well-known song in the US called "Rudolph the red-nose reindeer". The joke is a pun and sounds the same.

Uuuh, thanks for the clarification. I'm releived. Now I see why it's called a 'joke'.

[MaxGunz]

Originally Posted by SaQSoN

Huh? It's probably funny, but I just don't know where to laugh...

Sorry, I should have noticed. It is related to the Santa Claus story. A very old Northern European winter solstice tradition where gifts given are said to come from Santa. He has a sled pulled by reindeer that fly and in a new twist the lead reindeer is named Rudolph and has a red nose that shines brightly.
So you grow up in this culture, you know the song and learn it is all a game to get children to behave in order to get presents.
Very Capitalist, no? So here is irony that in Soviet Russia the sounds are said in completely different meaning.

Such plays on words and meanings help English speakers deal with a language that seems more exceptions than rules.

[MiloMorai]

The American Santa Claus is generally considered to have been the invention of Washington Irving and other early nineteenth-century New Yorkers, who wished to create a benign figure that might help calm down riotous Christmas celebrations and refocus them on the family. This new Santa Claus seems to have been largely inspired by the Dutch tradition of a gift-giving Sinterklaas, but it always was divergent from this tradition and was increasingly so over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. So, the American Santa is a largely secular visitor who arrives at Christmas, not the 6 December; who dresses in furs rather than a version of bishop's robes; who is rotund rather than thin; and who has a team of flying reindeer rather than a flying horse. At first his image was somewhat variable, but Thomas Nast's illustrations for Harper's Illustrated Weekly (1863-6) helped establish a figure who looks fairly close to the modern Santa. This figure was taken up by various advertisers, including Coca-Cola, with the result that he is now the 'standard' version of the Christmas visitor and has largely replaced the traditional Father Christmas in England.

http://www.arthuriana.co.uk/xmas/

[Luno13]

Originally Posted by MaxGunz

Sorry, I should have noticed. It is related to the Santa Claus story. A very old Northern European winter solstice tradition where gifts given are said to come from Santa. He has a sled pulled by reindeer that fly and in a new twist the lead reindeer is named Rudolph and has a red nose that shines brightly.
So you grow up in this culture, you know the song and learn it is all a game to get children to behave in order to get presents.
Very Capitalist, no? So here is irony that in Soviet Russia the sounds are said in completely different meaning.

Such plays on words and meanings help English speakers deal with a language that seems more exceptions than rules.

Don't be so quick to assume that Russians don't know about Santa. They just call him Father Frost, and he comes on January 7th, but it's the same basic idea with the same historic origin. Rudolph came about in the 40's I think, so it's understandably not a part of Russian culture.