[Lexicog] Christmas puns

[Hayim Sheynin]

Dear Nick,

The Jews, especially in Ashkenazi tradition, use crackers during the
holiday Purim and also tell dirty jokes, mostly related to a biblical
figure of Haman (see
Book of Esther) and his house.
I suppose "droll" is (at least linguistically) an equivalent of German
Troll.
It is interesting, that in some dialects of Russian, e.g. in Vologda
dialect,
the word *drolia* [drolja] means "sweetie". This might be derived from
common Indo-European heritage.

Best,
Hayim

On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 5:18 PM, Nicholas Miller <
nick.miller at czech-translation.com> wrote:

> **
>
>
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> Very droll as we would say back home in the UK.
> Suitable for Christmas crackers, where jokes are typically droll (with an
> ironic intonation), though among these some are smarter than the average...
> Incidentally it's somewhat droll that one derived origin of 'droll' means
> 'a fat little man' (Middle Dutch), presumably rather an amusing one.
> Do any other nations/languages feature 'bad' jokes as a kind of tradition?
> The cracker is a fascinating thing, a bad joke, a naff hat and a crappy
> plastic toy with a little bang when you pull it. Where did such irony
> originate?
> Nick Miller
>
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 6:33 AM, Dr. Fritz Goerling <
> fritz.goerling at yahoo.de> wrote:
>
>    **
>>
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>> http://www.jokeschristmas.com/Christmas-Puns/
>>
>> **
>>
>>
>   
>
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