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Turkish Weddings

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 4:28 pm
by Stargzer
Rig for punning running!

From Mike Causey's columns:

2007-01-11 (last page)
The Nearly Useless Factoid

In days gone by, Turkish bridegrooms had to promise that they would always provide their new wives with coffee. If they didn't, it was (brace for punning speed) grounds for divorce.

2007-01-14 (last page):
And from Stanley at VA comes of another Turkish wedding tradition. "They consider opals bad luck as wedding gifts. You give your bride diamonds, emeralds or rubies, but..." (brace for punning speed again) "in Istambul they can't stand an opal."

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 4:31 pm
by Perry
:roll: :P :roll:

Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:41 am
by gailr
"The Ottoman Empire, full of furniture for some reason."
- Eddie Izzard

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 3:03 pm
by Cacasenno
"The Ottoman Empire, full of furniture for some reason."
- Eddie Izzard

Vizirdy

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 10:31 pm
by Bailey
full quote
So in Europe, we had empires. Everyone had them - France and Spain and Britain and Turkey! The Ottoman Empire, full of furniture for some reason. And the Austro-Hungarian Empire, famous for xxxx all! Yes, all they did was slowly collapse like a flan in a cupboard.
—Eddie Izzard, British comedian and actor on the Ottoman Empire

mark previously-unaware-of-the-show-but-knew-of-Izzard Bailey

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 11:42 pm
by gailr
I think Circle is his all-time best, but really, I liked them all. The transcripts* lose all the physical comedy, but they're an introduction.

The are clips of him doing his act, in France, in French. Idioms and puns do not translate well, not even between related languages, so I must doff my chapeau to him. It's entertaining when he slips Latin, French, German (and language instruction) into his routines.
I’ve done a bit of Latin in me time, but I can control it, you know.
WARNING: he cheerfully and liberally uses a couple Bad Words.

*Menu: The Stuff > fun stuff > transcripts for the others

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 6:54 am
by Cacasenno
Apparently I was too far off the mark with my intended pun.

The unanswered question in the joke is: how come the Ottoman Empire had so much furniture? (:lol: that was funny, by the way)

My intended answer: possibly by magic i.e. wizardy. Or rather, being the Ottoman Empire, VIZIRdy.

No good, was it?! :(

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 10:38 am
by Perry
Ottoman
1585, from Fr., from It. Ottomano, from Ar. 'Uthmani "of or belonging to Arabic masc. proper name 'Uthman," which in Turk. is pronounced Othman (see Osmanli), name of the founder of the dynasty and empire. Ending alt. in It. by formation of a new false singular, because -i was a pl. inflection in It. Byron used the more correct form Othman, and a few writers have followed him. The type of couch so called (1806) because one reclined on it, which was associated with Eastern customs (see couch).
I thought the whole point of The "Ottoman Empire, full of furniture for some reason." was that it was full of ottoman couches.

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 10:51 am
by Cacasenno
Ottoman
1585, from Fr., from It. Ottomano, from Ar. 'Uthmani "of or belonging to Arabic masc. proper name 'Uthman," which in Turk. is pronounced Othman (see Osmanli), name of the founder of the dynasty and empire. Ending alt. in It. by formation of a new false singular, because -i was a pl. inflection in It. Byron used the more correct form Othman, and a few writers have followed him. The type of couch so called (1806) because one reclined on it, which was associated with Eastern customs (see couch).
I thought the whole point of The "Ottoman Empire, full of furniture for some reason." was that it was full of ottoman couches.
Quite so. And that was an easy one for me since we call that type of couch an "ottomana"

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 4:57 pm
by Stargzer
...
I thought the whole point of The "Ottoman Empire, full of furniture for some reason." was that it was full of ottoman couches.
Quite so. And that was an easy one for me since we call that type of couch an "ottomana"
I would have thought that was fuel from Heaven for Perry's ottomobile when he was wandering in the desert ...

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2008 4:02 am
by gailr
Apparently I was too far off the mark with my intended pun.

The unanswered question in the joke is: how come the Ottoman Empire had so much furniture? (:lol: that was funny, by the way)

My intended answer: possibly by magic i.e. wizardy. Or rather, being the Ottoman Empire, VIZIRdy.

No good, was it?! :(
Au contraire, est il bon. I'm sorry I missed it the first time.
Quite so. And that was an easy one for me since we call that type of couch an "ottomana"
Well, mana is a Maori-derived word for inner magic...

Gzer! You are a card and you should be dealt with.

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2008 7:05 pm
by Bailey
well, the ottoman furniture pun seems so typical of Eddie Izzard I wonder if he ever needed a writer. I am sorry I have so few of his quotes available. I did want to chew all the juice from that one......

off-the-mark bailey

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 1:48 pm
by Stargzer
Apparently I was too far off the mark with my intended pun.

The unanswered question in the joke is: how come the Ottoman Empire had so much furniture? (:lol: that was funny, by the way)

My intended answer: possibly by magic i.e. wizardy. Or rather, being the Ottoman Empire, VIZIRdy.

No good, was it?! :(
Oh, I caught that the first time! It was good.

I remember in high school our biology teacher, Fr. Mike, talking about how in the monestary they had someone reading aloud from the lives of the saints during meal times. One time the reader was reading from the life of a martyr and read the passage "Saint So-and-So was held before a flaming brazier." Unfortunately, Fr. Mike said, the guy had mispronounced it as brassiere. This brought up an entirely different image in the late 1960s. :shock:

Stargzer suspects the poor soul wasn't even given a booby prize for his reading ...

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 2:01 pm
by Stargzer
... I would have thought that was fuel from Heaven for Perry's ottomobile when he was wandering in the desert ...
It's really bad when you make a pun and don't realize it. I don't speak German other than "Ein Bier, bitte! Danke!" but I did remember an episode of Combat! in which Claude Aikens played a Germain soldier posing as an American and used the word otto to mean fuel, claiming that it was a slang term used in his outfit. They finally figured out he was the spy. I just looked it up and otto means petrol.

Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 8:14 am
by Cacasenno
Au contraire, est il bon.

J'apprécie le bon esprit.

Thanks, IOU