Heartland

What do you get if you cross the Queen and Prince Philip?

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Killed in a tunnel.

Ooft !

My English are not so good to understand that particular joke.
Can someone polite tell me the nature and structural set of this one and analyze something that it is unfamiliar to me please?

The joke's structure relates to a common English humourous narrative device. "What do you get when you cross a [x] and a [y]?" For example,

What do you get if you cross a kangaroo with a sheep?
A woolly jumper.

To cross something with something else implies cross-breeding - in this instance, the sheep is wooly, and the kangaroo jumps. A "woolly jumper" is common English parlance for a knitted woolen sweater.

There is a second meaning here as well - to cross someone means to annoy them or make them angry. This is the meaning used here - so the joke asks, "what do you get if you make the Queen (in this case, Her Britannic Majesty Queen Elizabeth II) and Prince Phillip (the queen's husband) angry?"

The answer, "dead in a tunnel" is a reference to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, who was killed in a car accident in Paris in 1997.

The joke sets up as the standard "what do you get if you cross...", leading the listener to believe that it will follow the standard pattern. Perhaps in this case one might think that the punchline would relate to Greece's current economic problems, since Prince Phillip is a member of the Greek royal family.

So the joke works on a number of levels. First, it baits the listener by leading them into a narrative with which they are already familiar. The punchline, "killed in a tunnel", is a surprise, and plays on the popular conspiracy theory that the crash which killed Diana was not an accident, but rather was engineered by the Royal Family to get rid of her, since she'd made no secret of her dislike of them.

"Gallows humour", making light of something which would normally seem tragic or unfunny, is a popular comedic device in England, particularly when it involves the death of a well-known person. An example of this would be:

What's the difference between Ryan Giggs and Ayrton Senna? (Ryan Giggs is a well-known English football player, Ayrton Senna was a Formula One motor-racing driver)

Answer: Ryan Giggs can take corners (Ayrton Senna was killed while driving around a corner on a motor-racing circuit; "to take a corner" is also a phrase that applies to football).

Hope this helps

markfiend wrote:What do you get if you cross the Queen and Prince Philip?

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.

.

Killed in a tunnel.

EvilBastard wrote:The joke's structure relates to a common English humourous narrative device. "What do you get when you cross a [x] and a [y]?" For example,

What do you get if you cross a kangaroo with a sheep?
A woolly jumper.

To cross something with something else implies cross-breeding - in this instance, the sheep is wooly, and the kangaroo jumps. A "woolly jumper" is common English parlance for a knitted woolen sweater.

There is a second meaning here as well - to cross someone means to annoy them or make them angry. This is the meaning used here - so the joke asks, "what do you get if you make the Queen (in this case, Her Britannic Majesty Queen Elizabeth II) and Prince Phillip (the queen's husband) angry?"

The answer, "dead in a tunnel" is a reference to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, who was killed in a car accident in Paris in 1997.

The joke sets up as the standard "what do you get if you cross...", leading the listener to believe that it will follow the standard pattern. Perhaps in this case one might think that the punchline would relate to Greece's current economic problems, since Prince Phillip is a member of the Greek royal family.

So the joke works on a number of levels. First, it baits the listener by leading them into a narrative with which they are already familiar. The punchline, "killed in a tunnel", is a surprise, and plays on the popular conspiracy theory that the crash which killed Diana was not an accident, but rather was engineered by the Royal Family to get rid of her, since she'd made no secret of her dislike of them.

"Gallows humour", making light of something which would normally seem tragic or unfunny, is a popular comedic device in England, particularly when it involves the death of a well-known person. An example of this would be:

What's the difference between Ryan Giggs and Ayrton Senna? (Ryan Giggs is a well-known English football player, Ayrton Senna was a Formula One motor-racing driver)

Answer: Ryan Giggs can take corners (Ayrton Senna was killed while driving around a corner on a motor-racing circuit; "to take a corner" is also a phrase that applies to football).

Hope this helps

Evil this was more than i could ever imagine i can get. Your text was precious and enlightened me the maximum

Now i can understand yeap that is a good one and the one with Giggs was excellent too

Minor nit-pick: Ryan Giggs played international football for Wales, so he probably wouldn't call himself "English".