It was disconcerting for 2 reasons. The first was she was German and telling a joke.

The second was I don't know her, she was quite pretty and was using this to practice her English.

What do you call the fatty bit around the clitoris?

Your wife.

and she doesn't even know my wife!

😐

it wasn't a joke, she was coming on to you.

Excellent thats just been emailed round to a few mates.

Please thank her for me.

was her english good enough to understadn what she was saying?

Giles Wemmbley-Hogg did a cracking trip to Germany with a great bit on German humour on of his shows.

I always thought the punchline was "a nurse"
but then I did have a very bad upbringning 😳

That is probably why you wanted to be a doc, DocRobster

Isn't this derived from the "what's the useless bit of skin at the end of a penis?" joke?

The fatty bit around a clitoris? A myth!

what is this "clitoris" thing you're all talking about?

😉

Yay – another Giles Wemmbley Hogg fan. There's more than one of me!

what is this "clitoris" thing you're all talking about?

you may laugh, but a friend told me her husband never found it in 20 years of marriage (despite looking) 🙁

Q: What's the difference between a pub and a clitoris?
A: A man can always find his way to the pub.

you may laugh, but a friend told me her husband never found it in 20 years of marriage (despite looking)

Yeah right.

simonfbarnes – Member

what is this "clitoris" thing you're all talking about?

you may laugh, but a friend told me her husband never found it in 20 years of marriage (despite looking)

Did you volunteer SFB? Or would her husband take offence by given directions? 😀

Thing is they get hooked on you…and yes there are loads of women who still don't know. They need saving of course! LOL

was her english good enough to understadn what she was saying?

All fo the germans I've met have spoken english far better than a large percentage of the english people I know! The german sense of humour is funny, once you understand it.

why didn't she just tell him where it was? she's only got herself to blaim

grievoustim – Member
why didn't she just tell him where it was? she's only got herself to blaim

She did:

He was never seen again…

That joke is as good as my favourite Oz one.

Australian foreplay – "You awake, love?"

Australian foreplay – "You awake, love?"

and they normally don't even bother with that

The german sense of humour is funny, once you understand it.

mmmm…. i might disagree with you there. i've been here for almost 2 years and speak fluent german. the jokes are different. they rely on word play an awful lot. things that do get a good laugh are generally very obvious.

despite the phrase schadenfreude coming from the german language it isn't something they apply very often. i'm generally the only one laughing when someone falls off their bike, down the stairs or trips on the pavement.

life here is very rigid compared to that in the UK. you can't call a copper a 'copper' or address someone you don't know/ holds a higher position than you using the informal 'du' form of you. 'sie' is the prefered term.

when out on a ride with riding mates (as opposed to proper friends) there is no piss taking 'banter' to be heard.

they'll piss themselves silly watching 'dinner for one' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1v4BYV-YvA) despite the fact it's shit (IMO). they'll start crying once they realise my name is james, just like the butler! oh, it never wears thin.

amongst the younger folk, many watch british comedies and laugh, but i get the feeling they don't know why. watched an episode of the inbetweeners with a couple of mates and they said it was too 'krass'. same has been said of the peepshow.

miserable feckers.

Peepshow is tame!

simonfbarnes – Member

what is this "clitoris" thing you're all talking about?

you may laugh, but a friend told me her husband never found it in 20 years of marriage (despite looking)

Bl00dy hell Barnesy – I know you're not one to recognise the act of 'trespass' much and leading a ride down an 'illegal' footpath is one thing, but showing another bloke where his own wife's clematis lives is taking a bit of a liberty I reckon… 😯

I would like to make it very clear that I am in no way related to Giles Wemmbley-Hogg.

😉

Bizzare Alpin – plenty of banter and giggles with the two German students I've worked with and a few I've spoken to on the phone, though I've never been over to Germany to live so no idea how they are there.

Where in Germany are you Alpin? My German colleagues from Henningsdorf (old East Germany, near Berlin) have all had a serious humour bypass – unlike the guys from Bavaria, who're very funny.

why didn't she just tell him where it was? she's only got herself to blaim

she was inexperienced and didn't know (till shown) either!

' or address someone you don't know/ holds a higher position than you using the informal 'du' form of you. 'sie' is the prefered term.

note that English is so formal that the 'thee/thou/thine' form is effectively defunct!

Where in Germany are you Alpin? My German colleagues from Henningsdorf (old East Germany, near Berlin) have all had a serious humour bypass – unlike the guys from Bavaria, who're very funny.

I think there's quite possibly some strength to this argument. I knew lots of Germans at uni, even lived with a couple for a year or so, and just about all of them were about as funny as watching paint dry! All of them from the Northern half of Germany though I might add…

My best friend at uni, a girl called Emma, is half German, half English, she has a very sharp sense of humour. But even though she's hardly ever lived in England (parents travelled the world for work), it's very typically English. Watching her with her German friends, she was very much more restrained than she would be with me, and found totally different things funny depending on her company. Maybe it's a language thing?

That said, an ex GF of mine lives in Bavaria, where she assures me she's got a load of mates that are a right laugh, and they take the piss out of her regularly…

Used to know a few Austrians a few years back, now they had good senses of humour! Or maybe it was just cos the butt of 90% of their jokes were the Germans… Who knows! 😉

Just meeting a girl who tells you that joke though… Hmmmm… Bit odd! I very much doubt she understood the humour behind it, cos to be honest that's the kind of joke that even I (with my very offensive sense of humour at times!) would make to someone I knew very well and understood that they'd see the funny side and not take offense in advance.

Austrians 🙂

Now they can be British type funny.
As one of my business contacts from Austria says "we're like Germans but with a sense of humour". That in itself says a lot.

I'm in Germany almost every week & have some German mates who are funny but in a quite different way to Brits.
I can still have a giggle but have to be prepared for alternative humour.

I was in Finland a while back and said that the Finns were like the Germans without the sense of humour. My Finnish colleague replied

'Yes, that is true. That was a joke I think too?'

Totally without any sense of irony or even a smile. Like a conversation with MArvin the paranoid Android from Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy

you may laugh, but a friend told me her husband never found it in 20 years of marriage (despite looking)

was this friend your wife?

Germans can't banter? I've got a German housemate who is a runner. I was teasing him about my being faster than him, and he replied "yeah, but i'd beat you in a fistfight".

was this friend your wife?

no 🙂

"yeah, but i'd beat you in a fistfight".

He was offering you out!

i'm in northern bavaria, up near the old east/west border.

an english mate of mine who also lives out here agrees that austirains are simply germans who have learnt to be cool.

i've spent lots of time in munich; it's the GF's home town. the people are said to be friendlier than elsewhere but they are also more conservative when it comes to religion.

the german language doesn't often allude to confusions or double entrendres (sp?) due to it's rigid grammatical structure.

gags about our bodily functions don't go down well, either.

humour tends to be confined to set times: late night TV; carnival (which is IMO shit); beer festivals (which are better); and when anyone who might be offended isn't present (which is most of the time).
there is a saying "zuerst kommet der arbeit, danach die Vergnügen" (first comes work, then pleasure/enjoyment) and it is true. once at work you are there to work. not to have a chat and a laugth with colleagues. was on a building site once and had a conversation in german along the lines of
-"what are you up to this evening.
"building a bed"
-"who for?"
"me"
-"you should have said for the ladies"
"ha! ja for the ladies…… but it's a 'dickes' (fat/big) bed"
-"do you only f&ck big woman"
"nein"

he didn't talk to me for the rest of the day as he thought i was taking the piss out of him. well, i was, but still.

you won't find many german stand-up comedians along the lines of Ross Noble. generally they rely upon seriousness as a means of humour. taking an ironic look or a light-hearted tone at a subject as most brits/english speakers would is seen as being un-dignified, or crass.

you shouldn't, for example, pass a witty comment about a conductor whose movements make it look like he's mixing a salad. it's likely to be taken that you are disrespecting this person of position, his talents and his efforts to get to where he is now and therefore making a fool of him.

they'll then take you to task "why is it necessary to make a witty remark about him, when it disrespects him?" and you'll have to explain that you are indeed enjoying the concert, but thought you'd say something funny 'for a laugh'. then you'll realise you're standing on the ridge of a cutural divide.

you can of course 'verarsch' (take the piss) out of the conductor if he's doing bad job. (schadenfreude).

there is also the thing of self-respect/dignity. no german wants to make a fool of himself or to lose face.

the GF was somewhat shocked upon meeting my family at christmas for the first time. didn't help when she found one of my aunts hanging onto the toilet bowl, another dancing with her tits out. and it's been known to get a lot worse.

ah, don't make religious jokes here. don't inply that tge pope is a nazi or that being a peado is the minimum requirement for being in the preist-hood. doesn't go down well amongst a strictly catholic group. they even pay kirchesteuer (church tax) if their parents enter them as being 'of faith' on their birth certificate.

generally, life in germany is taken very seriously. those that you do meet and are able to laugh with are usually those that have spent some time abroad. my GF is half german (but lived here all her life) and we met in Australia.

the british sense of humour is one of the reasons i keep coming onto STW. so keep it up.

gags about our bodily functions don't go down well, either

I thought the epitomy of German humour was the fart joke ??