National Variations
The "three nationalities" joke format is also very common in other countries. In these cases, the two foreigners are almost always portrayed as cocky, stupid, or naïve, while the favoured national is smart, practical and, ultimately, victorious.
- Such jokes in Canada usually substitute the supposedly stupid Irishman with Newfie (a sometimes pejorative term for someone who is from Newfoundland).
- in Turkey as "An Englishman, a Frenchman, and Temel (a fictional character from Black Sea Region of Turkey)...",
- in China as "A Chinese, an American and a Japanese",
- in Poland as "A Pole, a German and a Russian...",
- in Czech Republic as "A Czech, an American and a Russian...",
- in Russia as "A Russian, an American and a German (or a Frenchman, or an Englishman)..."
- in Scandinavia as "A Swede, a Dane and a Norwegian...",
- in Finland as "A Finn, a Swede and a Norwegian (or a Dane)..."
- In Sweden, the Bellman joke has this format: "Russian, a German and Bellman...", where Bellman was originally a real person, Carl Michael Bellman.
Read more about this topic: An Englishman, An Irishman And A Scotsman
Famous quotes containing the words national and/or variations:
“Any honest examination of the national life proves how far we are from the standard of human freedom with which we began. The recovery of this standard demands of everyone who loves this country a hard look at himself, for the greatest achievments must begin somewhere, and they always begin with the person. If we are not capable of this examination, we may yet become one of the most distinguished and monumental failures in the history of nations.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“I may be able to spot arrowheads on the desert but a refrigerator is a jungle in which I am easily lost. My wife, however, will unerringly point out that the cheese or the leftover roast is hiding right in front of my eyes. Hundreds of such experiences convince me that men and women often inhabit quite different visual worlds. These are differences which cannot be attributed to variations in visual acuity. Man and women simply have learned to use their eyes in very different ways.”
—Edward T. Hall (b. 1914)