There's a famous joke about the game and I'm not sure I get it. Can you help? It might seem funny, but I need this information for a paper I'm wrighting!!!

Here's how the joke goes:

A guy from Marseille is stuck for months on a desert island when finally a raft comes along with a woman aboard. She turns out to be from Marseille herself (the accent of course) and after offering him pastis and saucisson and whatnot that she has with her in her survival bag. The guy is amazes and aux anges . Then she asks him how long it has been since he saw a woman. pardis, 6 months he says. So she comes closer and asks in a sweet voice if it would please him to tirer (shoot?) and he exclaims you haven't also bought the boules have you?

The part I don't get is wether she's actually asking him to play, or wether tirer in french might mean something else and he doesn't even think about it so avid is he to play.
If she really is asking him to play (and not something else), why is she?
Does tirer have a different meaning I don't know of?

Dear Stig,

Whilst I agree that purely local news and results are best served by local web sites, petanque.org has offered a really useful service for matters of wider interest to all players.

I hope that you will be able to continue this service.

Regards,

Ray Ager

This is a very old French joke of which there are several versions. Tirer means shoot in all its various meanings, and if you can't work it out I suggest you give up petanque and take up women - or, depending on your gender and proclivities, men!

L S wrote:
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There's a famous joke about the game and I'm not sure I get it. Can you help? It might seem funny, but I need this information for a paper I'm wrighting!!!

Here's how the joke goes:

A guy from Marseille is stuck for months on a desert island when finally a raft comes along with a woman aboard. She turns out to be from Marseille herself (the accent of course) and after offering him pastis and saucisson and whatnot that she has with her in her survival bag. The guy is amazes and aux anges . Then she asks him how long it has been since he saw a woman. pardis, 6 months he says. So she comes closer and asks in a sweet voice if it would please him to tirer (shoot?) and he exclaims you haven't also bought the boules have you?

The part I don't get is wether she's actually asking him to play, or wether tirer in french might mean something else and he doesn't even think about it so avid is he to play.
If she really is asking him to play (and not something else), why is she?
Does tirer have a different meaning I don't know of?

I've added the version I know of this to the Brighton & Hove www.pavilion.co.uk/petanque Jokes page.

I haven't heard the Tirer version. I'm not aware of Tirer having any different connocations to the English To Shoot but will ask a player from Marseille who just happens to be living and playing in Brighton.

P.S. Stig, is there any easy way to include html links in messages, or signatures, such that people don't have to retype addresses?

Hi all

We'll do our best to keep the news coming, but the specific results of small tournaments are defenitely out.

More interesting news about more general events such as the wolrd championship etc. will still appear here of course!

stig bordsenius
petanque.org


ray ager wrote:
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Dear Stig,

Whilst I agree that purely local news and results are best served by local web sites, petanque.org has offered a really useful service for matters of wider interest to all players.

I hope that you will be able to continue this service.

Regards,

Ray Ager

What other versions have you heard of?
I would be grateful for your help. Thank you.


Ray Ager wrote:
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I've added the version I know of this to the Brighton & Hove www.pavilion.co.uk/petanque Jokes page.

I haven't heard the Tirer version. I'm not aware of Tirer having any different connocations to the English To Shoot but will ask a player from Marseille who just happens to be living and playing in Brighton.

P.S. Stig, is there any easy way to include html links in messages, or signatures, such that people don't have to retype addresses?

Well, it seems that they were right about petanque players!

First of all I am NOT a petanque player (so I needn't give up the game to take up men or women).
As I have already said, this is about a paper, to be more explicit, the paper is about translating, and I'm wrighting on how it's not easy to translate the atmodfere from one language to the other. I thought this joke was a good example, since once it is translated and you loose the Marseille accent, and the culturally related notions such as pastis , and tirer don't mean anything in other langauages, all the atmosphere is lost along with it.
OK? Just wanted to know if tirer meant anything else than what it means in the game (which, by the way, I know: alors, je tire ou je pointe? ).
Does the woman want to make love or something (a meaning of tirer I haven't ever heard of) and the guy is so marseillais that all he can think of is to play petanque.
Or ýs she also so marseillaise that after asking such a question as it must have been a long time since you haven't seen any women she asks if he would like to play (because all she can think of is also petanque). So, which will it be?
And do you have better versions?



Charles Clarke wrote:
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This is a very old French joke of which there are several versions. Tirer means shoot in all its various meanings, and if you can't work it out I suggest you give up petanque and take up women - or, depending on your gender and proclivities, men!

Sorry, Lapis, if I may call you that! I did not mean to be phallocrat. I also translate, and I know, as you do, that one starts with the literal translation and works outward, getting further and further from the words until one arrives at the sense of it. Tirer may, in this context, means that the Marseillais draws out his something. It matters not: I know what the joke means and that is enough. And why on earth does an intelligent non-petanque-player get involved in this somewhat specialist website?

L S wrote:
------------------------------------

Well, it seems that they were right about petanque players!

First of all I am NOT a petanque player (so I needn't give up the game to take up men or women).
As I have already said, this is about a paper, to be more explicit, the paper is about translating, and I'm wrighting on how it's not easy to translate the atmodfere from one language to the other. I thought this joke was a good example, since once it is translated and you loose the Marseille accent, and the culturally related notions such as pastis , and tirer don't mean anything in other langauages, all the atmosphere is lost along with it.
OK? Just wanted to know if tirer meant anything else than what it means in the game (which, by the way, I know: alors, je tire ou je pointe? ).
Does the woman want to make love or something (a meaning of tirer I haven't ever heard of) and the guy is so marseillais that all he can think of is to play petanque.
Or ýs she also so marseillaise that after asking such a question as it must have been a long time since you haven't seen any women she asks if he would like to play (because all she can think of is also petanque). So, which will it be?
And do you have better versions?



Charles Clarke wrote:
------------------------------------

This is a very old French joke of which there are several versions. Tirer means shoot in all its various meanings, and if you can't work it out I suggest you give up petanque and take up women - or, depending on your gender and proclivities, men!