11 ms·

I'm fascinated by this joke, but I have to admit, I don't get it.

by yosito 8y ago

cperciva 8y ago
The factory workers didn't know what the right word was for 5 fireplace pokers was -- only the forms for one or 2-4. So to avoid having to guess (and possibly getting it wrong) they made their request in a convoluted way. The bureaucrats didn't know what the correct plural form was either, so their reply is similarly odd.
resource0x 8y ago
relates to the topic of declension in Russian. In English, there's only 2 forms - e.g. 1 cookie, but N cookies (where N>=2). Imagine that for 3 cookies you would have something special again, like 3 cookises, and so on. In Russian, the word "kocherga" has quite intuitive forms for 1, 2, 3, 4, but when it comes to 5, our intuition breaks down, because the word is unlike any other, so it's difficult to reason by analogy. (This word is really a special case; normally, it's very easy to find the right ending). That's why they chose to put it as 3 kochergi+2 kochergi - just to be on the safe side (BTW, grammatically correct form would be "5 kochereg", which sounds really funny for a native Russian speaker)
hamstergene 8y ago
Basically, a lot of Russians have no idea how to say 5 pieces of kocherga. Factory workers think they can't spell it because they are just uneducated, but the reply they get suggests that the management has no idea either. Honestly, I couldn't say it myself before I looked it up when writing this reply, even though I've heard the joke before. The word is untypical.
- gcb0 8y ago
  what are the words? I'm curious but not knowing russian I have no idea how to even search for this
  - Symbiote 8y ago
    Just look the word up in a dictionary and find the declension box. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B3%D0%B0 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%8... So kočergá, kočergí, kočerjóg. English declension is so simple we don't include this information in a typical dictionary entry. ("Poker, pokers, poker's, pokers'")
    - tom_mellior 8y ago
      "Just" looking it up occurred to me too, but that table doesn't help if you don't also point out that for some reason it's entry for the genitive plural that we're looking for.
  - hamstergene 8y ago
    All Russians agree on this: 1 kocherga = одна кочерга 2,3,4 kochergas = две,три,четыре кочерги But then it gets ambiguous: 5 kochergas = пять кочерёг? 5 kochergas = пять кочерг? 5 kochergas = пять кочерыг? 5 kochergas = пять кочерег? All of those sound both correct and yet awkward. The first one is officially correct (and I have no idea why).
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  Is there any significance to the fact that management divided the pokers 4+1 instead of 3+2? If I was trying to gloss over the fact that I couldn't say "5 pokers", I'd be pretty happy to have the excuse to just match what it said on the requisition form. Something like "You requested 3 kochergi and 2 more kochergi. Here they are."
  - Muromec 8y ago
    >Is there any significance to the fact that management divided the pokers 4+1 instead of 3+2? Yes, that indicates that management processed two requests as one. If they would answer 2+3 that would mean they have not noticed what is going on.
pandaman 8y ago
Numbers ending with 2-4 (except for 12-14) put the noun in singular genitive case in Russian. 5-10, on the other hand, require a plural noun (also in genitive). Since plurality is not regular and plural cases are even less so, some people will have trouble with deriving the correct plural case for some words. Something similar to some English speakers sometimes being confused about plural for Greek and Latin origin words ("forums"/"fora", "viruses"/"virii" etc.).

I'm fascinated by this joke, but I have to admit, I don't get it.

by yosito 8y ago

I'm fascinated by this joke, but I have to admit, I don't get it.

The factory workers didn't know what the right word was for 5 fireplace pokers was -- only the forms for one or 2-4. So to avoid having to guess (and possibly getting it wrong) they made their request in a convoluted way. The bureaucrats didn't know what the correct plural form was either, so their reply is similarly odd.

resource0x 8y ago

relates to the topic of declension in Russian. In English, there's only 2 forms - e.g. 1 cookie, but N cookies (where N>=2). Imagine that for 3 cookies you would have something special again, like 3 cookises, and so on. In Russian, the word "kocherga" has quite intuitive forms for 1, 2, 3, 4, but when it comes to 5, our intuition breaks down, because the word is unlike any other, so it's difficult to reason by analogy. (This word is really a special case; normally, it's very easy to find the right ending). That's why they chose to put it as 3 kochergi+2 kochergi - just to be on the safe side (BTW, grammatically correct form would be "5 kochereg", which sounds really funny for a native Russian speaker)

hamstergene 8y ago

Basically, a lot of Russians have no idea how to say 5 pieces of kocherga. Factory workers think they can't spell it because they are just uneducated, but the reply they get suggests that the management has no idea either. Honestly, I couldn't say it myself before I looked it up when writing this reply, even though I've heard the joke before. The word is untypical.

gcb0 8y ago
what are the words? I'm curious but not knowing russian I have no idea how to even search for this
- Symbiote 8y ago
  Just look the word up in a dictionary and find the declension box. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B3%D0%B0 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%8... So kočergá, kočergí, kočerjóg. English declension is so simple we don't include this information in a typical dictionary entry. ("Poker, pokers, poker's, pokers'")
  - tom_mellior 8y ago
    "Just" looking it up occurred to me too, but that table doesn't help if you don't also point out that for some reason it's entry for the genitive plural that we're looking for.
- hamstergene 8y ago
  All Russians agree on this: 1 kocherga = одна кочерга 2,3,4 kochergas = две,три,четыре кочерги But then it gets ambiguous: 5 kochergas = пять кочерёг? 5 kochergas = пять кочерг? 5 kochergas = пять кочерыг? 5 kochergas = пять кочерег? All of those sound both correct and yet awkward. The first one is officially correct (and I have no idea why).
thaumasiotes 8y ago
Is there any significance to the fact that management divided the pokers 4+1 instead of 3+2? If I was trying to gloss over the fact that I couldn't say "5 pokers", I'd be pretty happy to have the excuse to just match what it said on the requisition form. Something like "You requested 3 kochergi and 2 more kochergi. Here they are."
- Muromec 8y ago
  >Is there any significance to the fact that management divided the pokers 4+1 instead of 3+2? Yes, that indicates that management processed two requests as one. If they would answer 2+3 that would mean they have not noticed what is going on.

pandaman 8y ago

Numbers ending with 2-4 (except for 12-14) put the noun in singular genitive case in Russian. 5-10, on the other hand, require a plural noun (also in genitive). Since plurality is not regular and plural cases are even less so, some people will have trouble with deriving the correct plural case for some words. Something similar to some English speakers sometimes being confused about plural for Greek and Latin origin words ("forums"/"fora", "viruses"/"virii" etc.).