iRabbit

February 8, 2025 @ 9:30 am · Filed by under Accents, Humor

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There are a number of videos in this series, some of them several years old, but I don't think we've been exposed to them yet on Language Log.  They are quite hilarious and linguistically sophisticated, so it's worth listening to at least one.

For me, the most remarkable things about this skit are the equanimity of the customer service representative (CSR) and his intelligent efforts to train the iRabbit to adapt to the French gentleman's English accent.  It's a riot. 

Now I've got to listen to the one on British English (BBC, Queen's English), Italian, Russian, Texan (Trumper vs Woke Techie)….  

Stop watching these or you'll miss the Super Bowl.

 

Selected readings

 

February 8, 2025 @ 9:30 am · Filed by under Accents, Humor


16 Comments

  1. Victor Mair said,

    February 8, 2025 @ 4:28 pm

    Many more on their main page: https://www.youtube.com/@Moontajska

    And this one is excellent: When a FRENCH Couple meets a CHINESE Couple
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwaatAAmmr8

    LOL! LOL!

    nice shoulders!!!!

  2. Julian said,

    February 8, 2025 @ 5:54 pm

    Mandatory mention of the Burnistoun sketch involving the voice activated elevator:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbDnxzrbxn4&pp=ygUKYnVybmlzdG91bg%3D%3D

  3. tudza said,

    February 8, 2025 @ 7:27 pm

    I took French a long time ago, but I'm not sure I ever heard of the French Greek I

    In Spanish class, certainly came across that name.

  4. Arthur Baker said,

    February 10, 2025 @ 12:45 am

    I'm a native speaker of English, fluent in French, and have spent some long frustrating times on the phone to Indian call-centres. But I didn't find this remotely comical, let alone "a riot". Maybe I just don't understand Americans' sense of humour. It just seemed really dumb to me.

  5. Lucas Christopoulos said,

    February 10, 2025 @ 5:42 am

    Thierry La France is not bad too

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYUzklRmSjI

  6. Philip Taylor said,

    February 10, 2025 @ 5:53 am

    I wouldn't say I found it a riot, Arthur, and the appeal of some American humour (e.g., the television series Friends) is completely lost on me, but I certainly found the linked video amusing and went on to watch several more. As to Victor's "And this one is excellent: When a FRENCH Couple meets a CHINESE Couple https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwaatAAmmr8", I found that so amusing that I called in our French head chef and my Chinese-speaking wife to watch it together, and was stagged when my wife said "Well, I can't hear the difference between xī fù and xī fú " !

  7. Philip Taylor said,

    February 10, 2025 @ 9:17 am

    "was stagged" -> "was staggered". Hmmph.

  8. Kate Bunting said,

    February 10, 2025 @ 10:56 am

    I don't think it's a question of US versus UK humour, but whether or not you enjoy humour derived from the incongruous use of words and verbal misunderstandings (which I do, but I know some folks don't).

  9. Jarek Weckwerth said,

    February 10, 2025 @ 3:39 pm

    @ Kate Bunting: Maybe; I would be more inclined to think that people who find it completely tiringly unfunny (like myself) are likely to say that the joke goes nowhere new after the first "ello". It just continues to beat a dead horse for another four minutes after that. That's no way to do comedy because comedy requires surprise and unexpectedness ;)

  10. Jonathan Smith said,

    February 10, 2025 @ 5:45 pm

    Ohlord, the attempt to have the French guy mix up xī​fú '[Western-style] suit' and ​xí​fr̀ 'wife [of one's son], daughter-in-law' falls totally flat for, among other reasons, the usual one: it turns out that to sell punny jokes about bad pronunciation you have to have good pronunciation :D Cf., if you must, the awkward variations on "whiteguy mixes up shuǐ​jiǎo '[boiled] dumpling' and shuì​jiào 'sleep [with (you?)]'"

  11. Philip Taylor said,

    February 11, 2025 @ 3:56 am

    I am intrigued, Jonathan, as to why you wrote "whiteguy mixes up shuǐ​jiǎo '[boiled] dumpling' and shuì​jiào 'sleep [with (you?)]'". Could not such a mistake be equally made by a person of any colour and/or of either sex ? All that is necessary, surely, is for the speaker to (a) be not fluent in Mandarin, and (b) have a poor ear for tones, possibly even Krishna Bagadiya himself …

  12. Jonathan Smith said,

    February 11, 2025 @ 8:37 pm

    Hi Philip, In theory what you say is true; I refer to a particular meme misunderstanding which tends to have a specific shall we say sociocultural framing (note the French couple / Chinese couple skit such as it is above features the same framing.) In reality such misunderstandings are vanishingly rare, in part because the mispronouncer can't pronounce (e.g.) 'sleep' any better than they can 'dumpling' let along a full sentence containing the target word, and they and their interlocuters just stumble along on the basis of pragmatics or gestures or what have you.

  13. Philip Taylor said,

    February 13, 2025 @ 5:57 am

    Thank you Jonathan, all understood. Incidentally, I have never really understood the meaning of "meme" in contexts such as this (the word is not in my idiolect, although I can partially understand it when others use it) so I have finally invested in a copy of The Selfish Gene (and ordered a copy of The Blind Watchmaker at the same time) in the hopes of finally getting to grips with what the word implies.

  14. Jarek Weckwerth said,

    February 13, 2025 @ 9:02 am

    @Philip Taylor: I'm afraid you will be disappointed. The usage of meme that Jonathan Smith talks about is only loosely associated with Dawkins's idea. But you can consult a dictionary of your choice to find the definition you need, e.g.:

    Collins, sense 2

    which reflects the OED's sense 2:

    "An image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by internet users, often with slight variations. Also with modifying word, as internet meme, etc."

    And Wikipedia, of course, links to its entry for Internet meme from its entry on the Dawkinsian meme:

    Wikipedia

  15. Philip Taylor said,

    February 14, 2025 @ 6:37 am

    Thank you Jarek. I do appreciate that the meaning of "meme" has mutated since Dawkins first used the term, but I felt that if I understood its original meaning I might better understand how it is typically used today.

    Incidentally, as I lay in bed last night I pondered the "gene" family. "In the beginning", of course, was Genesis, from the Latin genesis, itself from the Greek γένεσις. "Genesis" is attested (in Old English) around 1000 AD, "genetics" is attested from 1872, but "gene" itself only appears in 1909. One might naïvely have thought that "gene" would have given birth to its derivatives "genetics" and "genesis", but the converse is clearly the case.

  16. Entretien ménager Longueuil said,

    February 16, 2025 @ 11:31 am

    It's quite funny. Here in Quebec, we are surrounded by the English language. And I sometimes see similar situations. What's a little sad is when an English speaker tries to speak French, we do everything to help them. The reverse is very rare.

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