Q. What's the difference between the Italian Mafia and the Glasgow Mafia? A. The Italian Mafia make you an offer you can't refuse, whereas the Glasgow Mafia make you an offer you can't understand
S3V3N13TT3R5 One of my favourite Stephen Fry meltdowns on QI is him yelling at Rich Hall "BECAUSE IT WAS DISCOVERED IN NINETEEN, NINETY, FUCKING FOUR!" When Rich asks about why no songs have been written about the alleged second moon orbiting the earth.
True I looked it up there arn't. the other objects that "orbit the earth" actually orbit the sun and just happen to have a similiar orbit of the sun as earth..so it appears as if there following or orbiting earth but are not moons since they orbit the sun not earth and just happen to appear to orbit us
The first time I ever met an Australian, I was working at a grocery store in Amsterdam. This guy - wearing shorts in october and walking around barefoot, I might add - walked in and asked me if we sold "igs". I told him: I'd love to tell you, but I'm afraid I don't know what igs are. This seemed to confuse him terribly, and the poor man had to describe them to me... but the problem was that he kept pronouncing it like igs and he was particularly unimaginative with his descriptions: "ya know mate... igs.. like fried igs, boiled igs" and as much as I wanted to tell him "dude, that doesn't help me at all", I had to stay polite. I didn't get the message until he started making literal chicken noises. Luckily chickens in Australia don't have that thick of an accent or he may have starved to death in our store.
Lol this feels like a spin off of the lyrics from Downunder by the Men at Work: Buying bread from a man in Brussels He was six-foot-four and full of muscle I said, "Do you speak-a my language?" He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
Two similar Scottish jokes... Q. What's the difference between Saddam Hussein and Walt Disney? A. Saddam has a mustache and Walt Disney. Q. A man asks a baker "Is that a lemon pie or a meringue?" A. The baker replies "Yer no wrang, it's a lemon pie." Never said they would be funny jokes...
Took me a second, but I got the second joke. I genuinely find it funny. Can't figure out the Walt Disney one. I assume 'Disney' in a Scottish accent sounds something like 'doesnt he' or something. Even though that's not grammatically correct, I assume it basically sounds like some form of way to say 'he doesnt'.
Mikeoneus Ah, I see now, right on. It's all well and good to be living in Canada, I love this country, particularly my home island of Newfoundland, but it'd be interesting to see what it's like to live in the UK as my ancestors 150-200 years ago did. They probably would have gotten the joke right away... well, if you told them who Saddam and Walt was in the first place lol
NormanMatchem I can tell you they wouldn't have gotten it at all. It doesn't work. Walt Disney did have a moustache, as you probably know, which contradicts the joke.
Hey, I'm american, and would like to get a little better understanding of the UK. I've heard before references to being from the north or south, in a pejorative tone. What's the implication to being from the north or south? Also, what's a geordie?
That isnt actually how it goes with him, if you read any of his books he talks about his depression and anxiety mainly over past mistakes and feeling like he made himself look like a fool, this fear has led to suicide attempts
I absolutely cannot imagine there is ever any circumstance in which Stephen Fry has looked like a fool to anyone besides himself. I, on the other hand, manage that roughly 6 times daily. It doesn't seem fair that the most capable people are also the most insecure. But maybe that's why they're so capable.
It would seem that it is simply common across any human capable of self-examination to have self-doubts. Only the hardcore narcissists and egomaniacs seem to be missing this.
@@blackbird5634 Well, I HAVE heard it called that before! I wonder if it comes from the same root as "cunnilingus"?? :D :D And I have used the word "canny" myself, my mother's folks coming from the north-east of England. Only they use the word to mean "sweet" rather than "cunning" as the Scots do. Many a time I was called "a canny little bairn"!
one my dad told me - posh teacher asks the kids in a Sunderland school to name a biblical king. After a few moments of dead silence, he points at a kid sat twiddling his thumbs. The kid sighs and says, "ne bugger kna, sir." The teacher nods and says "very good!"
@@stevensibbet5869 Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. (The name is alternatively transliterated as Nebuchadrezzar, but you need the traditional -nezzar to work with the joke's "…kna, sir".)
I absolutely adore though how Stephen is so intellectually confident that he doesn't have to pretend to get the joke, he's quite happy to ask if he doesn't understand it. If only more people weren't so stubborn or determined to be right and had some humility, a lot of problems could be fixed
Or he knew perfectly well what he was getting into and just wanted to tell in a convoluted way to those people that they're uneducated in their own native tongue.
@@doesyomamaknowtho1468 wow someone's a little grumpy 😂 Also a bit desperate to interpret something as a joke which clearly isn't. P.S. it's "buzz-killing", "i.e." and "heads"✌️
Yorkshire Man’s dog dies and he goes to a statue makers to get a gold one made in his memory. The statue maker asks: “Do you want it eighteen caret?” The man replies “no I want it chewin’ bone ye daft bugger”
"war/wor" is a homophone of the Danish, slightly old-fashioned "vor/vore" (singular/plural), which means exactly that: "our". Conversely, even though the Danish use the article "en/et" (one/a), northwestern provincial coast dialects often use "a" like the English, like so: (en hund)a' hund - a dog/hound, (et hus) a' hus - a house, etc. It's said that the Danish fishermen used to able to sell their fish along the English shores and communicate in their native language, and places like Newcastle would be exactly were they'd land.
Fun fact: in Danish the definite article goes at the end of the noun, so hund (dog) goes to hunden (the dog), which also goes to hundene (the dogs). :)
I LOVE the fact that Stephen thought that the punchline of the joke had something to do with a "wardroom" and that everybody but him got the joke. As if everybody but him would get a wardroom-related joke. Sorry for my bad english, but i hope i got my point through.
@@magillanz The original joke was that "our" sounds like "war" in a Newcastle dialect, so the soldier heard "they've got our drums", thinking they'd been stolen
Poor Stephen was born 200 years too late - he would have made a fantastic colonist / Colonial Governor Apart from being completely ignorant of their culture, he would have been loved by all as a truly fair and rational human.
I was talking to somebody from Berwick about a club he had joined. He said, “I’ve joined the motor neurone club.” I thought “oh the poor guy” until he said “yeah we went on a bus to Ben Nevis”.
My mother once thought a Geordie was speaking Norwegian to her. We were waiting to get on a boat to Norway to be fair, but having watched an episode or twelve of Byker Grove, my brother and I fell off our seats laughing. He was only trying to ask for the time...like.
@Thomas Nichol They actually first landed in East Anglia, and then conquered York. Yorkshire and the East Midlands are the areas most heavily settled by Vikings, with Northumberland being comparatively ignored. Weird when you consider Northumberland, and North East accents and dialectics in general are the most Scandinavian in England.
@@ScootsMcDootson not true the first raid on england by vikings was Lindesfarne of the coast of Northumbria. Northumbria was not ignored as the story goes the sons of ragnar conquered most of england starting with the death of King Aelle of Northumbria. Also both Halfdan Ragnarson and Erik Bloodaxe ruled here
That is brilliant, I thought I'd seen every ep of QI, but that had escaped me 'til now. Love it, Stephen is so effortlessly funny. It does sound like 'Ward Rooms', I'm an ex Naval Officer and it wasn't even the first thing I thought of! I'd love to spend a day in Stephen Fry's brain, the world must be a plethora of baffling, yet marvelously enticing linguistic opportunities. He's SO endearing with it tho. Thanks for posting. :-D
My family comes from Newcastle, and when I went to visit just last year, I had very much the same problem. Half the time I was spent just smiling and nodding.
@@Godzirra-San Interesting, I grew up 20 years in Sunderland (next to Newcastle, similar dialect*), and then moved to Cumbria. Immediately I found Cumbrian to be much more flat and easy to understand than Geordie
It's because our languages come from a common ancestor. We Geordies say "Gan hyem" for go home, Danes say "Gå hjem", and Norwegians say it very similarly. Our vocabulary has a lot more Scandinavian words than it does Latinate ones, and southerners tend to use more Latinate words. I'm proud to be a Geordie for our strong connections with Old English and Scandinavian languages :)
Wait, so the reason it sounds like "war drums" when they say "our drums" is because they kept a more Scandinavian version of "vores" or "vor" for "vor drums"?
With the dialectal variation in Germany, I feel like most Germans would understand your example, too. Reminds me of another example. Well long ago, I watched a video of a Scottish friend lifting an atlas stone. His buddies were shouting "stand up now" but it sounded sth like ... well I just realised I couldn't phonetically type that in English but to me it sounded 100% like a Low German saying the exact same thing (as far as I can tell as someone who doesn't speak Low German).
The Irish Viking it’s because for so much of history small communities had less interaction so they developed their own accents. When Australia was colonised it was a time where travel was becoming much easier so there was more interaction between different regions so fewer accents developed.
@@Lucy-ng7cw I feel like that doesn't happen with other languages though That might just be my lack of familiarity with them though and the languages I am familiar with are spelt and said phonetically so not easy to get multiple accents with a speaking guide built into the language
The Irish Viking I do not speak any other languages so I cannot say but I know Arabic has many dialects some which can’t even understand each other, German also - Swiss German can be hard to understand. I think having standardised spelling probably helps but for much of history most couldn’t read anyway. Italian, Norwegian and Spanish all have many dialects. Chinese also has many dialects but their writing system is not phonetic so they could fit your hypothesis well.
@@Lucy-ng7cw I'm learning Japanese which is phonetic but I'm no where near good enough for everyday use yet My current level is helpful in watching anime sometimes though
Fussbudget the Ninth In some places in Canada you have to travel hundreds of miles before you even come across another human being. In some places there are so few people they share the false teeth. Dinner can last for hours.
Yes, we generally say "Hyem" for home in Newcastle (some say yem too), and yes it is directly related to Danish-Norwegian "Hjem", (and sometimes actually spelled the same) and another cognate.... The pronunciation used in Newcastle is the "Old English" version though. There are many other examples. :)
Love the accent and, yes, I can understand it, but I’m lucky I’m from the North West. I do need subtitles for anyone down South as I cannot understand a word they’re saying.
Comics and mimics use certain phrases to get themselves into particular accents. A good one for getting into Geordie is "The pay claim was back dated eight days."
Honestly, that's the very one that I'm the most sick of... I'd much rather watch the one where Sandi has the little sailboat where "it's something about the wind"...
Back in the 1990's I had a drinking buddy from Newcastle, the more he drank the less I understood what he said. Great guy. Introduced me to Newcastle Brown Ale.
***** If you ever think about coming up North, I'd suggest getting the hang of telling geordies and mackems apart beforehand. Unless you dislike your face, of course ;)
***** Geordies pronounce our like war and the guy said that they're playing war drums, he then said them thieving bastards... Get it... War is Our in Newcastle
I love accent jokes. They are tricky to write as they are meant to be heard, but I'll try one I like: An Australian soldier goes to Europe for WW1 and reports to a British commander. The commander looks at him and says: "Did you come here to die?!" The Australian soldier replies: "No, I came here yesterday". In the Australian accent 'to die' sounds like 'today'. 'Yesterday', sounds like 'yester die'. :p
That's an old joke, so old that it's in an episode of Dad's Army, when Mainwaring and Wilson are sitting in the basement of the bank holding a bomb and Mainwaring tries to lighten the mood. Cracked me up first time I heard it.
Steve Howe Haha that is exactly it! I'm from the Southeast US and this is not difficult to understand at all. I suppose y'all have so many special accents you think no one outside of the UK can understand them, but honestly it's not hard to understand this!
I think it's basically because Scandinavian languages have something in common with old English, and Geordie is basically the most similar to how everyone used to speak in England. While the rest of England softened their vowels, Geordies resisted the change.
@@heliotropezzz333 exactly right Helen , Geordie , a mixture of Scandinavian , Northumbrian , and Anglo Saxon . Strong Viking , influence in the northern accent . Bairn , barn . Hyem , home . Etc , etc , all Scandinavian .
Cunnae = Canny which is northern slang for nice, cute, good, pleasant, etc. So he basically said "phones make a cool noise" A bit unrelated but funnily enough I just wanted to be sure I wasn't getting it mixed it with bonny but google uses a near identical example for the words being "She's a canny lass" and "A bonny lass" and man that was playing tricks with my head.
@@amiakat I have sincerely never heard this in real life (I'm from Teesside and York so quite bit south of Geordieland) nor can I find anything like that on the internet. It can mean "quite" but that's not the same thing as "a lot" it'd be more "canny amount a noise". Your definition would fit what he's saying though
@@amiakat No I have heard canny many times but not in the exact grammatical context you're describing. I only mentioned where I'm from in case it is an especially Geordie use of the word
Stephen Fry actually has a fascination with language and accents so he'd probably be more curious than appalled. The accent has been around for a long time.
I used to work in a pub where a few locals were Geordies and I'll give Stephen some leeway; it took me a couple shifts to understand what they were on about.
Andy Wardle I'm from Wigan, Lancashire and trust me, the majority of it is called Heaton. It's as common as mud. However, I grew up at the other end of the country in Cornwall.
my dad is from down south and when he moved up north, he couldn't understand how so many young blokes he worked with were getting "war" pensions! classic!
the initial joke is a grammatical one in that allan is using grammar as a play on words for the plant 'fern' and the name of one of the hosts of the show children in need 'ferne cotton' so when stephen asks 'do you know anything about ferns' (the plant), allan responds 'ferne's what?' (the person). the first part of phil jupitus' joke is that he uses geordie slang 'they make a canny noise like' ('canny' can sometimes be used in context to mean 'a lot' as well as a play on words where 'ferns' is spoken in such a way that it should sound like 'phones'). the second joke about the soldier is that the general says 'they've got WAR DRUMS' in reference to the sound being made, but in geordie terms it can be said 'they've got WOR DRUMS' where 'wor' is a geordie term for 'our' making it seem like the enemy in this story has stolen the 'war drums' from the side of the soldier and the general.
I am a descendent of General Custer...I can't believe there is a Geordie joke with him in it. I'm impressed with the knowledge of American historical figures.
I found the banter between these guys just brilliant - aside from poking fun at eachothers regional differences with dialect and accent, i think England has such a rich variation that it should be enjoyed. I'm Canadian so i have been exposed to alot of BBC programming in my youth so i auctually found this all very interesting. If we were all the same it would be pretty boring i think ;)
I think context and intent is very important when thinking about these jokes, if it is lighthearted and meant to be "we all have a unique way of speaking and the difference barrier makes it interesting and funny" like in this clip, its okay. If its "hahaha you speak funny and need to learn to speak better" its not.
@@ShougoAmakusa It's mainly about not having a chip on your shoulder. Stephen even says "well they must go to school, it's just ridiculous, I'm sorry - not good enough!" An ignorant person might take offense to that, but the joke is fine because of the understanding of the need to be able to take a joke; one or two people full of bitterness choosing to take it as a personal slight would not make it so.
where i live in the the north east of england i could sit in a pub with people from four diffferent towns within 5 miles from where i live and they will have completely accents ,obviously someone not from our area would not know the difference.
@@gonkheed :grins: I had a similar experience when I first moved out of my parents and struck out into the world ... moving all of eight miles :eek: ... and, as I was moving into the little terrace I was going to rent, one of the new neighbours came along to say hello. I didn't understand what he said. At first I thought I hadn't heard him properly because I was distracted with unloading boxes and so on. So I said the obligatory "I'm sorry?". He spoke again and I *was* listening this time ... no joy. "Sorry, I didn't hear you; must be the traffic. Say again?". Third time unlucky. And that left us in *that* territory ... neither of us knew what to do or say ... and he just went back to his house :D. I realised at this point that I was in another land where people didn't speak English! I'd moved from a country town in Staffordshire to the city of Stoke and in that short hop the accent and dialect changed so much it was incomprehensible to me :O. My ear soon adapted because it did turn out to be English they spoke after all but I remember the shock to this day :lol:.
Growing up, I'd see the Gulf war on the news often. They'd mention Saddam Hussein, and because was raised in Jarrow, I used to think Hussein was "who's sayin'". I wondered why he was always saying something good enough to be shown on the news.
I had a similar thing with the recession when I was little, because they would always be talking about fannie mae on the news but there's also a midwestern chocolate company called fannie may and I was always confused why a confectioner chain was such an important economic indicator
I'm danish, got a Geordie mate who pronounces "house" as "hus" and I was like "dude do you realize you're using the danish word for house"? :D He didn't but it's quite funny pointing out to him when i hear something you lot probably got from my ancestors. :) One thing you definately didnt get from us is that whole thing where you say "us" when you mean to say "me". That's just confusing sometimes. ;)
Interesting. There's some other Scandanavian influences in the North East of England. Geordies sometimes use the word "hyem" or "hjem" for "home", and the word "bairn" for "child" is used throughout the North East and also parts of Scotland. Both words have Danish origins, i think.
@@NosyFella Tbh the whole English language is largely of Scandinavian influence since the Angles and Jutes came from Denmark. And then the Vikings happened so there was a second round of Scandinavian influence.
I find it fantastic that even after he'd had it explained to him, Stephen didn't seem to make the connection that 'wor' is just in a different dialect rather than actually a substitute word. :)
"Oh Pudsy, make him stop," may be my favorite line of the show ever.
Why, that's bescheuert.
But it should be downgraded somewhat seeing as Phil jupitus said it
@@strawberrykicker2 Why though? Jupitus has some of the best lines. I was crying along with Stephen with the child buffing workshop one.
@@nervesconcord "It's not theeeeeeeerrrre." is a personal favourite of mine. "Miraaaaaaaaaaggge." Funny shit.
"well i do confess myself defeated" is also a great line but only mr.fry can pull that one off
Rich Hall is like "What language are these people speaking?"
i have seen rich hall live, as he does tours all over england, i am pretty sure he is more clued up about an newcastle accent than stephen is
"is like"
So is Stephen!
If only Rick had seen Snatch.
"I thought this country spawned the fucking language, and so far nobody seems to speak it."
He's lived there for years. He knows whats going on, as he said in one episode "I've been here for (x) years, I know what a quid is."
As a non native english-speaker, took me 2 years to completely understand this video.
I'm so proud of myself
Well, Stephen Fry is a native English speaker, and if he wasn't told , he'd be lost too. Lol
I m proud of you as well bonny lad... wi' a geet barra full of love from Newcastle. Xxx
@@moiragoldsmith7052 Don't confuse the poor bairn
@@mattnar3865 🤣 xx
You did well! ㅋㅋㅋ
Q. What's the difference between the Italian Mafia and the Glasgow Mafia?
A. The Italian Mafia make you an offer you can't refuse, whereas the Glasgow Mafia make you an offer you can't understand
LMAO
Just like the Chinese Godfather.
Check out “Comfort and Joy (1984)” Bill Forsyth’s movie about ‘crime families’ fighting over territory in Glasgow. Hilarious.
Chinese Godfather rip off smh
give you some fried marsbars
"What the fuck are these people talking about?" - Rich Hall
Which Moon?
S3V3N13TT3R5
One of my favourite Stephen Fry meltdowns on QI is him yelling at Rich Hall "BECAUSE IT WAS DISCOVERED IN NINETEEN, NINETY, FUCKING FOUR!" When Rich asks about why no songs have been written about the alleged second moon orbiting the earth.
There are two moons?
True I looked it up there arn't. the other objects that "orbit the earth" actually orbit the sun and just happen to have a similiar orbit of the sun as earth..so it appears as if there following or orbiting earth but are not moons since they orbit the sun not earth and just happen to appear to orbit us
+crunch9876 That "sentence" actually made me nauseous..
The first time I ever met an Australian, I was working at a grocery store in Amsterdam. This guy - wearing shorts in october and walking around barefoot, I might add - walked in and asked me if we sold "igs". I told him: I'd love to tell you, but I'm afraid I don't know what igs are. This seemed to confuse him terribly, and the poor man had to describe them to me... but the problem was that he kept pronouncing it like igs and he was particularly unimaginative with his descriptions: "ya know mate... igs.. like fried igs, boiled igs" and as much as I wanted to tell him "dude, that doesn't help me at all", I had to stay polite. I didn't get the message until he started making literal chicken noises. Luckily chickens in Australia don't have that thick of an accent or he may have starved to death in our store.
New Zealandan by the sounds of it
Cephalonimbus Did they say they were Australian or did you guess because I have a feeling they were a newzealander?
@@Lucy-ng7cw If he asked for sex igs he was a kiwi.
'Luckily chickens in Australia don't have that thick of an accent' nearly killed me.
Lol this feels like a spin off of the lyrics from Downunder by the Men at Work:
Buying bread from a man in Brussels
He was six-foot-four and full of muscle
I said, "Do you speak-a my language?"
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
Two similar Scottish jokes...
Q. What's the difference between Saddam Hussein and Walt Disney?
A. Saddam has a mustache and Walt Disney.
Q. A man asks a baker "Is that a lemon pie or a meringue?"
A. The baker replies "Yer no wrang, it's a lemon pie."
Never said they would be funny jokes...
Took me a second, but I got the second joke. I genuinely find it funny. Can't figure out the Walt Disney one. I assume 'Disney' in a Scottish accent sounds something like 'doesnt he' or something. Even though that's not grammatically correct, I assume it basically sounds like some form of way to say 'he doesnt'.
NormanMatchem If I understand, you can substitute Disney for didnae (did not) because they rhyme.
Mikeoneus Ah, I see now, right on. It's all well and good to be living in Canada, I love this country, particularly my home island of Newfoundland, but it'd be interesting to see what it's like to live in the UK as my ancestors 150-200 years ago did. They probably would have gotten the joke right away... well, if you told them who Saddam and Walt was in the first place lol
NormanMatchem I can tell you they wouldn't have gotten it at all. It doesn't work. Walt Disney did have a moustache, as you probably know, which contradicts the joke.
***** Oh, I didn't know he did, I don't really know what he looks like, I just grew up with his movies
"Listen, they've got wor drums..." "Tha thievin bastards!" :3
Now I get it
our*
Lol, I was as stuck as Stephen with the war drums.
+Evi1M4chine
"War drums" = "Our drums"
+Phil K
If your going for the outrage complex, the first part of your diatribe completely destroyed your argument.
mug
Andrew Caldwell and who the fuck are you sunshine?
Fuck off Miguel. Go stack some shelves.
Hey, I'm american, and would like to get a little better understanding of the UK. I've heard before references to being from the north or south, in a pejorative tone. What's the implication to being from the north or south?
Also, what's a geordie?
This is like a masterclass in linguistic comedy.
James Thomas 100th thumbs up
They be like a bunch cunny linguists, hey pudsey
Nonsense.
@@corriedebeer799 canny
No it isnt, his newcastle accent is terrible. Nobody talks like that up here. Maybe middlesborough but even then its shit
"I do admit myself defeated there", love how comfortable Stephen is in his own skin that he just admits if something goes over his head!
That isnt actually how it goes with him, if you read any of his books he talks about his depression and anxiety mainly over past mistakes and feeling like he made himself look like a fool, this fear has led to suicide attempts
I absolutely cannot imagine there is ever any circumstance in which Stephen Fry has looked like a fool to anyone besides himself. I, on the other hand, manage that roughly 6 times daily. It doesn't seem fair that the most capable people are also the most insecure. But maybe that's why they're so capable.
It would seem that it is simply common across any human capable of self-examination to have self-doubts. Only the hardcore narcissists and egomaniacs seem to be missing this.
Xezlec, couldn’t Stephan’s example be an indicator that maybe you, too, sell yourself short?
Making fun of one's self is a common English pass time.
"They make a canny noise, like."
"I beg your pardon? But cunny means the female pudenda!"
hahaha
I got that too! As if anyone ever called it that!! What the hell is he thinking?
@@blackbird5634 Well, I HAVE heard it called that before! I wonder if it comes from the same root as "cunnilingus"?? :D :D And I have used the word "canny" myself, my mother's folks coming from the north-east of England. Only they use the word to mean "sweet" rather than "cunning" as the Scots do. Many a time I was called "a canny little bairn"!
@@CathyKitson I am thusly informed, thank you.
Thank you for the translation, had to read it to know he meant "Canny" not "Cunny"
The hell does ‘canny’ mean?
one my dad told me - posh teacher asks the kids in a Sunderland school to name a biblical king. After a few moments of dead silence, he points at a kid sat twiddling his thumbs. The kid sighs and says, "ne bugger kna, sir." The teacher nods and says "very good!"
Can you explain this joke to me?
@@stevensibbet5869 Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. (The name is alternatively transliterated as Nebuchadrezzar, but you need the traditional -nezzar to work with the joke's "…kna, sir".)
Not as many people know the Bible this deeply anymore. I think my guess of 'Solomon' works, but I'm old and I know stuff. (24)
@@TheBcoolGuy you were born in 2000, you're not old 😂
@@knight_lautrec_of_carim My legs are grey and dented.
I absolutely adore though how Stephen is so intellectually confident that he doesn't have to pretend to get the joke, he's quite happy to ask if he doesn't understand it. If only more people weren't so stubborn or determined to be right and had some humility, a lot of problems could be fixed
What, like the leak in my kitchen sink?
Or he knew perfectly well what he was getting into and just wanted to tell in a convoluted way to those people that they're uneducated in their own native tongue.
"Well, they must go to school, it's just ridiculous"....... I died a little bit at that one.
He's not wrong.
@@anzaca1 he's being ironic and making fun of people who would actually react like that ... i.e. you.
@@Jay-jn6ul as opposed to the buzz killing spastics who need to explain one joke as another goes over their head.
I.e, you.
@@doesyomamaknowtho1468 wow someone's a little grumpy 😂 Also a bit desperate to interpret something as a joke which clearly isn't. P.S. it's "buzz-killing", "i.e." and "heads"✌️
@@Jay-jn6ul yo mama
"oh Pudsey, make him stop" XD
Almost started CRYING I was laughing so hard at that one.
Yorkshire Man’s dog dies and he goes to a statue makers to get a gold one made in his memory.
The statue maker asks: “Do you want it eighteen caret?”
The man replies “no I want it chewin’ bone ye daft bugger”
Nice profile pic
@@LewsterRedux It took a while for me to understand it, nice one
Yorkshireman goes to the vets with his cat. The vet says "Is it a Tom?" The Yorkshireman replies "No, I brought it with me."
@@TheSmart-CasualGamer you have to explain that to me
@@TheSmart-CasualGamer oh
"oh pudsey, make him stop!" love this bit, especially since phil almost genuinely sounds like he might cry or something lol
"war/wor" is a homophone of the Danish, slightly old-fashioned "vor/vore" (singular/plural), which means exactly that: "our". Conversely, even though the Danish use the article "en/et" (one/a), northwestern provincial coast dialects often use "a" like the English, like so: (en hund)a' hund - a dog/hound, (et hus) a' hus - a house, etc.
It's said that the Danish fishermen used to able to sell their fish along the English shores and communicate in their native language, and places like Newcastle would be exactly were they'd land.
Yes I was thinking that "wor" sounded similar to the Swedish "vår".
Fun fact: in Danish the definite article goes at the end of the noun, so hund (dog) goes to hunden (the dog), which also goes to hundene (the dogs). :)
WHU Forever Not in all dialects of Danish, which is my point.
Oh cool. Never knew that.
Også Sønderjylland..............or as I know it ´´Gods own land ´´. Bill.
Wor = our "Our drums"
NOW I UNDERSTAND THE JOKE! Thank you! Im from Denmark, Copenhagen :-)
This joke toke me years to understand :-D
Its you nordics fault that we in the North East speak this way - Dane law and the bloody vikings!!!
@janwilson9485 hahahaha! Im sorry, mate! 🇩🇰👍❤️🇩🇰👍🇩🇰
I LOVE the fact that Stephen thought that the punchline of the joke had something to do with a "wardroom" and that everybody but him got the joke. As if everybody but him would get a wardroom-related joke. Sorry for my bad english, but i hope i got my point through.
The only thing bad about your English was the lack of a capital E. 😉
I still don't get it
@@magillanz The original joke was that "our" sounds like "war" in a Newcastle dialect, so the soldier heard "they've got our drums", thinking they'd been stolen
I love Stephen's reaction at the end 'Well they must go to school, it's just ridiculous!' Fantastic man.
My God! You're so pretty!
And get their uniforms tailored by Gorringe's, like Stephen's. (Look that clip up)
Poor Stephen was born 200 years too late - he would have made a fantastic colonist / Colonial Governor
Apart from being completely ignorant of their culture, he would have been loved by all as a truly fair and rational human.
"In Newcastle, instead of 'our', they say 'war'." "Well, they must go to school, it's just ridiculous...!"
Wor not War
Yeah it's wor as in gan to see wor Debbie in the toon to have a few bevvies
NOW I UNDERSTAND THE JOKE! Thank you! Im from Denmark, Copenhagen :-)
@@dlf4542 blame your Norwegian cousins for our fucked dialect aha
@@dlf4542 don't apologise :)
Awesome. Love the bit where Fry loses patience and goes "well they must go to school, this is ridiculous".
Rich Hall is over there thinking "I guess I don't speak English at all. What the hell are they talking about."
"Listen, they've got war/our drums." "The thievin' bastards!"
I was talking to somebody from Berwick about a club he had joined. He said, “I’ve joined the motor neurone club.” I thought “oh the poor guy” until he said “yeah we went on a bus to Ben Nevis”.
My mother once thought a Geordie was speaking Norwegian to her. We were waiting to get on a boat to Norway to be fair, but having watched an episode or twelve of Byker Grove, my brother and I fell off our seats laughing. He was only trying to ask for the time...like.
@Thomas Nichol Your entire language has Scandinavian influences from the vikings.
@Thomas Nichol True.
@Thomas Nichol They actually first landed in East Anglia, and then conquered York. Yorkshire and the East Midlands are the areas most heavily settled by Vikings, with Northumberland being comparatively ignored. Weird when you consider Northumberland, and North East accents and dialectics in general are the most Scandinavian in England.
@@ScootsMcDootson Funnily enough we're somewhat East Anglians ourselves, haha!
@@ScootsMcDootson not true the first raid on england by vikings was Lindesfarne of the coast of Northumbria. Northumbria was not ignored as the story goes the sons of ragnar conquered most of england starting with the death of King Aelle of Northumbria. Also both Halfdan Ragnarson and Erik Bloodaxe ruled here
Bloke goes to a Geordie doctor and says -
'Doctor, under my armpit smells like coconut'
Geordie doctor says -
'Well, it's boun'ty'
One of my favorite clips of stephen fry. Cheers for the upload
That is brilliant, I thought I'd seen every ep of QI, but that had escaped me 'til now. Love it, Stephen is so effortlessly funny. It does sound like 'Ward Rooms', I'm an ex Naval Officer and it wasn't even the first thing I thought of! I'd love to spend a day in Stephen Fry's brain, the world must be a plethora of baffling, yet marvelously enticing linguistic opportunities. He's SO endearing with it tho. Thanks for posting. :-D
My family comes from Newcastle, and when I went to visit just last year, I had very much the same problem. Half the time I was spent just smiling and nodding.
At least your relatives aren't Cumbrian... Holy shit.
@@Godzirra-San I'm cumbrian and I dont know what some people say half the time
@@Godzirra-San Interesting, I grew up 20 years in Sunderland (next to Newcastle, similar dialect*), and then moved to Cumbria. Immediately I found Cumbrian to be much more flat and easy to understand than Geordie
@@Zerenko thats coz youre a mackem ...... not the brightest of folk :)
@ true! my bad
It's because our languages come from a common ancestor. We Geordies say "Gan hyem" for go home, Danes say "Gå hjem", and Norwegians say it very similarly. Our vocabulary has a lot more Scandinavian words than it does Latinate ones, and southerners tend to use more Latinate words. I'm proud to be a Geordie for our strong connections with Old English and Scandinavian languages :)
Wait, so the reason it sounds like "war drums" when they say "our drums" is because they kept a more Scandinavian version of "vores" or "vor" for "vor drums"?
Well said PET!
With the dialectal variation in Germany, I feel like most Germans would understand your example, too.
Reminds me of another example. Well long ago, I watched a video of a Scottish friend lifting an atlas stone.
His buddies were shouting "stand up now" but it sounded sth like ... well I just realised I couldn't phonetically type that in English but to me it sounded 100% like a Low German saying the exact same thing (as far as I can tell as someone who doesn't speak Low German).
language, common, ancestor, similarly, vocabulary, connections are example of word originating from latin. Most of your sentence uses latin words.
For a country the size of a cupboard England has an amazing amount of accents
Before anyone says it I'm Australian
The Irish Viking it’s because for so much of history small communities had less interaction so they developed their own accents. When Australia was colonised it was a time where travel was becoming much easier so there was more interaction between different regions so fewer accents developed.
@@Lucy-ng7cw I feel like that doesn't happen with other languages though
That might just be my lack of familiarity with them though and the languages I am familiar with are spelt and said phonetically so not easy to get multiple accents with a speaking guide built into the language
The Irish Viking I do not speak any other languages so I cannot say but I know Arabic has many dialects some which can’t even understand each other, German also - Swiss German can be hard to understand. I think having standardised spelling probably helps but for much of history most couldn’t read anyway.
Italian, Norwegian and Spanish all have many dialects.
Chinese also has many dialects but their writing system is not phonetic so they could fit your hypothesis well.
@@Lucy-ng7cw I'm learning Japanese which is phonetic but I'm no where near good enough for everyday use yet
My current level is helpful in watching anime sometimes though
Fussbudget the Ninth In some places in Canada you have to travel hundreds of miles before you even come across another human being. In some places there are so few people they share the false teeth. Dinner can last for hours.
Phil Jupitus, the only man who can reduce Stephen Fry to uncontrolled laughter, brilliant
Alan, Phill and Bill (Bailey) are all great mates in real life. Any QI episode with two of them is worth watching - but all three is gold.
My Cambridge certificate of proficiency in English as a foreign language did not prepare me for this video.
"Well they must go to school it's just ridiculous"
I love Stephen Fry!
Yes, we generally say "Hyem" for home in Newcastle (some say yem too), and yes it is directly related to Danish-Norwegian "Hjem", (and sometimes actually spelled the same) and another cognate.... The pronunciation used in Newcastle is the "Old English" version though. There are many other examples. :)
Corve for coal basket, korb in German. Bairn for child, barn in Norwegian.
Love the accent and, yes, I can understand it, but I’m lucky I’m from the North West. I do need subtitles for anyone down South as I cannot understand a word they’re saying.
Comics and mimics use certain phrases to get themselves into particular accents. A good one for getting into Geordie is "The pay claim was back dated eight days."
Who would win? An Oxbridge-educated gentleman or one Geordie boi
An argument? A fist-fight? A drinking contest?
@XL3NN0N Down the Bigg market they're regularly all the same thing.
Pigeons, ferrets,whippets, owt else?
@The Normal One the whippet won crufts. I missed out flat caps and hobnailed boots, haha, Durham Lad.
@@geoffwheadon2897 Leeks.
The best part of all this was the final few seconds of the video, his face just like
"Fuck me, I can't understand ANY of you half the time"
Walked into a hairdresser and asked for a perm.
"I wandered as lonely as a cloud"
#Ashington101
Jeeez...one of my favourite jokes of all time. Xxx
HAHA. I just saw this comment. I had to say it out loud to get it. I ugly laughed out loud.
I don't get it, help, please!
@@mistrallle perm// poem
@@belladingdong3396 thank you
Geordie has much of its roots in the Scandinavian languages and can sound quite similar to them at times, which probably helps!
Oh pudsy make him stop...............one of the funniest damn lines ever
Rich also seems pretty baffled at the end there lol
Never before have I thought someone could truly be cursed with intelligence
Geordie is my favourite British accent of all. Oddly, I seem have less trouble understanding it than most British people do.
Female Pudenda... How many people can I baffle with that phrase...?
Chilliard2000 much niser than the male pudenda.
Chilliard2000 I had never heard the word pudenda. Of i wanted to be polite I would use the word genetalia or genetils
@ I'm dyslexic. Excuse me.
Probably a lot more if you talk about how endangered they are and how difficult it is to get them to breed. :3
It’s 9 pm and it’s the first time I’ve laughed today! Haha. Brilliant.
1:43: me in every maths lesson I every had.
best QI bit after "the acropolis where the parthenon is"
Honestly, that's the very one that I'm the most sick of... I'd much rather watch the one where Sandi has the little sailboat where "it's something about the wind"...
it's great, but what about the delicious turtle bit?
Stephen, there is some of England, not to mention Scotland, north of Oxford and Cambridge.
Pretty much all of Scotland is north of both Oxford and Cambridge, unless we include Glasgow rubbies sleeping in Soho doorways.
Wor drums had me in stitches cheered me up after a miserable week and he’s one of the few so called comedians who can make me laugh
THANK YOU! I watched this clip three times and couldn't tell what the heck he was on about.
After all these seasons, this is still my favorite clip of all...!
I m Irish, a Dubliner to be exact and even the likes of me knows war in the Newcastle dialect means our!
The funniest thing is the the audience got the joke even if Stephen didn't.
I love Alan's face as he's trying to help him out..."talking on the ferns..."
Rich Hall: *pretends to know what's going on*
One of my favorite clips of QI. As a NE native I love the drummer boy joke.
I'm offensive, and i find this geordie
My brain
Ooh Pudsy make him stop...
xD that for me is one of the best moments in QI history.
Thank you, Mr Sophisticate. Your makeup might crack if you smiled.
Mr Fry will need an interpreter if he goes north of Sheffield.
“Well they must go to school, then. It’s just ridiculous” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Back in the 1990's I had a drinking buddy from Newcastle, the more he drank the less I understood what he said. Great guy. Introduced me to Newcastle Brown Ale.
And I thought I was pretty good with British accents. I guess not.
I'm from Newcastle, and I didn't get the joke until he explained it :( I'm so ashamed.
***** If you ever think about coming up North, I'd suggest getting the hang of telling geordies and mackems apart beforehand. Unless you dislike your face, of course ;)
***** its horden, and thats county durham accent not mackem or geordie
***** Geordies pronounce our like war and the guy said that they're playing war drums, he then said them thieving bastards... Get it... War is Our in Newcastle
James Hunt But it's spelled wor :)
i'm from italy, never been to newcastle and i got it ^^
"the female pudenda" is somewhat of a mystery to Stephen.
I love when Stephen is so hi-brow he doesn’t get jokes
I love accent jokes. They are tricky to write as they are meant to be heard, but I'll try one I like:
An Australian soldier goes to Europe for WW1 and reports to a British commander. The commander looks at him and says: "Did you come here to die?!" The Australian soldier replies: "No, I came here yesterday".
In the Australian accent 'to die' sounds like 'today'. 'Yesterday', sounds like 'yester die'.
:p
That's an old joke, so old that it's in an episode of Dad's Army, when Mainwaring and Wilson are sitting in the basement of the bank holding a bomb and Mainwaring tries to lighten the mood. Cracked me up first time I heard it.
Ha. I had to say it out loud with the accents to get it. I totally misinterpreted the first go round.
Suzanne Wippert Yeah, you have to do the accents to make it work. lol
A+ Shadow! 👍🏻 Im from Texas and got it straight away, well done Sir.
Dads Army at all? :P
"Our" in danish is "Vore", and is pronounced the same way as the Geordie "Wor".
Vore = Wor (Our).
aye a lot of geordie comes from scandanavian languages, think because of the whole viking invasion thing
As an American, I understood this...
***** Ferns = phones and war = our. It's not that hard. (And a Google search reveals canny = nice.)
***** If you think a newcastle accent is hard to understand, try listening to the american south.
Steve Howe Haha that is exactly it! I'm from the Southeast US and this is not difficult to understand at all. I suppose y'all have so many special accents you think no one outside of the UK can understand them, but honestly it's not hard to understand this!
In Sweden we say "vår". It sounds kind of like "war" but with a "v" sound instead of a "w" sound. So I suspect it may be related :O!
I think it's basically because Scandinavian languages have something in common with old English, and Geordie is basically the most similar to how everyone used to speak in England. While the rest of England softened their vowels, Geordies resisted the change.
Yep. Even in Scotland, we often say "oor" or "wir", very similar to "vår"
@@jtpinnyc I think it's because there were a lot of Viking invasions and settlements in that part of England - hence the Scandinavian language link.
@@heliotropezzz333 exactly right Helen , Geordie , a mixture of Scandinavian , Northumbrian , and Anglo Saxon . Strong Viking , influence in the northern accent . Bairn , barn . Hyem , home . Etc , etc , all Scandinavian .
@@jtpinnyc I can kind of understand old English when listening to it. A mixture of English words, Nordic words and a few german words.
Like a truly intelligent person, Stephen Fry isn't afraid to admit when he doesn't have a fucking clue. 🙂
0:19 can someone explain what he means here by a cunnae noise? I understand the rest but this has me stumped
Cunnae = Canny which is northern slang for nice, cute, good, pleasant, etc. So he basically said "phones make a cool noise"
A bit unrelated but funnily enough I just wanted to be sure I wasn't getting it mixed it with bonny but google uses a near identical example for the words being "She's a canny lass" and "A bonny lass" and man that was playing tricks with my head.
@@faceless1434 thanks canny buddy
@@amiakat I have sincerely never heard this in real life (I'm from Teesside and York so quite bit south of Geordieland) nor can I find anything like that on the internet. It can mean "quite" but that's not the same thing as "a lot" it'd be more "canny amount a noise". Your definition would fit what he's saying though
@@amiakat No I have heard canny many times but not in the exact grammatical context you're describing. I only mentioned where I'm from in case it is an especially Geordie use of the word
I'm with Stephen on this one. I could almost feel my brain sizzling while Phil was talking.
Stephen Fry actually has a fascination with language and accents so he'd probably be more curious than appalled. The accent has been around for a long time.
love it "well they must go to School, it is ridiculous!", fantastic!
terrific Fry response "well they must all go to school, its not good enough"!
How could he think it’s ‘wardroom’ when Phil even said ‘drums’ & banged on the table…like a drum?
A timeless moment of comic genius just being inadvertently funny ❤
Wor Stephen us Geordies love him just the same, canny lad!
1:33 "Well they must go to school" haha, great line to end the discussion!
I used to work in a pub where a few locals were Geordies and I'll give Stephen some leeway; it took me a couple shifts to understand what they were on about.
Indi Heaton there’s a place in Newcastle called Heaton. There’s your connection.
Google maps it. Wor Cheryl is from heaton
Andy Wardle I'm from Wigan, Lancashire and trust me, the majority of it is called Heaton. It's as common as mud. However, I grew up at the other end of the country in Cornwall.
@@India.H "Wor Cheryl is from Heaton" - our cheryl is from heaton
my dad is from down south and when he moved up north, he couldn't understand how so many young blokes he worked with were getting "war" pensions! classic!
I consider myself very good at understanding accents, but this one was over my head
the initial joke is a grammatical one in that allan is using grammar as a play on words for the plant 'fern' and the name of one of the hosts of the show children in need 'ferne cotton' so when stephen asks 'do you know anything about ferns' (the plant), allan responds 'ferne's what?' (the person).
the first part of phil jupitus' joke is that he uses geordie slang 'they make a canny noise like' ('canny' can sometimes be used in context to mean 'a lot' as well as a play on words where 'ferns' is spoken in such a way that it should sound like 'phones').
the second joke about the soldier is that the general says 'they've got WAR DRUMS' in reference to the sound being made, but in geordie terms it can be said 'they've got WOR DRUMS' where 'wor' is a geordie term for 'our' making it seem like the enemy in this story has stolen the 'war drums' from the side of the soldier and the general.
@@rogoth01themasterwizard11You are my hero. Thank you so much.
Damnit, I've already liked this video =P
JakusLarkus, you don’t know that tapping it again will remove your like?!?
I am a descendent of General Custer...I can't believe there is a Geordie joke with him in it. I'm impressed with the knowledge of American historical figures.
@@drewjohnson9498 I’m going to say the EHN word
MRS. OBAMA GET DOWN
How can you be a descendent of Custer when his only son died in childhood?
Thank you. Some of us needed a translator. =)
I found the banter between these guys just brilliant - aside from poking fun at eachothers regional differences with dialect and accent, i think England has such a rich variation that it should be enjoyed.
I'm Canadian so i have been exposed to alot of BBC programming in my youth so i auctually found this all very interesting.
If we were all the same it would be pretty boring i think ;)
You know it, you do.
I think context and intent is very important when thinking about these jokes, if it is lighthearted and meant to be "we all have a unique way of speaking and the difference barrier makes it interesting and funny" like in this clip, its okay. If its "hahaha you speak funny and need to learn to speak better" its not.
@@ShougoAmakusa It's mainly about not having a chip on your shoulder. Stephen even says "well they must go to school, it's just ridiculous, I'm sorry - not good enough!" An ignorant person might take offense to that, but the joke is fine because of the understanding of the need to be able to take a joke; one or two people full of bitterness choosing to take it as a personal slight would not make it so.
where i live in the the north east of england i could sit in a pub with people from four diffferent towns within 5 miles from where i live and they will have completely accents ,obviously someone not from our area would not know the difference.
@@gonkheed :grins: I had a similar experience when I first moved out of my parents and struck out into the world ... moving all of eight miles :eek: ... and, as I was moving into the little terrace I was going to rent, one of the new neighbours came along to say hello.
I didn't understand what he said. At first I thought I hadn't heard him properly because I was distracted with unloading boxes and so on. So I said the obligatory "I'm sorry?". He spoke again and I *was* listening this time ... no joy. "Sorry, I didn't hear you; must be the traffic. Say again?". Third time unlucky. And that left us in *that* territory ... neither of us knew what to do or say ... and he just went back to his house :D.
I realised at this point that I was in another land where people didn't speak English! I'd moved from a country town in Staffordshire to the city of Stoke and in that short hop the accent and dialect changed so much it was incomprehensible to me :O. My ear soon adapted because it did turn out to be English they spoke after all but I remember the shock to this day :lol:.
Growing up, I'd see the Gulf war on the news often. They'd mention Saddam Hussein, and because was raised in Jarrow, I used to think Hussein was "who's sayin'". I wondered why he was always saying something good enough to be shown on the news.
I had a similar thing with the recession when I was little, because they would always be talking about fannie mae on the news but there's also a midwestern chocolate company called fannie may and I was always confused why a confectioner chain was such an important economic indicator
"Well they must go to school!" I love Stephen Fry
The delivery of "Well they must go to school, this is simply ridiculous" is PERFECT.
As a half geordie, I approve this joke xD
I'm danish, got a Geordie mate who pronounces "house" as "hus" and I was like "dude do you realize you're using the danish word for house"? :D
He didn't but it's quite funny pointing out to him when i hear something you lot probably got from my ancestors. :)
One thing you definately didnt get from us is that whole thing where you say "us" when you mean to say "me". That's just confusing sometimes. ;)
Interesting. There's some other Scandanavian influences in the North East of England. Geordies sometimes use the word "hyem" or "hjem" for "home", and the word "bairn" for "child" is used throughout the North East and also parts of Scotland. Both words have Danish origins, i think.
@@NosyFella Tbh the whole English language is largely of Scandinavian influence since the Angles and Jutes came from Denmark. And then the Vikings happened so there was a second round of Scandinavian influence.
PiousMoltar More Latin with French and German influences and a hint of Scandinavian.
I love how Stephen keeps looking over to Rich as an ally as he clearly doesn't understand either
I'm a Geordie and I found this hilarious, I love Stephen Fry.
Same mate it’s great
I’m from Mississippi and my wife is from Durham. Five years and I still can’t understand her, half the time.
Wait until he finds out how they talk in Norfolk.
Thats not confusion over the Newcasle Accent thats confusion over the newcastle language!
I find it fantastic that even after he'd had it explained to him, Stephen didn't seem to make the connection that 'wor' is just in a different dialect rather than actually a substitute word. :)