10 Nasruddin Quickies

These little jokes could probably be developed into longer Nasruddin stories (like the way I added the substance of the quarrel to the one-liner about the husband and wife arguing: The Quarrel of Nasruddin and His Wife), but for now I'm just going to keep these super-short, under 50 words. They are jokes I found in modern jokebooks, adapted to Nasruddin (with one exception noted below).

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Nasruddin started painting as a hobby, and he took one of his paintings to an art critic to get his opinion.

"It's worthless," said the critic.

"Yes, I know," replied Nasruddin, "but I'd still like to hear your opinion."

For more about the perils of pronouns and other language pitfalls, see Nasruddin's Answers / Non-Answers.

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"Send help!" Nasruddin shouted into the telephone. "My wife is in labor!"
"Calm down, sir. Is this her first child?"

"No, this is her husband."

Another joke about the perils of pronouns!

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"Ouch! A bee stung me!" little Nasruddin cried.

"Poor thing!" said his mother. "Let's put some ointment on it."

"Don't be silly," said little Nasruddin. "It already flew away! We'll never catch it."

Another perils-of-pronouns joke.

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Nasruddin sees a man on the other side of the river. "Hey you!" the man shouts to Nasruddin. "How can I get to the other side of the river."

Nasruddin scratches his head, confused. "You're already on the other side of the river!" he shouts back.

This joke is about the perils of linguistic self-reference: my other is not your other!

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A neighbor came to Nasruddin, looking very sad. "I'm afraid I've run over your cat, Nasruddin. It's dead. Can I replace it?"

"I don't know," said Nasruddin. "How good are you at catching mice?"

This little joke plays on the perils of English: just how are we supposed to know the difference between "Can I (myself) replace it?" and "Can I replace it with another cat?" Other languages might be able to avoid the ambiguous pitfall that makes this English joke work.

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It was Nasruddin's birthday, and somebody gave him a book as a present, but he declined. "That's kind of you," he said, "but I already have one."

This joke plays with the idea of the noun "book" as if every book were the same "book." All books are books, but not all books are the same book!

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"Help!" Nasruddin shouted. "Help! Someone just stole my car."

A nearby policeman came over to help. "Did you get a look at the thief?" he asked.

"No," said Nasruddin sadly. "But I got most of the license number."

I really like this little joke: Nasruddin tried hard, but only got part of his own license number. He doesn't realize that he already know the whole thing! So too many of us labor to learn something that we might in fact already know... we just don't know what we know! This is the kind of subtle meaning that has allowed so many Nasruddin jokes to be used by the Sufis as teaching stories; see the chapter on Nasruddin in Idries Shah's The Sufis.

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"Can you tell me the quickest way to get to Istanbul?" someone asked Nasruddin.

"Are you walking or driving?" asked Nasruddin.

"Driving."

"Oh, good: driving is definitely the quickest way to get to Istanbul."

Although this is a joke I found in a modern jokebook, it seems to me a perfect example of Nasruddin language-humor. Now I am wondering if I won't someday find this joke in a book of traditional Nasruddin stories.

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"My wife just had a baby!" Nasruddin shouted out of his window, delighted.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" one of his neighbors shouted back.

"Yes!" exclaimed Nasruddin. "But how did you know?"

This is a traditional Nasruddin story, and I wanted to include it here as yet another example of the peril of "or" questions. I remember I used to ask give my online students a questionnaire at the beginning of each semester, and one of the questions was "Do you use a Windows or a Macintosh computer?" Every semester at least one student would answer "yes" in all seriousness, not just having me on. Of course, with Nasruddin, you never know if he is having you on or not.

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Nasruddin asked his friend to loan him some money. "I need $3000 for a cup of coffee."

"You've got to be kidding!" his friend exclaimed. "You don't need $3000 to get a cup of coffee."

"But I want to drink it in Brazil," said Nasruddin.

This little joke exemplies the wishful thinking and unbridled fantasy of the wise fool. Yes, it's ridiculous, but I think it's absolutely charming at the same time.

photo by Terry Shuck