Punning in the New Year

My friend Andy (the guy who did the WordPress Sinosplice Tooltips plugin) wished me a happy New Year in the following way recently:

> Happy New 一二!

At the risk of spoiling the joke, allow me to explain…

1. Pinyin “yī èr” sounds remarkably like “year.”
2. This is 2012, so the characters for “1 2” are singularly appropriate.

Good job, Andy! You only get to use this pun once every 100 years, everybody, so get on it!

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Last year, the punny wish was:

> Happy Chinese New Year 兔 you!

1. Pinyin “tù” sounds nearly identical to “to.”
2. 兔子, sometimes abbreviated to 兔, is the Chinese word for “rabbit.”

This year (year of the dragon), friend and ex-co-worker Jason made the following punny wish:

> Wishing you a 龍 and prosperous New Year!

1. Pinyin “lóng” sounds reasonably similar to the English word “long.”
2. 龍 (simplified: 龙) is the Chinese word for “dragon.”

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Jason also added the following variation for Star Trek fans:

> Live 龍 and prosper this New Year!

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Finally, I’d like to give props to my dad, who always liked the following pun. It wasn’t until recent years that I could actually verify that this pun really does work in Chinese:

> How Long is a Chinese name.

The pun doesn’t work so well when written. The joke is to say it in such a way that it’s perceived as a question, when in fact, it’s a statement:

> 郝龙 (Hao Long) is a Chinese name.

(This “joke” doesn’t work nearly as well in China, where everyone knows that Chinese names are typically 2-3 characters/syllables, and as many as 4 on rare occasion, and everyone would easily recognize 郝龙 as a Chinese name anyway.)

OK, I better shut up now before I lose all my readers.

Happy New Year!