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Zwei kölsche Putzfrauen bei der Arbeit. Die eine: „Ich mach’ Diät.“ Darauf die andere: „Jot, dann maach ich die Finster.“

I can guess that 'Diät' here is a play on words for something like 'die …' but fail to see what it is.

David Vogt
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Quora Feans
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  • Note that even native German speakers will fail to see the point if they are not familiar with Kölsch. – xehpuk Aug 13 '19 at 19:47

1 Answers1

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You are right. It's a play on words for Diät. But it only works out for the Cologne dialect (or similar ones).

Ich mach' Diät

means

I'm dieting.

But these two women are from Cologne and in their dialect it can be understood as

Ich mach die Ääd (Ääd = Erde)

which can be translated as

I will take care of (clean) the ground.

Sooo ... the one cleaner says "I'm dieting", but the other one understands "I will clean the floor". Therefore she responds she will clean the windows.

Einen Witz zu erklären ist wie einen Frosch zu sezieren. Du bist danach schlauer aber der Frosch ist tot. ^^

mtwde
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    Einen Frosch seziert man hoffentlich erst, wenn er sowieso schon tot ist ^^ – Jonathan Scholbach Aug 11 '19 at 18:21
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    Stichwort: Vivisektion ... – 0xC0000022L Aug 11 '19 at 19:57
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    Elaboration for non-German speakers: "die Erde" (the earth) is often informally used to mean "the floor". Even when it is a non ground level floor in a building. – rackandboneman Aug 12 '19 at 08:25
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    Oh, and: "machen" (make) is also very often used to mean "handle, take care of, deal with" – rackandboneman Aug 12 '19 at 08:28
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    @rackandboneman Must be a local thing then, because in Austria "der Boden" (the floor) is way more common then "die Erde", the latter being almost exclusively being used to refer to the physical ground or the celestial body. – MechMK1 Aug 12 '19 at 12:38
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    @MechMK1: It ain't just a local thing. I live in Germany a good ways away from Cologne, but my mother in law drives me up the wall by saying "die Erde" instead of "der Boden." – JRE Aug 12 '19 at 13:59
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    In some localities, saying "Boden" might make some people think of the attic rather than the floor :) – rackandboneman Aug 12 '19 at 15:51
  • @rackandboneman Yes, but not surprisingly so because the important part of that attic is indeed its floor. Without which all the stuff stored there would crash down. – Christian Geiselmann Aug 12 '19 at 15:53
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    @rackandboneman Boden for Dachboden is like the Americans' chef for chef de cuisine; it leaves out an important qualification ;-). From an advertising for a language school, phone call to a company: "Hello, I'd like to speak to your chef." "To our chef??" "Yes, I have a date with him." "Oh, well then..." – Peter - Reinstate Monica Aug 13 '19 at 09:01
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    @PeterA.Schneider Reminds me of "I only understand train station" – MechMK1 Aug 13 '19 at 10:25
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    "We're sorry, the chef is very loaded at the moment..." – rackandboneman Aug 13 '19 at 11:11