Warm and Witty Side of Attila the Hun (19 page)

 

Israelis:
... are well known for their contentious nature, especially in reference to
politics and religion. This led to the quip that if you put three Israelis together in a room and pose
a political question with moral implications, the results will be five opinions, seven political parties, and sixteen contradictory interpretations of the
Mishnah
.

 

English: ...
are well known for their "stiff upper lip" quality, which is often
misinterpreted as lack of emotion. Referring to this characteristic, the French tell this joke: A
woman is swimming nude in the English Channel off the coast of
Normandy
when she drowns.
Her body washes up onshore on a deserted area of the beach. Soon thereafter a Frenchman out
for his morning walk sees her, runs over to her, and begins to make passionate love to her. A passing
gendarme
observes the scene and intervenes. "Are you mad?" he screams. "Can't you
see this woman is dead?" "Dead!" cries the man. "Mon
dieu
!
I thought she was English!"

But one observation from an Englishman really does exemplify this aspect of the English personality more than any other. In the summer of 1940 it looked as if Hitler had won the war. France had fallen, the Low Countries and much of Scandinavia were under German occupation, most of the rest of Europe was dancing to Hitler's tune, Russia and America were neutral, and the
Luftwaffe
was bombing the hell out of England. But on a London bus during what the English called "the Blitz," a weeping woman was consoled by a man who, smiling,
said, "It's alright, love, it's alright. We have the ball, don't we? It's our serve, isn't it? And we're
in the finals!"

One final comment on the English, exemplifying their traditional “center of the world”
mentality: in the mid-1930s a dense fog descended upon the English Channel and forced a temporary suspension of all cross-Channel freighters and ferries. The weather report in the London
Times
that day read, "FOG SUSPENDS CROSS-CHANNEL TRANSPORT.
CONTINENT ISOLATED."

 

French: ...
are as well known for their quality of
savoir faire
as the English are
for the stiff upper lip. Like many French words,
savoir faire
is not easily translated into English. Attempts have been made, of course. "Social adeptness" comes close, meaning the ability to act
and react appropriately and adroitly under any and all circumstances. But like many untranslatable words, it can best be illustrated by anecdote.

Three Frenchmen were trying to explain the meaning of the phrase to a visiting
American. The first one said, "If a man returns home unexpectedly and finds his wife in the arms
of her lover, and he then says
'Pardon'
and withdraws, that is
savoir faire."

"
Mais
non,
mon
ami
, "
says the second Frenchman. "If he says,
'Pardon.
Please
continue,' that is
savoir faire. "

"
Mais
non,
mais
non,
mes
amis
, "
says the third Frenchman. "If he says,
'Pardon.
Please continue,' and they
can
continue,
that
is
savoir faire."

On a less complimentary note, the French are well known for both political and
military incompetence. During the same two-and-a-quarter centuries that the U.S. lived with one
form of government under one Constitution (1789 to the present), the French have had four different forms of monarchies, two empires of three types, and five republics, with most transitions from one to the other being more or less violent. And as for military incompetence, the British have a joke: if you get lost in France, be sure to ask German tourists for directions.
They always know the quickest way to Paris.

 

Australians: ...
are among the most dedicated sports fans in the world, dedicated
to lots of sports, not just one or two. Soccer, tennis, cricket, golf, rugby, you name it, they love it.
(There are, for example, a dozen Australians on major league baseball teams in the
U.S.
, and
Australians
don't even play baseball!)
The Australians tell this joke about themselves: Tickets to
the championship rugby match need to be purchased months, often years in advance. They are expensive and very hard to come by. On one occasion a ticket-holder took his seat to find an empty seat between him and another sports fan. When the match began and the seat remained vacant, he asked the other man, "Excuse me. Isn't anyone going to sit in this seat?"

"No," the other man said. "I purchased these two tickets with my wife last year. She passed away."

"Oh, I'm so sorry for your loss." He paused. "But couldn't you have given the extra ticket to a friend or relative?"

“No," was the reply. "They're all at the funeral."

 

Germans: ...
as previously noted, have a reputation for obedience to authority.
One German observer contemptuously dismissed her countrymen as
geborene
Untertaner
,
"born underlings." This trait has its roots in the tradition of Prussian militarism and the consequent idea that
Ordnung
muss
sein
(there must be order.) It has been assumed that the horrible experience of World War Two and the decades of democratic government (in
West Germany
, anyway) that
followed it have freed the Germans from the habit of blind obedience.

A prominent German weekly news magazine decided in the early 1990s to
conduct a test of this assumption. The journalists went to a cluster of public telephone kiosks in the middle of the Frankfurt am Main train station and placed signs at random above each kiosk indicating who was permitted to use that particular phone,
Herren
(men) or
Damen
(women.) Now, of course, these are telephones, not public toilets. Having separate phones for men and women makes absolutely no sense.

Nevertheless, all day long as the journalists observed public reactions to the signs,
men used the men's phones and women used the women's phones. Sometimes the women's
phones would be available and there would be a line for the men's phones, and vice versa at other times. At last, after hours of this, a woman violated the "order." She saw that the women's phones were all being used but a men's phone was free. She glanced at the signs, sniffed in annoyance, and then used the men's phone.

After she hung up the journalists approached her for an interview. It turned out that she was an Italian.

Oscar Wilde, novelist, playwright, currently a gay icon, died 1900:

 

"Either that wallpaper goes, or I do."

 

Dominique
Bonhours
, grammarian, d. 1702 (translated from the French):

 

"I am
about to die ... or I am going to die ... either construction is correct."

 

Ludwig Van Beethoven, d. 1827:

 

"Friends, applaud. The comedy is finished."

 

 

Why, they couldn't hit an elephant at this dist…

 

Col. John Sedgewick, a Union officer during the Civil War, at the commencement
of battle, d. 1864:

 

"Why, they couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..."

 

Vespasian, Roman Emperor, d. 79 A.D., referring to the Roman custom of deifying emperors posthumously:

 

"Alas! I seem to be turning into a god!"

 

James M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan, d. 1927:

 

"I can't sleep."

 

Winston Churchill, d. 1965:

 

"I'm bored with it all."

 

Julius Caesar assassinated 44 BC: "And you, child?
(Kai su, teknon? (
Kai
su
tekno
n
?)
(Note: Shakespeare to the contrary notwithstanding, Caesar did not say the Latin words,
Et
tu
Brute
? He asked, in Greek, why Brutus was stabbing him.)

 

Lady Astor, British politician, d. 1954, upon opening her dying eyes and seeing her family and friends gathered around her death bed:

 

"Is it my birthday?" (Addendum: when Winston Churchill was told of Lady Astor's death, he reportedly muttered, "Better late than never."
)

 

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, novelist, dramatist, premier German figure in the Enlightenment, d. 1832:

 

"
Mehr
Licht
, "
'more light.'
(Note: it has been debated whether he called for the spread of enlightened thought, or merely wanted the drapes opened.)

 

Pancho
Villa, Mexican revolutionary, d. 1923:

 

"Don't let it end this way. Tell everybody that I said something."

 

Hans Frank, governor of German-occupied
Poland
during World War Two, shortly before being hanged for crimes against humanity, 1946:

 

"A thousand years shall pass away, and the guilt of
Germany
shall not have been erased." Other reports say that just before
being hanged he murmured, "
Verzeihen
Sie
mir
, Herr
Jesu
.” Forgive me, Lord Jesus..

 

John Wilkes Booth, assassin of Abraham Lincoln, d. 1865:

 

"Tell mother, tell
mother, I died for my country ... (looking at his hands) ... useless ... useless ..."

 

Errol Flynn, actor, d. 1959:

 

"I've had a hell of a lot of fun, and I've enjoyed every minute."

 

Adam Smith, philosopher, economist, d. 1790: "Gentlemen, I believe we should adjourn this meeting to another place."

 

Lord
Palmerston
, British statesman, d. 1865, when implored by his physician not to die:

 

"Die, my dear doctor? That is the last thing I shall do."

 

George Armstrong Custer, just before the
Battle
of the Little Big Horn, d. 1876:

 

"Hurrah boys! Let's get these last few reds and then head back to camp. Hurrah!"

 

Voltaire, French philosopher, d. 1778; when, after making confession, receiving
absolution, and taking Communion, was asked if he forswore Satan:

 

"This is no time to make new enemies."

 

Adolf Hitler,
Führer
of Nazi Germany; the last sentence of his political testament, completed, signed, and witnessed immediately before his suicide; d. 1945:

 

"Above all, I charge the leadership of the nation and their followers with the strict observance of the racial laws and with merciless resistance against the universal
poisoners
of all peoples, international Jewry."

 

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, d. 1793; after stepping on her executioner's foot just before being guillotined:

 

"Monsieur, I beg your pardon."

 

Stan Laurel of the comedy duo of Laurel and Hardy, d. 1965:

 

"I wish I were
skiing." Nurse: "Oh, do you ski, Mr. Laurel?"
 
"No, but I'd rather be doing that than doing
this."

 

Woodrow Wilson, president and lover of limericks, d. 1924; his last limerick,
written in pencil on a notepad soon before his death: