Wu Ting
How would you interpret “on the stuff that chicks and dorks have with tonic when they can’t handle s 1. How would you interpret the “chicks and dorks”? 2. Besides, I would think this part of the sentence means that the “chicks and dorks” can’t stand the scotch whisky, so they have tonic with something instead. What do you think? PS: the whole story is about the afterlife. Thank you. PS: the excerpt is taken from “Kneller’s Happy Campers” written by an Israeli author, Etgar Keret. And I’m reading an English translation. the context: Turned out Uzi was right. It really was an Arab neighborhood. But I was right too, because they didn’t give a fuck what passports we had before we got here. Their bar was called Djin, which was supposed to be a play on djinni, like the one in Aladdin’s lamp, and on the stuff that chicks and dorks have with tonic when they can’t handle scotch. Uzi said it was a lousy pun, but the truth is that after Stiff Drinks, anything sounded good. We sat at the bar. The bartender looked like he’d offed himself with a vengeance, and must have ended up in pieces…
Nov 6, 2019 4:00 AM
Answers · 6
4
It's a pun on the word 'djinn', which is a supernatural creature in Arabian folklore: this where we get the English word 'genie' from. The joke is that this word sounds almost the same as 'gin'. What's interesting is that we use the word 'spirit' for both of these categories of things: genies, fairies and so on are 'spirits', and so are gin and whisky. 'Chicks' is a derogatory word for women, and the dictionary definition of 'dork' is "a contemptible, socially inept person". The suggestion is that 'real men' can handle whisky, while gin and tonic is a 'sissy' alternative just for women and for stupid, uncool, nerdy men. The narrator says that the djinn/gin wordplay is poor, but it's not as bad as the 'Stiff Drinks' pun. Personally, I think the Djin joke is quite good, and that Stiff Drinks ( in the context) is brilliant. But that's just my view :)
November 6, 2019
Thank you.
November 7, 2019
Gin and tonic = a lighter alcoholic drink Chicks = women Dorks = socially awkward men
November 6, 2019
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