French Jokes / Recent Jokes
Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured English soldiers. Without the middle finger, it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future.
This famous weapon was made of the native English Yew tree and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew." Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French, saying, "See, we can still pluck yew! PLUCK YEW!"
Over the years, some 'folk etymologies' have grown up around this symbolic gesture. Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say (like "pleasant mother, pheasant plucker", which is who you had to go to for the feathers used on the arrows for the longbow), the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed more...
During the French revolution, hundreds of people were guillotined. One
day, three men were led up to die. One was a lawyer, one was a doctor,
and the third was an engineer.
The lawyer was to die first. He was led to the guillotine, the attending priest blessed him, and he knelt with his head on the guillotine. The blade was released, but stopped halfway down its path. The priest, seeing an opportunity, quickly said, "Gentlemen, God has spoken and said this man is to be spared; we cannot kill him." The executioner agreed, and the lawyer was set free.
The doctor was next. He was blessed by the priest, then knelt and placed his head down. The blade was released, and again stopped halfway down. Again the priest intervened: "Gentlemen, God has again spoken; we cannot kill this man." The executioner agreed and the doctor was set free.
At last it was the engineer's turn. He was blessed by the priest, and
knelt, but before he placed his head on the more...
The Somali pirates knew it was a French military flagship when they saw that the flag was white
An officer in the U. S. Naval reserve was attending a conference that included admirals from both the U. S. Navy and the French Navy. At a cocktail reception, he found himself in a small group that included personnel from both navies.
The French admiral started complaining that whereas Europeans learned many languages, Americans learned only English. He then asked: "Why is it that we have to speak English in these conferences rather than you speak French?
Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied: "Maybe it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you would not have to speak German."
The group became silent.
A Sardarni competed with a French woman and an English woman in the Breast Stroke division of an English Channel swim competition.
The French woman came in first, the English woman second.
The Sardarni finally reached shore completely exhausted. After being revived with blankets and coffee, she remarked, "I don't want to complain, but I think those other two girls used their arms."
A Frenchmen is calmly having his breakfast when an American (noisily chewing gum) sits beside him.
The Frenchman ignores the American who (not happy about this) starts a conversation.
American: "Do you eat the whole bread?"
French (in a bad mood): "Of course!"
American: "We don't. We only eat what is inside and the outside we put together in a container, recycle it, transform it into croissants and sell it to France."
The French listens in silence.
The American insists: "Do you eat the bread with jam?"
French (now more annoyed): "Of course!"
American: "We don't. We eat fresh fruit for our breakfast, put all the seed and the rest in containers, recycle them, transform them into jam and sell the jam to France."
The Frenchman then asks: "And what do you do with condoms once you used them?"
American: "We throw them away, of course!"
French: "We don't. We put more...