A Joke, "Sometimes" or "Three Units Will Cost..."

This joke requires triple translations; first from Taiwanese spoken phrase to Taiwanese written phrase; second, from Taiwanese written phrase to Mandarin spoken phrase ; third, twist two characters such that these two characters have the same sounds but different meaning . The results are the original meaning has a completely different meaning from the final one.

Here we go. Taiwanese spoke phrase "San-Pu-Go-Shi" literally means "not 3 times nor 5 times". Its derived meaning is "sometimes". The written phrase is 三不五時. The first and the third characters, 三 and 五, meaning 3 and 5. The second character, 不, means 'no'. Put these first three characters together, they mean neither 3 nor 5. The last character, 時, means 'times'. The results, "San-Pu-Go-Shi" or 三不五時 means "not 3 times nor 5 times"., or 'sometimes.'

"San-Pu-Go-Shi"三不五時 when read with Mandarin pronunciation, they read as "San-Pu-Wu-Shu" .This joke requires twists on the second character and the third character with the same Mandarin pronunciations but different meanings. First, the character, Pu or 不, is changed to 部 which is also pronounced as 'Pu' but means 'units'. Second, the character, Shi or 時, is changed to 十 which is pronounced as Shu, which means 10. The result is "San-Pu-Wu-Shu", or 三部五十, or it says that "It costs $50 for 3 units. " Note, the character 五 (five) is read as "go" in Taiwanese, but is read as 'wu' in Mandarin.

How do we tell this joke ? You can tell this joke in the form of a riddle. Here is an example:

" If one bicycle costs $100, how much would it cost for 3 units?"

If someone answers "$300", you then say "got you. It costs "50", because it is "San-Pu-Wu-Shu", or 三部五十.

I learned this joke from one of the organizers of NCHU Organic Farm Field Trip on 5/24.