What's ET Short For? / myLot

Cambridge, England

December 26, 2015 3:46am CST

"Because he's only got little legs". This was a joke I had in a Christmas cracker and is a good example of the traps which English sets for the unwary. Of course, what most people would understand this question to mean would be "What do the letters 'ET' stand for?" (and the answer would be Extra Terrestrial) I wondered how many here with English as a second language would understand the joke. Even I, who grew up speaking English, was puzzled as to why the joke worked and why the most obvious answer was one and not the other. The solution is that the construction "What is ___ for?" is a quite common and normal idiomatic way of asking the purpose of something (try filling in the blank with "a spade", "coffee" or "he running" or even "the sky blue" and the kind of answer that's needed should be obvious). There's another idiom, however, which ends in "for" - "to be short for" - which means 'stand[s] for' or 'represent[s]' Example: "DVD is short for Digital Video Disc". The joke works because there are two ways of using the word 'short'. One is as an adjective (meaning 'small in stature') and the other is in the idiomatic verb "to be short for". I think that it would be quite impossible to translate this joke into any other language and, likewise, there must be jokes in other languages which only work because of the particular idioms which exist in that language and no other.

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10 responses

Koalemos

@Asylum (47893)

• Manchester, England

26 Dec 15

I must admin that I had to think for a minute before I realised the intention of the joke. I was delighted to see that you got DVD correct, which is commonly misinterpreted these days.

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Koalemos

@Asylum (47893)

• Manchester, England

26 Dec 15

@pgntwo It is the fact that many refer to it as Digital Versatile Disc that made me happy about Owlwings correct usage. The acronym was developed as Digital Video Disc when only video films were placed on such media. Since then interactive or data storage DVDs have been developed, so it was decided to change the meaning. I totally disagree with suddenly deciding that an acronym is different to the meaning it was introduced as. I understand Compact Disc to have been so named because of it's size compared with a long play vinyl record.

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pgn

@pgntwo (22405)

• Derry, Northern Ireland

26 Dec 15

@Asylum So the versatile nature of the DVD came later... I remember the big LP-sized CAV video discs in the early 90s, they were quite a beast. Nowadays, we do without any physical media, look at YouTube, Amazon Prime, NetFlix... all stored on banks of spinning rust in data centres around the globe!

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pgn

@pgntwo (22405)

• Derry, Northern Ireland

26 Dec 15

Actually, the V in DVD can also stand for "versatile"... Not sure how they got "compact" in CD though, unless it came from the "compact cassette", vs 8-track, tape era.

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Anna

@LadyDuck (502251)

• Italy

26 Dec 15

English is a second language and I would have never guessed.

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Anna

@LadyDuck (502251)

• Italy

26 Dec 15

@pgntwo So true, here in Switzerland we have different sayings and habits for every language section. The Italian speaking Switzerland is very similar to the north part of Lombardy.

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pgn

@pgntwo (22405)

• Derry, Northern Ireland

26 Dec 15

It can take a lifetime to get inside a mind set, regardless of first, second, third or even fourth, language. It must be awkward in countries with multiple languages, like Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands...

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Hope

@1hopefulman (45111)

• Canada

30 Dec 15

I wonder if it is just me or if other Canadians would also not see the humor without an explanation?

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vanny

@vandana7 (102698)

• India

28 Dec 15

First and foremost, thanks for a nice discussion. :) Secondly, not being native English speaker my first thought was are both ways of question ok? Let me ask about the second one first..."What do the letters ET stand for in acronym ET?" I would think in English you might have to say E and T rather than ET. The other way perhaps would be "What is the full form of acronym ET?" or something like that. But what is ET short for, would definitely have got me. lol. I would have to think whether there was some specific reason for that alien to be short. lol Thanks once again. Interesting discussion. :)

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Just an Ordinary Owl?

@owlwings (43897)

• Cambridge, England

30 Dec 15

Strictly speaking, ET is not an acronym because it is pronounced as the individual letters ("ee-tee") and not as a word "et". An acronym is an abbreviation consisting of the initial letters (usually) of a collection of words which is pronounced as a word in its own right. Examples are 'RADAR', 'NATO', 'laser' and 'Benelux'. 'ET', 'CIA', 'TV' &c are abbreviations because one says them as the names of the letters. Both of the questions you give as examples would make it clear what was intended. Just "What do the letters ET stand for?" would be clear enough. Adding "in the abbreviation ET" would not be necessary and it wouldn't be necessary to say "E and T", though that might be strictly grammatically correct. Since "abbreviated" means "shortened" (though almost always referring to words), it would be possible to ask "Why is ET abbreviated?" and the answer "Because he has short legs" would be acceptable but the joke would be considered an 'intellectual' joke and only a few people would find it funny!

Arthur Chappell

@arthurchappell (44941)

• Preston, England

29 Dec 15

It might work with another national language word for short in place - I couldn't be sure though as I only speak/read English

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pgn

@pgntwo (22405)

• Derry, Northern Ireland

26 Dec 15

It's a bit like: Q: What's an ammerfer? A: 'ittin' fings wiv. (What's a hammer for? Hitting things with.) Or: Q: What's a pofor? A: Pissin' in. (Po is short for "pot", as in a potty, commode, or gazunda!)

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Just an Ordinary Owl?

@owlwings (43897)

• Cambridge, England

26 Dec 15

I think that 'po' is a "Frenchification" of 'pot' to make it sound more respectable (just as some people with very English-sounding surnames liked to change the spelling and pronunciation to make them more 'elegant' - Caius for Keys and Bouquet for Bucket). A 'gazunda' is not, as it might seem, a foreign word. It's just the name for something which 'goes under' the bed in the same way that a 'gopher' is a menial who will 'go for' errands for someone. Maybe you can supply good answers to: Q: What's a Christopher? Q: What's a metaphor? Q: What's an aquifer?

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pgn

@pgntwo (22405)

• Derry, Northern Ireland

26 Dec 15

@owlwings I hadn't thought of the Frenchification aspect of "po". I knew the French were responsible for loo, a shortenenig of "Regardez! L'eau!" to "Gardeyloo!" and then simply "loo". If I use a heavy Southern accent, the answer to "What's a metaphor?" is "Keepin' cows in!". The animated film Rango (excellent film!) had "What's an aquifer?", "Keepin' aqua in"... It could also simply be "One less than an aqui 5". Can't think of a snappy one for Christopher... I remember novices being sent to the storeroom for "a long stand" or for "a short weight".

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pgn

@pgntwo (22405)

• Derry, Northern Ireland

28 Dec 15

@owlwings Still at a loss for an answer for "Q: What's a Christopher?" Did you have something in mind?

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changjiangzhibin89

@changjiangzhibin89 (17239)

• China

5 Jan 16

I didn't think It means 'small in stature',even I thought ET is short for Eastern Time .If we don't have good knowledge of English ,we would make a joke in English fall flat .

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