ANECDOTES
Short satirical, witty or barbed tales
describing events from daily life in a lively manner and intended to draw a
conclusion from what has been related.
EXAMPLES OF ANECDOTES
That’s different
A man came to Nasreddin Hoca when he was
serving as governor.
‘I want to ask you something,’ he said.
‘Go ahead,’ Nasreddin Hoca replied.
‘The other day, a cow that your neighbours said belonged to you kiled one of my
cows. What should I do?’
Nasreddin Hoca pulled at his beard and thought for a bit. ‘You’re not going to
bring charges against the animal, are you? And it’s not his owner’s fault. There
is no way he could have known what was going to happen.
The man smiled, and replied. ‘Excuse me, I made a mistake. It was not my cow
that died, but yours.’
Nasreddin Hoca jumped up. ‘That’s different,’ he said. ‘In that case, hand me
down that legal book and let’s have a look!’
The Chief of Police’s Donkey
The chief of police’s donkey was lost, and he
was furious.
‘You had better find my animal quickly!’ he shouted. Everyone was in a terrible
panic. The people of Akşehir went in all directions to find the missing donkey.
Some of them met Nasreddin Hoca on the way.
‘Please help us,’ they begged. ‘If you see a stray donkey anywhere, grab it.’
‘Whose is the donkey?’
‘The chief of police’s’ they replied.
Nasreddin Hoca said he would keep an eye out, and went on his way singing.
A villager asked him why he was singing, and he replied that he was looking for
the chief of police’s donkey.
‘How does singing help you to find a donkey?’ the villager enquired.
‘Of course you need to keep your spirits up if you are sent to look for a donkey,’
he answered. ‘especially if it belongs to the chief of police!’
Why He Sat On The Donkey Backwards
One day, Nasreddin Hoca was riding home from
the mosque on his donkey, and there was a large crowd behind him. Suddenly, he
got off, and got on again backwards, facing the animal’s tail. The people
naturally asked him what he was doing.
He replied: ‘I thought about it, and decided to ride my donkey like this,
because I have no time for disrespect. If you move ahead of me, then you will be
turning your back on me. That would be terrible disrespect. If I go on ahead, I
will be turning my back on you, and that is also quite unacceptable. This way, I
can go on ahead of you and you can follow behind, and we can still keep looking
at each other!’
I Found The Pitch
Nasreddin Hoca was given a saz, a kind of
stringed instrument, to keep him busy at a family gathering.
‘Play us a pretty tune!’ they told him.
Nasreddin Hoca began to run his fingers over the strings at random, making an
odd noise.
‘Hoca!’ they said, ‘is that any way to play the saz? You need to find the pitch
and play properly.’
Nasreddin Hoca kept making a terrible noise, and replied: ‘My hands can’t find
the pitch, but they are looking for it. Now I have found one, so there is no
need to go on looking.’
(kultur.gov.tr)
