Two girls sit on the roof, one girl is good and the other one is evil, and throw bricks at bystanders. The evil girl hit 3 times, and good girl 5 times. Why? Because good always triumphs over evil.

New translation program desperately needed.

I think if it is read as "The evil girl hit three people, and the kind girl five people", the fatalistic irony so common in Russian humor will be apparent.

I thought it was funny, dark, but funny; but I'm not going to laugh at Vashper's jokes if he doesn't start laughing at mine.

Russian humor isn't necessarily intended to evoke laughs.

An American visiting England asked a local how do they have such lovely lawns? The Brit replied, "it's really quite simple. You take a good piece of sod and roll it daily for 500 years".
I thought this joke was rather pointless but every Englishman I've told it to practically rolled on the floor with laughter.

quote:

Originally posted by Brice:
I think if it is read as "The evil girl hit three people, and the kind girl five people", the fatalistic irony so common in Russian humor will be apparent.

Although I don't see anything particularly "fatalistic", you're absolutely correctly understood the joke. This is the irony of modern mythology, may be partly anti-Western, but not much.
But for God's sake, I don't understand the difference between "The evil girl hit three people" and "The evil girl hit 3 times" , and I find it hard to understand why one phrase is clear and the other not.

quote:

Originally posted by Kensco:
I'm not going to laugh at Vashper's jokes if he doesn't start laughing at mine.

This, Kensco, is market thinking and the pressure on the partner