美国国家公共电台 NPR Opinion: Here's A Dad Joke! What Does The Buffalo Tell His Son In The Morning?

（单词翻译）

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Why don't you hear a pterodactyl go to the bathroom? The P is silent. I'm a father; I tell dad jokes. See that farmer? A man - outstanding in his field. Peter Sokolowski, editor at large of Merriam-Webster, defined dad jokes for us as, quote, an obvious or predictable pun or play on words and usually judged to be endearingly corny or unfunny. See that documentary about beavers¹? What a great dam show.

You may not believe this, but there was a time when I was known to make comic observations on social and political issues that some people found pointed², sharp and contemporary. Now I say, termite³ walks into a bar and asks, is the bar tender here? Did you get a haircut? No, I got them all cut. I think dad jokes begin to pop out of fathers when the most important audience in life becomes our children. You want to make them laugh by any means necessary - silly faces and comic belches⁴. When they gain the power of speech, you stoop to dad jokes.

That graveyard's so popular people are dying to get in. What does the buffalo⁵ tell his son in the morning? Bye, son. Our daughters are too sophisticated to traffic in such humor now but I still tell them dad jokes, the way I still speak to our family with some of the winsome⁶ little childhood phrases they used to use - ooh, that soup is picey (ph); well, I got to go worken (ph) - even as our daughters have grown far too refined and now enunciate⁷ like Dame⁸ Judi Dench.

Fathers, like mothers, see their children as all ages at once; it is the special vision of parents. We recognize that self-assured teen and poised⁹ adolescent in front of us, but we also see them through a smoke of memories and tears as the infants and toddlers we once held and held so close, as we tried to earn the happy bubbles of their giggles¹⁰. We will see our children that way, somewhere in our minds and hearts, even on the day they win the Nobel Prize.

I've come to regard dad jokes as a sign that even as our children outgrow¹¹ our low humor, fathers never outgrow our duty to make them feel encouraged, loved and cherished and to try to make our children laugh. You know, I was named after Shakespeare. I know my name is Scott, but I was named after Shakespeare. I ordered a chicken and egg from Amazon. Huh, wonder what will come first.

(SOUNDBITE OF HORACE SILVER'S "SONG FOR MY FATHER")

SIMON: Horace Silver's "Song For My Father."