Ask Lemmy

"Supplise!"

Its from this dumb racist joke I heard as a kid:

An Italian, a Scotsman, and a Chinese guy are hired at a construction site.

The foreman points out a huge pile of sand and says to the Italian, "You're in charge of sweeping."

To the Scotsman he says, "You're in charge of shovelling."

And to the Chinese man he says, "You're in charge of supplies."

So the foreman goes away for a couple of hours and when he returns, the pile of sand is untouched. He asks the Italian, "Why didn't you sweep any of it?"

He replies "I no hava no broom, you saida to the Chinese guy that he wasa ina charge of supplies, but he hasa disappeared and I no coulda finda him nowhere."

The foreman turns to the Scotsman and says, "And you, I thought I told you to shovel this pile."

He replied, "Aye, ye did lad, bit ah couldnae git masel' a shuvl! Ye left thon wee Chinese mannie in chairge of supplies, bit ah couldnae fin' him onywhar."

The foreman is really pissed off now and storms off towards the pile of sand to look for the Chinese guy. As he approaches the mound, the Chinese guy leaps out from behind the sand and yells…

"SUPPLISE!"

30 years later my partner and mother of my 2 children is Asian. Despite her best efforts her English is not great. We are a bilingual household, and this type of silly mis-spoken word thing comes up a lot.

Every time I read the word "supplies", like yesterday my printer alerted me that I need to order supplies, I have a little chuckle imagining an Asian guy jumping out and surprising me.

Its lame. Its based on a racist stereotype. I dont make fun of people with language difficulties. But I will always find this joke worth a chuckle.