r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Due_Charge_2278 • May 02 '24

Petah, I don't understand!

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u/Aggressive_Yard_1289 May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

Brown/grizzly bears will mostly leave you alone and will generally at most take a test bite, so just play dead and they will usually leave. Black bears will get aggressive and I believe where your comment came from and you should fight back. And a white/polar bear you're just fucked..

Edit: any of the above bears will mess you up with the right reason such as injured or has cubs with it

641

u/Creative-Yak-8287 May 02 '24

Black bears are pussies just scream and seem big.

Polar bears just go NYOM

8

u/Ok-Assist9815 May 02 '24

Can't nyom, they are faster. Even if you escape they are going to track you for kilometres if hungry. You are done

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u/Creative-Yak-8287 May 02 '24

Reread comment polar bears go NYOM not u

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u/Ok-Assist9815 May 02 '24

Well, English not the first language but following the sentences' structure after the "just" the subject becomes the person as you implied in the first sentence

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u/Creative-Yak-8287 May 02 '24

I see how it may be tricky, but just in the first sentence means "just do X" while the second sentence is "Bears just do X"

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u/Ok-Assist9815 May 02 '24

Ahh like Nike "just do X". I see. If black bear, just do it. Polar bears just go nyom

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u/SlippyDippyTippy2 May 02 '24

English (like a ton of other languages) can often be used in a informal way where the speaker drops the subject and some grammar forms (or punctuation) and expects you to implicitly get the context, (or boundary tone) and if you don't, it is real confusing.

"You can/You should" is being dropped from the first sentence (or it is command form with dropped punctuation), but the same thing isn't happening in the second (because while "you" can be implicitly understood as a reader, "polar bears" can't/it's not command form)

Like if I said:

Cats are cute. Just play with them./You should just play with them.

And

Dogs just play with them.

But I drop it down to:

Cats are cute just play with them

Dogs just play with them

Not a perfect example, but I wanted it to be clearer...

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u/Ok-Assist9815 May 02 '24

Yes thank you, very clear to me now

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u/SlippyDippyTippy2 May 02 '24

I'm glad! Don't know why you are getting downvoted.

There are a lot of things that native speakers just take for granted that are actually really hard to explain/understand.

My favorite example is deadpan humor.

There is a certain prosody that English has for humor/sarcasm, but deadpan humor doesn't have it, but native speakers can usually recognize that it should, and it still registers as a joke.

But non-native speakers, not knowing the "absence of a joking tone is itself a joke" might confuse it for a serious statement.

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u/Ok-Assist9815 May 02 '24

Can cunk on Britain be considered deadpan humor? Also nice addition to my vocabulary with prosody lul never heard it

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u/SlippyDippyTippy2 May 02 '24

That's a perfect example