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Comment by hackbinary | Hacker News Reader

Does no one have a sense of humour?

Manyana means tomorrow. But often tomorrow never comes, especially in the more laid back Latin American cultures, so it also means probably never. You have to know Spanish and have exposure to the culture to get the 'joke'

Yes, this. Is the government going to just keep delaying it?

Spain is a major part of the EU.

There are also a great many British Ex-pats in who retire in Spain, not to mention that Spain is a favourite holiday spot.

A constant feature of the past few decades is people commenting on the Mail that the UK is overrun with immigrants and therefore they've moved to Spain. The cognitive dissonance is strong with them.

It's fair to bemoan the general decline of your society with the desire to better your personal lot through immigrating. It's likely that they don't dislike foreigners but they do dislike being forced to subsidise them via taxes. It's a side effect of the welfare state.

Milton Friedmen convers it pretty well in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eyJIbSgdSE. It's an old problem :/

Unfortunately HN is really bad at taking jokes unless you explain the joke in the comment. It's also monolingual English. C'est la vie.

My native language is Spanish, and I don't get it.

It's "mañana", by the way. You wrote "español" so you clearly have access to ñ.

I'm sorry, I think I have fixed it now. :)

Tomorrow never comes ....

Maybe I'm missing a reference...? I don't get the joke.

Same. It's probably aimed at Europeans and references something well-known there.

Most Europeans will be confused as most don't know spanish, however translating it you only need to know the reputation of the spanish for being lazy/late.

I think most Europeans know the words sí, mañana and Español, and can work out what "artículo 50" means.

I don't think most Europeans know mañana, which is the key to the joke. The others sure.

The lazy Spanish guy repeating "mañana" is a common (though perhaps dated) comedy trope.

I see. It's an ethnic joke. I would try not to assume hackbinary was being racist even if I picked up that possible meaning.

No ethnic joke, except perhaps pointed at the British who seem to like to colonise the warmer climes of Spain.

But basically, the joke is that Mañana never comes. Anyone familiar with (remote) Island life, from Islay on the west coast of Scotland to Saltspring Island on the west coast of BC will surely identify.

The Spanish and the Greeks tend to get a lot of 'lazy' flak in Europe. The origin of this has to do with the climate.

Many countries view hard workers working through the daylight and having evenings / night to themselves. However in the hotter nations the middle of the day and afternoon is often taken off, and work restarts later going into the evening/night. Thus it often appears like these countries only work half days.

The truth is now common knowledge around Europe however the traditional image of a Spaniard asleep in the middle of the day persists alongside the camp French snob and the Tea Toting and Tutting Brit.

As I see it the joke is no more racist than joking that the US brings kilotons of freedom to the world or that Canadians are sorry.

We would never measure Freedom using those commie units!

Is this a reference to something? If not then it just isn't funny.

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