ELEPHANT TREATISE

“A group of people meet at the National Geographic Society in London and decide that, for the next meeting, everybody has to present a treatise on the elephant. They all return the following year and present their volumes.

The German has a 700-page dissertation: Beschreibung des männlichen Elephantes in Ost-Afrika. 1. Teil (description of the male elephant of East Africa, Part I).
The Englishman has a small, sober, black leather-bound book entitled “Elephants I have shot”.
The American has an 8-page booklet in colour, “How to make bigger and better elephants”,
while the Frenchman has a small tastefully presented book on L'amour des éléphants (‘The love life of elephants’).
The Pole presents a book called ‘The elephant and its relation to the Polish Problem’,
while the Swede has a greyish book called Elefanter och hur man titulerar dem (‘Elephants and how to address them’).
The Dane presents a book of recipes: Elefant på 100 måder (‘100 ways to cook an elephant’),
while the Norwegian has a book entitled Norge og vi nordmænd (‘Norway and we Norwegians’).”

Taken Dec 3, 2009 from http://culturalmoments.blogspot.com/2007/12/european-stereotypes.html