An English equivalent to the Spanish phrase «Me pasó a un amigo»?

Question

In Spanish we sometimes say something like «Me pasó a un amigo». For example, you could be telling someone to be careful when doing something because otherwise something bad and possibly embarrassing could happen and say «Me pasó a un amigo». This is a play on words: we have the sentence «Le pasó a un amigo», which translates very directly as «It happened to a friend», but we change the «Le» to a «Me» which turns the sentence ungramatical but suggests the idea that one is trying to hide that actually it happened to us. In Spanish to happen can take an indirect object directly (in English you need the proposition to: it happened to me), and we are using the «wrong» pronoun for comedic effect. In «Me pasó a un amigo» there are two different indirect objects, the me and the a un amigo, and that is what makes the sentence incorrect, understandable, and funny.

Can one say something with a similar effect in English?

Answer 1

The phrase "asking for a friend" can be used in a similar (joking) way in English. It implies that someone is really asking a question on their own behalf while pretending to be asking on behalf of somebody else.

Of course, this applies to questions, rather than warnings, but it's a roughly similar construction.

TFD gives this definition with two examples:

asking for a friend

A phrase used humorously when one is really asking about something (usually something embarrassing) for oneself.

Hey, are those unicorn decorations inappropriate for a 32-year-old's upcoming birthday? Asking for a friend.

Do we really have to shower every day? Asking for a friend, obviously.