Would there be a way to make the joke "Ella es mi amiga vieja, disculpe, mi vieja amiga" work in English?

Question

There is a Spanish joke,

Ella es mi amiga vieja, disculpe, mi vieja amiga.

The joke basically says, "She is my friend that is old, excuse me, my old friend", making fun of the person's age. Would there be a way to translate this into English?
Of course, saying something like "She is my friend old..." doesn't work in English, though the joke does also work in languages like French. The translation I wrote may be considered to work, but I was looking for something smoother.

Edit: my attempt:

She is my old af friend, I mean my extremely old friend, I mean my old pal.

Answer 1

In British English, I think one would actually double down on the joke, thus making it absurd and therefore more obviously a joke:

She is my old friend, and I've known her for ages as well.

An "old friend" is not an elderly friend; it's a fixed phrase meaning a friend of long standing. The second half of the joke sentence is what changes that fixed meaning into the elderly meaning: it's a type of garden-pathing.

This may rely on the famously dry British sense of humour. I don't believe there is a direct equivalent of the OP's phrase in British English, because British humour doesn't work the same way.

Answer 2

At the opposite end of the spectrum from the doubling-down on the joke that Andrew Leach offered is a kind of doubling where perhaps only the look on your face, or your delivery, would let the listener know, or wonder, if you were making a joke. In English, we often double the adjective as a way of saying "very [adjective]":

She's an old, old friend of mine.

That could be understood to mean "I've known her for a very long time" or "She's old, and I've known her for a long time".

Answer 3

Putting the same adjective old after the noun friend does not work. The syntactic switch is not generative in the way it is in French or Spanish. So you may have to rely on another element of language like a similar word to represent the joke.

For instance,

She is my elderly friend; excuse me, my old friend.

You could also use partial omission to lead a hearer to think you're saying she's an old one and then adjust:

She is an old ... excuse me, an old friend.

Answer 4

Try

This is my old-lady friend, excuse me, my old lady-friend, I mean, my old friend and fine lady ...

This is even funnier than in Spanish, because the second rewording not only still implies that she is old, but also has a sexual implication ("old lady-friend" implying "elderly girlfriend") and the third "save" is awkward enough to make it all seem ridiculous.

Answer 5

I'm a bit confused by these comments.

What is wrong with ''This is my old friend: sorry, she's not that old''?

It seems like everyone is over-complicating this with esoteric wordplay or attempts at a direct translation when there exists a simple version in English which is also common, which uses repetition of the word 'old' and which isn't reliant on tone of voice or delivery.

I have never heard some of the other answers in my life although there might be a big age difference in the people posting responses.

Answer 6

"This is Jill, my friend, who is very old. Wash your mouth out ... I mean, this is Jill, who is my very old friend."

Here, 'old friend' is non-intersective. Compare 'heavy smoker', 'beautiful dancer' [default sense]. 'Small elephant'.

Answer 7

Works better when spoken, but "She is my old friend, sorry, I mean my old friend"

If you put stress on the first old with a slight pause(?) between old and friend, it sounds more like she is an elderly person, whereas a faster "old friend" sounds more like a friend of long time.

Answer 8

I think I'd highlight the ambiguity by swapping around the intended meanings:

She's my old friend — my very, very old friend.

The first part would usually be interpreted as a long-standing friend. Then the second part subverts it (which is where the humour comes), suggesting that the sentence instead refers to the friend's age — but the exaggeration simultaneously suggests that it's not meant literally.

(Obviously, I wouldn't say this about someone I didn't know well enough to know they'd take it in fun.)

Although the form is similar to Andrew Leach's answer, I think this one is slightly more subtle and off-hand — you wouldn't expect a rim-shot or a laugh after it, for example.

Answer 9

She is old, err, I mean she is my old friend."

A direct option relying on attempting to correct bad grammar quickly, as "She is old friend" could still be understood as "She is my old friend", but correcting the phrase instead of finishing it leads to calling her old directly. the "my" could be emphasized.

A second option would be

She is old, friend... Err, I mean she is my old friend"

In this example, the speaker was trying to refer to both her and the listener as a friend ("She is my old friend, friend."), and corrects themselves by completing the statement about her correctly, and abandoning referring to the listener as a friend.

"my" could be replaced with "an" in any example.

Answer 10

FYI, the original joke is said in the Argentinian telenovela Floricienta, by the antagonist's mom, to a protagonist-side woman, where there is a history between them concerning a man.

To be close to a word swap like the original, we can have like,

"She is my exceptionally old friend, excuse me, my old exceptional friend."

or

"She is my especially old friend, excuse me, my old special friend."

Maybe people will think of more like that.