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In my favorite Russian podcast, russianmypassion.com, the speaker said the following:

Мы говорим баян, когда кто-то пытается рассказать нам какую-то старую, несмешную (ну, уже несмешную) шутку.

I'm having a hard time understanding the intended meaning of the parenthetical statement with уже. Could someone explain this usage?

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  • It may be useful: ещё/пока is opposite in meaning to уже when we are talking about the events with respect to the present time. ещё/пока не смешно - уже не смешно; ещё/пока не посмотрел - уже не посмотрю (a new movie at the cinema); он ещё не ходит (child in arms) - он уже не ходит (very old man).
    – Eugene
    Commented Feb 19, 2017 at 8:20

1 Answer 1

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The whole sentence can be translated as:

We say "баян", when someone tries to tell us an old, not funny (well, not funny anymore) joke.

The joke may have been funny long time ago, when it first appeared, but now it is old, everyone knows it, and nobody laughs at it anymore.

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  • Aha, so it's the normal usage of уже не. I thought it was something like "well, obviously not funny" but maybe I overthought it :) Thank you for your explanation!
    – CocoPop
    Commented Feb 16, 2017 at 17:57

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