I think it must be the masochist inside me who keeps me reading story after story on this thread even knowing that I will not understand half of the punch lines.
Maybe I’m traumatized by a clever editor who decided it was a good idea translating and including one of those stories on a compilation of Asimov’s short stories I read being a teen, and not knowing a word of English by this time.
The story, as I recall, was about Sloan who had an alien pet, a sluggish creature named Teddy. He made a bet on his pet winning a race against a quicker one. Everyone on the spaceship was shocked with Sloan being so confident on his pet.
When the race started, as everyone expected, Teddy advanced at only a few inches per minute while the other one was running like a hare. Then, when everything seemed lost, Teddy using a unknown until this moment ability, teletransported itself to the finish line winning the race.
After that Sloan uttered the final phrase which ended the story:
“Todo el mundo sabe que el Teddy de Sloan gana la carrera”.
No translator or editor note explaining it. Only years after I figured out that the original end might has been something like:
“Everyone knows Sloan’s Teddy wins the race”.