The joke hinges on accidental bilingual homophony. In standard French, the noun for seal is phoque, pronounced phonetically as /fɔk/. It rhymes closely with the English word dock, but carries a clipped vowel that English speakers immediately associate with an expletive. The word bébé (/be.be/) adds an extra syllable that creates the cadence of baby.
The second half of the sentence delivers the punchline. M'a poussé hier translates directly to "pushed me yesterday." In spoken French, poussé (/pu.se/) sounds identical to the English slang term pussy, while hier (/jɛʁ/) clips the trailing sound with a guttural French R that English listeners often interpret as hair or yeah.
Put together in a continuous sentence, un bébé phoque m'a poussé hier registers to an English listener as a crude declarative phrase. The phonetic resemblance is not subtle. Because the translation engines deliver the sentence with flat, unemotional French diction, the delivery deadpans the vulgarity, amplifying the shock value for whoever hears it without context.
