Untranslatableness of Good Puns.

Clutha Leader, Volume I, Issue 37, 25 March 1875, Page 7

Untranslatableness of Good Puns.

One way to try: a piece of wit id to translate it into another language ; but if it vanishes in the experiment you it must conclude to have been a pun. In short, one may say of a pun that it is " vox et praeterea nihil— -a sound, and nothing but a sound. Like most tests, however, this fails occasionally j for there are some few puns that, in spite of the prohibitory law, can smuggle themselves into the regions of true wit, just as foreigners who have perfectly learned the language of a country can enter as natives, and set alien acts at defiance. The lectures of a Greek /philosopher were attended by a young girl of exquisite beauty. .One day a grain of sand happened to , v getinto her eye, and, being unable?' to extricate it herself she requested his assistance. As he was observed toperform this little "operation with a zeal- — which, perhaps, a less sparkling eye might not have commanded, somebody called to him in Greek, " Do not spoil . the pupil." A punster, being requested to give a specimen of his art, asked for a subject. " The King." " The King is not a subject," he .replied. This holds good in French likewise—" Le* Roi n est. pas un sujei." The last case belongs to a class which is, perhaps, more extensive than is. commonly supposed; where the two senses of the word are. allied by an easy metaphor, and may consequently be* found in more than one language. We give / another of the. same kind. Erski.no'.... was reproached with. his propensity to punning, and was told that puns were the lowesf'kind of wit. "True/ said he, "and therefore the foundation, of wit." Madame de Lamotte was con--demned to.be. markepl,. with a hot iron on both shoulders/ as well as to perpetual imprisonment, for her fraud in the affair of Marie Antoinette's diamond necklace. At the- end of: ten months, however, she,, made her /escape L'Hopital, where she was confihed/ by the aid of a "scaur/ who said, when quitting her, "Adieu; madame, prenez garde de vous faire remarquer.',' (Fare- . well, madame, take care' not to be remarJced.) At a time -when public affairs were in. a very unsettled state in France, M. ! de G^-— ,_''wKb squinted terribly, asked Talleyrand how things were going on. ",Mais comme, vous voyez, Monsieur^* (Why, as you see, sir.) — * Leisure Hour.''