# Are there puns that can still work after translation to a different language? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 19, 2024, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-puns-that-can-still-work-after-translation-to-a-different-language/999024 "2024-03-19T10:29:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![X.L.Lent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a5b964/32.png) [@X.L.Lent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/X.L.Lent)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2024, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-puns-that-can-still-work-after-translation-to-a-different-language/999024/21 "2024-03-21T00:18:14Z")
The sentence “Give me a hand” has the same double meaning in English and Spanish (ie: “Come help me” or “Give me applause”). If you need help and you say to your smart aleck friend Juan “_Dame un mano_” he might start clapping instead of comming to your aid. ---
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2024, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-puns-that-can-still-work-after-translation-to-a-different-language/999024/22 "2024-03-21T09:11:25Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I wouldn’t say ‘lame and not funny’ necessarily disqualifies it; puns are often lame and unfunny. True, but unlike your example which is immediately transparent, mine feels like a stretch. I think it’d need some setup to make sense. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2024, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-puns-that-can-still-work-after-translation-to-a-different-language/999024/23 "2024-03-21T09:47:57Z")
I suspect there are a few languages that preserve the wordplay in the old “walk this way” gag: > **[Walk this way (humor)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walk_this_way_(humor))** > > "Walk this way" is a recurrent pun in a number of comedy films and television shows. It may be derived from an old vaudeville joke that refers to the double usage of the word "way" in English as both a direction and a manner. > One version of this old joke goes like this: A heavy-set woman goes into a drug store and asks for talcum powder. The bowlegged clerk says, "Walk this way," and the woman answers, "If I could walk that way, I wouldn't need talcum powder!" > As a popular visual gag, the joke ... ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2024, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-puns-that-can-still-work-after-translation-to-a-different-language/999024/24 "2024-04-21T10:53:33Z")
_Miles Gloriosus_ (The Braggart Warrior), a comedy by Roman playwright Titus Plautus was one of the source plays for “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” by Stephen Sondheim. In the notes accompanying a translation by Erich Segal (of “Love Story” fame), Segal writes with some pride about his translation of a particular line. A drunken character, stammering about his condition, says _ma-ma-mammare_ (“drunk,” plausibly preceded by the word “breast). In the English translation, he says “tit-tit-tipsy.” So at least we know that some puns retain their punniness when translated _into_ English. ---
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2024, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-puns-that-can-still-work-after-translation-to-a-different-language/999024/25 "2024-04-21T17:42:53Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > So at least we know that some puns retain their punniness when translated _into_ English. I’m pretty sure that this is close to the Holy Grail of literary translators all over the world. Well, not this particular pun, of course but finding a wonderfully adequate way to render both meaning and form. David Bellos writes about his joy of finally finding a way translate a particularly complex pun found in one of **Georges Perec** ’s [books](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life:_A_User%27s_Manual). The way he describes it, it almost feels like a religious epiphany. Or a major technological breakthrough. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2024, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-puns-that-can-still-work-after-translation-to-a-different-language/999024/26 "2024-04-21T18:42:53Z")
I read here once about a scene in one of the goofy parody movies where an equine has a problem with its voice, and a character says “He’s just a little hoarse”. The German translation was something like “He’s a little rusty”, where “rusty” also means “horse”. Anyone remember the details? I think it was @CalMeacham who told the story. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2024, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-puns-that-can-still-work-after-translation-to-a-different-language/999024/27 "2024-04-21T19:04:37Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I read here once about a scene in one of the goofy parody movies where an equine has a problem with its voice, and a character says “He’s just a little hoarse”. The German translation was something like “He’s a little rusty”, where “rusty” also means “horse”. I don’t know the context, but I can’t think of a way that pun would work in German. Words for “horse” in German are Pferd, Ross, Pony, Mähre, Stute (mare) or Hengst (stallion), and none of these words correspond to any word that could make it a pun. ETA: wait, the word “rusty” made me think of a possible, but really constrained pun. The German word for “rusty” is “rostig”, and the adjective for a mare in heat is “rossig”, and both words are, with a lot of stretching, kind of homonymous. Maybe this pun worked on these words? ---
**Author:** ![plankter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ba0ec/32.png) [@plankter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plankter)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2024, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-puns-that-can-still-work-after-translation-to-a-different-language/999024/28 "2024-04-21T19:46:18Z")
That’d be “Top Secret”. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2024, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-puns-that-can-still-work-after-translation-to-a-different-language/999024/29 "2024-04-21T21:47:52Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I read here once about a scene in one of the goofy parody movies where an equine has a problem with its voice, and a character says “He’s just a little hoarse”. The German translation was something like “He’s a little rusty”, where “rusty” also means “horse”. > > Anyone remember the details? I think it was @CalMeacham who told the story. I’m afraid I had nothing to do with that one. You’ll have to look somewhere else. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2024, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-puns-that-can-still-work-after-translation-to-a-different-language/999024/30 "2024-04-22T11:41:04Z")
Die Hard 2: Die Harder In French, the reading of “Die Hard _Deux_” sounds nearly exactly the same as the English “Die Harder” and I thought it was super clever advertising. It took me years to realize this was probably not an intentional thing, as the pun appreciation of the bilingual Canadian market isn’t a big driver of Hollywood marketing decisions. It still makes me smile, though! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2024, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-puns-that-can-still-work-after-translation-to-a-different-language/999024/31 "2024-04-22T23:11:06Z")
OK, searching the forum for “rostig top secret pun” found the [original reference](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-puns-and-wordplay-translated/926560/8): > [@How are puns and wordplay translated?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-puns-and-wordplay-translated/926560/8): > > Pun to pun. In this strategy, you find a pun in the target language that (ideally) matches the meaning of the pun in the source language, or if this is not possible, you find a new pun in the target language that still makes sense in the context of the document you’re translating. Needless to say, this strategy can be extremely difficult to apply, and in many cases it’s simply not possible to use at all. An example of a successful application of this strategy can be found in the film _Top Secret_: in the original English version, the main characters encounter a coughing horse and ask its driver if he’s OK. The diver replies, “Oh, he caught a cold the other day and he’s just a little hoarse.” One subtitler rendered the driver’s reply instead that the horse’s voice was just a little “_rostig_”, meaning “rusty” in English. But in German one of the words for “horse” is _Ross_, so pronouncing “_rostig_” with a slightly overstressed first syllable makes it easy for German speakers to spot the pun. Now, of course, “rusty” isn’t exactly the same meaning as “hoarse”, but it’s close enough that the joke makes sense in the context of the scene. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2024, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-puns-that-can-still-work-after-translation-to-a-different-language/999024/32 "2024-04-22T23:23:26Z")
“Did everything come out all right?” (to someone who just pooped) works in Spanish, too — same double meaning: “¿Todo salió bien?” (If Nava still Doped, surely she’d point out that the better Spanish for the “did everything work out?” meaning is “¿Todo **se** salió bien?”…but she’s not here, so we’ll just skip that…) ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2024, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-puns-that-can-still-work-after-translation-to-a-different-language/999024/33 "2024-05-27T08:41:45Z")
I just ran into a clever one of these while rereading a manga. One character (who doesn’t like another) says to someone “Let’s hurry up and get away from her–_here_, I was going to say _here_”. The unliked character in question is named Coco. The Japanese word for “here” is “koko”. So you can tell what the original Japanese wordplay was without being told, and it is pretty much the same in both languages. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-puns-that-can-still-work-after-translation-to-a-different-language/999024.md?page=1)