Who's he? Anyone I should know? *wondersifshe'smissedsomething*



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Never put a sock in a toaster!
E. Izzard

I doubt it. I've only heard of him because I was fortunate enough to be exposed to the immortal volumes "The Joy of Lex" and "More Joy of Lex" by Gyles Brandreth at an impressionable age. He devotes a couple of chapters to the magnificent puns of Mr Lewis, like these:

I told her no sensibleman
would take her dancing
in her bikini
So she went
with a little moron

and

Why piccolo profession like music that's full of viol practices, confirmed lyres, old fiddles, and bass desires? For the lute, of course.

These, of course, are not by any means the only delights to be found in the fore-mentioned volumes; I recommend them (though suspect they are no longer in print).

Sounds pretty sensible... *frown*
I suppose it takes me a tic longer to get it, seeing that I'm blond as well as a foreigner *g*

*glad she found some excuse*



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Never put a sock in a toaster!
E. Izzard

read them out loud Barbie - they're really verbal puns...



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

I know, I did get them, my English is not that bad... *g* I'm just not big into word play for some reason. I'm just as slow in German, trust me. :-)

See, now this is why I'm rather worried about TEA being translated into German. What's a joke or a pun if you have to either kill it or change its meaning?



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Never put a sock in a toaster!
E. Izzard

Know what you mean - depends on how lucky you are with the translator, I think. Maybe Jasper can find someone who thinks the same way he does who's bilingual? There must be one somewhere!

(Didn't mean to diss your English, sorry - my German's not bad but I wouldn't get puns like that in a million years!)



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

No offence taken! :-)
It's always somewhat difficult to judge in a forum thread, since you can't really hear each other, can you?

I very desperately hope he'll find someone capable of conjuring up a German equivalent. I've so many people at hand that simply have to read the book but don't speak English sufficiently well... Even if your English is brilliant, some of the hints and cross references are tricky, cause they're so "English", if you know what I mean. Basically, you have to have been in England to understand some of the underlying jokes instantly.

My favourite is the Socialist Republic of Wales. Nice one, that! Ín any respect... *ggg*



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Never put a sock in a toaster!
E. Izzard

Fair point about the difficulties of translation, but Terry Pratchett's translator once wrote that the trick is not to translate puns directly if they don't go, but to replace them with something that carries the same flavour.

Wales would be an Independent Socialist Republic of Alsace, or something...



PSD

==========

This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Yep love that! :)



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

Don't give up hope! Douglas Hofstadter's astonishing book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, which is as full of wordplay as a hive is full of honey, has been successfully translated into a number of languages including Chinese. If that can be translated, anything can!



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Well, that's just what I find tricky, finding an equivalent in the foreingn language that doesn't totally distort the story. I've the ultimate respect for people who manage that!

Alsace...*wonder* why Alsace? They're a totally different story... More French that Socialist. What's worse, I do not know... *wink*

I'm off now
Laters



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Never put a sock in a toaster!
E. Izzard

Alsace, like Wales, has been rolled over by a rather larger country too many times for their liking, and is full of people who sprak a funny version of the language. Admittedly it is technically French, but that only adds to the comic potential, I feel.

Unless it gets ceded to Russia as war reparations?



PSD

==========

This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Ah, someone shares my worries. I don't think that the translation will be a big success for reasons:

a) literary translation doesn't work. (Okay, that's just *my* opinion, but I'm not alone with it) Especially it doesn't work if the book to be translated is as pun-loaded as the Eyre Affair. If there's a real good translator, the translated editon can be fun (and I'm planning to buy it, just to compare with the original) and will just be slightly different from the original, but if the translator is just average or worse, most of the fun will just be killed. Anyone who has read an Andreas Brandhorst Translation of any Terry Pratchett novel will know what I mean.

b) the even bigger problem in my opinion is, that most of the literary works mentioned in TEA will not be known by or of any interest to readers who aren't interested in English literature. Those who have this interest, probably won't need a translation. Of course, most people will know that Shakespeare was a playwright and have heard of Charles Dickens (probably as the author of "A Christmas Carol in prose"), but at least in my opinion this is not enough to really enjoy all allusions etc. It would be the same as if a German author would have modelled a similar plot line on the German national literature and this would be translated into English. So the translation isn't only problematic for linguistic reasons, but also because of cultural differences. Maybe the German publisher should just include an appendix with annotations?



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Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.

(N. Chomsky 1957)

Too big, surely? Wouldn't they cede somewhere smaller like Marburg?



_ _ _ _ _

If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

The book to which I alluded a little earlier contains a dialogue called the Contracrostipunctus, which is a tightly-written virtuoso display of verbal and logical wit. I've seen the Italian translation; can't vouch for the Chinese because I don't speak the language, but the Italian was breathtaking. These things can be done. It just takes a lot of skill.



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Down Under I reckon it would be either New Zealand that was communist, or maybe even Tasmania. Then again, Australia could have been taken over by the Japanese during the war...

So many possiblities

Maybe for the German version it should be Bavaria? That WAS briefly a separate republic with a communist government, for a few weeks in 1919, after all... (Munich was, anyway, although I don't know how much attention the outlying districts paid to that regime...)

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Warning! Product may contain Newts!

Well, it depends who you ask *g* I guess any Palatinate would say "Saarland" if asked which county's voted out... My gran's from there so I can't really agree *lol* but I would also say, if not Saarland, then surely Bavaria is a good choice.
Probably not if you ask a Bavarian, though... *ponder*



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Never put a sock in a toaster!
E. Izzard

Oh, plus both the Saarland and Bavaria have generated a stand-up comedian each, that are very popular in our county. Comic potential I'd say, definitely.

To avoid misunderstandings: Yes, there are stand-up comedians, and good ones, and more than two in Germany. I'm just narrowing down the number to simplify the explanation...



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Never put a sock in a toaster!
E. Izzard

Plus it sounds better that way.

My German peeps were from Bavaria, I believe; my dad was there with the army around 1960 and says our name was like Smith there...