TRANSLATION OF PUNS

A pun is a play on words to produce a humorous effect.

There are several ways to create a pun:

1) Play on a word polysemy: the direct meaning is contrasted to a transferred meaning of the word:

“Owl,” said Pooh solemnly, “you made a mistake. Somebody did want it [the tail].”

“Who?”

“Eeyore. My dear friend Eeyore. He was fond of it.”

“Fond of it?”

“Attached to it,” said Winnie sadly. (A. Milne)

The following two meanings of the word form ‘to be attached’ are played upon: a) to be connected; b) to be fond of. The same principle of word playing is possible in Russian, as the participle ‘привязан’ has the same two meanings:

- Сова, - сказал Пух торжественно, - он [хвост] кому-то очень нужен.

- Кому?

- Иа, моему дорогому другу Иа-Иа. Он … он очень любил его.

- Любил его?

- Был привязан к нему, - грустно сказал Винни-Пух. (Пер. Т.Ворогушин, Л.Лисицкая)

2) Play on direct and figurative meaning of a phraseological unit:

Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, Winnie-the-Pooh lived in a forest all by himself under the name of Sanders.

“What does ‘under the name’ mean?” asked Christopher Robin.

“It means he had the name over the door in gold letters, and lived under it.”

The figurative meaning of the phrase ‘to live under the name’ is ‘to live with a false name’. This meaning is contrasted with the direct one explained in the extract, which is derived from the meanings of its components. The Russian correspondence of the phrase admits the similar play:

Винни-Пух жил в лесу один одинешенек, под именем Сандерс.

- Что значит «жил под именем»? – немедленно спросил Кристофер Робин.

- Это значит, что на дощечке над дверьюбыло золотыми буквами написано «Мистер Сандер», а он под ней жил.

3) Play on homonymy is most difficult for translation. Generally, contextual substitution is employed like this:

“If she [governess] couldn’t remember my name, she’d call me ‘Miss’ as the servants do.”

“Well, if she said ‘Miss’ and didn’t say anything more,” the Gnat remarked, “of course you’d miss your lessons. That’s a joke.” (L.Carroll)

The form ‘Miss’ is homonymous. As a verb, it has the meaning ‘to fail to attend or perform, to leave out or omit’ (to miss a class, a day of work). As a noun, it denotes a title of courtesy. The clash of the two meanings gives a humorous ring to the extract. The translator into Russian had to use a contextual substitution to preserve a pun:

- Это мне не поможет, - возразила Алиса, - даже если она забудет мое имя, она всегда может сказать: «Послушайте, милочка.»

- Но ведь ты же не Милочка, - перебил ее комар. – Ты и не будешь слушать. Хорошенькая вышла шутка, правда?

(Пер. Демуровой)

As we see, in the translation, a common and a proper name are opposed. The common name performs a phatic function that is also observed in the English sentence.

4) Play on paronymy. Paronyms are assonant words with differing meanings. Another example from Through the Looking-Glass by L. Carroll:

“I beg your pardon,” said Alice very humbly, “you had got to the fifth bend, I think?”

“I had not!” cried the Mouse sharply.

“A knot?” said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking anxiously about her. “Oh, do let me help to undo it!”

Alice’s misinterpretation of the negative particle not, pronounced by the Mouse, is manifested by the collocation to undo a knot. It is almost next to impossible to find a Russian correspondence in the paronymous form for this couple of words not-knot. Translator Demurova based the pun on homonymy:

- Нет, почему же, - ответила Алиса с недоумением. Вы дошли до пятого завитка, не так ли?

- Глупости! – рассердилась мышь. – Как я от них устала! Этого просто не вынести!

- А что нужно вынести? – спросила Алиса. – Разрешите, я помогу!

Contextual substitution is accompanied by the change of image.

5) Play on the word sound similarity: contamination. If two words have similar sounds or sound clusters, the common sounds are joined and a new word comes into life. This occurs according to the formula: (a-b) + (b-c) = a-b-c. For example, bread-and-butter + butterfly = bread-and-butterfly; баобаб + бабочка = баобабочка. A translator uses the same procedure of contaminating assonant words and coins a new “nonsense” (at first glance) word. Similarly, we see a hybrid word in the extract from Winnie-the Pooh by A. Milne:

“Bother! Said Pooh… “What’s that bit of paper doing?”

He took it out and looked at it. “It’s a missage,” he said to himself, “that’s what it is.”

The contaminated word missage is coined by Winnie-the-Pooh from the noun message and the verb to miss. Boris Zakhoder, when translating the story, substituted the verb by the one that is assonant to the noun послание -–спасти. What has come of it is this:

Он вытащил бумажку и посмотрел на нее.

- Это Спаслание, - сказал он, - вот что это такое.

This pun principle may involve not only words, but also phrases. Mock Turtle, a character from Alice in Wonderland by L. Carroll, reminisces about his school teacher: We called him Tortoise because he taught us. Demurova makes a play with the noun, on the one hand, and noun and preposition, on the other: Учителем у нас был старик Черепаха. Мы звали его Спрутом, … потому что он всегда ходил с прутиком.

6) Play on associative meanings. By “corrupting” a word, the author aims at the receptor’s background associations. This metalingual function of the text must be retained in translation. That is why the translator looks for an assonant word, bringing about similar associations on the part of the translation receptor: Reeling and Writhing studied at sea school in Alice in Wonderland is definitely associated with Reading and Writing, difficult subjects of an elementary school. The translators substituted the nouns with verbs according to the context: сначала мы, как полагается, чихали и пищали (associated with читали и писали) (пер. Демуровой); учились чесать и питать (пер. В.Набокова).

In search for a proper means of compensation or substitution, translators are apt to be rather free: Carroll says that at school children studied Mystery, Ancient and Modern (associated with History, Ancient and Modern), Seaography (Geography), Drawling (Drawing). Here the translators seem to be competing with each other as for the number of school subjects and their expressiveness: Demurova’s version of translation: У нас было много всяких предметов: грязнописание, триконометрия, анатомия и физиология. The list of subjects in Orel’s translation is increased: Еще была Болтаника и Уродоведение; …Палкебра и Драконометрия; Водная Речь; Хроматика, Морквология, Свинтаксис; Физия и Хихика. And V. Nabokov compensated the nouns by saying that they studied the following subjects: Лукомория, древняя и новая; арфография (это мы учились на арфе играть)… Затем делали мы гимнастику. Самое трудное было – язвительное наклонение.

So the crucial principle of a pun translator is receptor-centered translation, taking into account the equivalent effect upon the receptor.