2012年6月7日 星期四

The Untranslatables: Plastic Cups edition

第十一本書 (猜一句成語)?

答案:BOOK 11 (不可思議)

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Absolute zero cold. Every time I run across one of these my heart literally stops dead in its tracks from the body blow that are these “jokes.”

I’m not quite decided on why they’re untranslatable. Is it because they’re so bad that translating them poses a health risk to the reader? To the translator? Is it possible that in translating them they would dissolve into nothing? Something like this,

English: Why did the chicken cross the road?

Why?

To get to the other side.

中:

 

 

or

中: 為...雞為... ... 靠.

算了。

The closest I can think of is this, where the really great jokes start at 4:15.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dyc8j-LxzLU

“Four-hundred and eight over rice.”

In the clip we do get a kids “Superman” joke, which is close to some of the stuff that slays me, and I’ll certainly get it up here if my heart is able to restart itself after reading it next time.

I remember reading some “joke” books when I was a kid where all the “jokes” would be these one line puns that almost tried to NOT be funny. I remember thinking, “that’s not a joke, that’s just two things that rhyme. Why is this in a book? This isn’t anything!” I was about 10.

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