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Why English is such a great language for puns

economist.com

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Re: Why English is such a great language for puns

#51

Post by gbgtgsenki »

nostromo95 wrote: post #30
jcoffland wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those who possess the wit but refrain, are the most admirable.

Ha, who said that? Stating your opinion as aphorism doesn't make it true. The application of wit seems to me to only be a positive. Humor brings joy. Adding wit to a conversation makes it strictly better.

Fowler stated his opinion in his book and you used that as an aphorism. Do you accept that as truth just because you know who said that, but don't even consider something that a pseudonymous user wrote? I have to say that you are a dumb sheep, even though I agree with you in the pun/humor matter.

Re: Why English is such a great language for puns

#52

Post by mattchamb »

samstave wrote: post #49
japanforever wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only Vietnamese but a lot of languages all over the world, if not most or all. Puns and wordplay exist in any language, and people who say "why English/German/Swahili/whatever is so great for Y" merely have no deeper understanding of linguistics aside folk etymologies and lists of "untranslated words" (which are a joke to people actually into linguistics) and things like that. Japanese comedians can't go 10 minut…

Examples please. I love puns.

There is a sushi shop near me called "Sushi Yah!" the japanese for "sushi shop" is "すし屋" pronounced "sushi ya"

Re: Why English is such a great language for puns

#53

Post by jpatokal »

samstave wrote: post #49
japanforever wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only Vietnamese but a lot of languages all over the world, if not most or all. Puns and wordplay exist in any language, and people who say "why English/German/Swahili/whatever is so great for Y" merely have no deeper understanding of linguistics aside folk etymologies and lists of "untranslated words" (which are a joke to people actually into linguistics) and things like that. Japanese comedians can't go 10 minut…

Examples please. I love puns.

Japanese humor consists almost entirely of puns. I still remember the first joke I understood on a comedy show on Japanese TV:

Tired salaryman comes from after a long day at work, strips off clothes. His wife has prepared a hot bath, so he enters, pulls out a tub of kimchi (Jp. kimuchi) and blissfully exhales aah, kimochi ii ("feels good").

Lots more here:

https://everything2.com/title/Japanese+puns+that+are+not+fun...

Re: Why English is such a great language for puns

#54

Post by jpatokal »

dmoy wrote: post #12
jasonjei wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese also is a great language for puns. I was in Taipei a few weeks ago and saw a restaurant named 糖朝 ( tangchao , Sugar Dynasty), when most people would expect to see 唐朝 ( tangchao , Tang Dynasty). In addition, many cultural sayings are based off "puns." For example, 年年有餘 ( nian nian you yu , year after year there will be a surplus) is a common saying during the Chinese New Year. However, many families eat fish (…

There's an entire type of Chinese comedy which is roughly translatable as homophone puns (相声). Few non native speakers ever get good enough to do it. In fact when I was watching the CCTV New year broadcast in English 7 or so years back, the translation and subtitles basically just gave up for all of the crosstalk segments. They just put a banner underneath saying basically "this is crosstalk now, sorry we can't trans…

The one famous non-native xiangsheng master being Dashan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iailMSUVenA

Re: Why English is such a great language for puns

#55

Post by cletus »

Look, I don't pretend to be an expert here but I've dabbled in learning some other languages, most recently spanish.

One thing that keeps coming up is how economical English seems to be compared to at least the other languages I've encountered. By "economical" I mean in terms of syllables. This seems to be a particularly useful property when it comes rhyming and lyrics and the like.

A few examples from Spanish:

nosotros/nosotras = we

demasiado = too

bastante = quite

primavera = spring

verano = summer

invierno = winter

bebemos = (we) drink

Also, as seems to be common in western European languages (other than English) is that more articles are required. Also, English fits the German pattern (being of that family linguistically speaking, this is unsurprising) of appending nouns together to form new words. In English these are separated by spaces still. In German they are not but it is the same construct/idea.

So English: Independence Day

Spanish: El dia de la independencia

Now this is more complicated because the verb forms in Spanish tend to be so distinct you can drop the subject eg (Yo) estoy tarde (I am late). But still "estoy" is two syllables compared to one in English ("am"). Also, some pronouns are so indistinct that they need to be qualified (eg with "a usted" or "a ella").

I'm by no means a linguistics expert so can't say what affect this has on, say, the speed of information transfer (which I expect is _roughly_ the same across languages but variances probably exist) or on poetry, songs or even puns. But I find it interesting.

Another point: what people find funny, even with those that have the same native tongue, varies culturally. There have been studies on this. For example, Americans tend to prefer humour where people get hurt (ostensibly) and just slapstick in general. This seems to explain things like The Three Stooges. Speaking as an Australian, I've never understood the appeal. But as an Australian, our humour is much closer to English humour.

Again, I make no claims about English compared to other languages.

Re: Why English is such a great language for puns

#56

Post by nostromo95 »

gbgtgsenki wrote: post #51
nostromo95 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, who said that? Stating your opinion as aphorism doesn't make it true. The application of wit seems to me to only be a positive. Humor brings joy. Adding wit to a conversation makes it strictly better.

Fowler stated his opinion in his book and you used that as an aphorism. Do you accept that as truth just because you know who said that, but don't even consider something that a pseudonymous user wrote? I have to say that you are a dumb sheep, even though I agree with you in the pun/humor matter.

First off, Fowler's lines aren't an aphorism. If they are, then all quotes are aphorisms. Was it an appeal to authority? Sure. Fowler was a genius. I'll more readily accept his authority than some pseudonymous user's.

Secondly, I did consider our grandparent's comment (see the second half of my reply). Should consideration be measured in word count or something? Should I have written him a paper?

I called him out on the comment because I see such pithy writing as fundamentally intellectually dishonest. Writing your (unsupported) conclusion with the trappings of a well-known adage misrepresents your (possibly personal) opinion as something already widely believed, staving off further argument.

Re: Why English is such a great language for puns

#57

Post by saghm »

cletus wrote: post #55

Look, I don't pretend to be an expert here but I've dabbled in learning some other languages, most recently spanish. One thing that keeps coming up is how economical English seems to be compared to at least the other languages I've encountered. By "economical" I mean in terms of syllables. This seems to be a particularly useful property when it comes rhyming and lyrics and the like. A few examples from Spanish: nosot…

I'm a native English speaker who's passable at Spanish, and I've noticed this as well. One of the ways I try to practice Spanish is by mentally translating the lyrics of (English) songs that I'm listening to, and it's pretty much impossible to fit a direct translation of most lines within the correct number of syllables, so it becomes an exercise in trying to find a way to express the same thing in fewer syllables before the next line of the song comes.

Re: Why English is such a great language for puns

#59

Post by gengkev »

cletus wrote: post #55

Look, I don't pretend to be an expert here but I've dabbled in learning some other languages, most recently spanish. One thing that keeps coming up is how economical English seems to be compared to at least the other languages I've encountered. By "economical" I mean in terms of syllables. This seems to be a particularly useful property when it comes rhyming and lyrics and the like. A few examples from Spanish: nosot…

On the relative density of languages, here's an article about a study I think has been discussed on HN before: http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2091477,0... Basically your intuition is pretty much correct: languages have roughly the same speed of information transfer because lower density is compensated for with greater speed.

Re: Why English is such a great language for puns

#60

Post by lovemenot »

ewrcoffee wrote: post #35
Taniwha wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a conversation with someone in Taipei once, asking them if they had puns in Mandarin, after explaining what's puns were he said "oh no", which mystified me because just about every word has different meanings by changing the tone on the vowel ... When I asked about that it was "oh yes we do that all the time"

Chinese here, I agree that it is very easy to have puns in Chinese. But I don't think Chinese find puns very humorous in general (probably it is too easy?), is it more often used to make blessing or satirical phrases.

Can anyone comment on the suggestion in the article that in China puns may be used to evade censorship.
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