Purging a Pun

[steepholm]

"Unter den Linden? How sublime!"

For years I've nursed that multilingual pun, looking for an opportunity to slip it naturally into conversation. "I wonder what Longinus would have made of the Brandenburg Gate?" I might say, a propos of nothing - only to see the other people in the bus queue shuffle warily away. Would anyone feed me a line that would allow me to unsheathe my devastating witticism? Would they heck. It became an albatross round my neck. An albatross called Moby Dick.

Today, in a fit of abandon, I put it up as my Facebook status - but it didn't get so much as a single Like. After that I was forced to face the fact that a) not many people would get the joke, and b) even those that did probably wouldn't find it funny.

Perhaps, in fact, it isn't very funny. There - I've said it.

I admit defeat. Take it. Do with it as you will. Publish it as your own, and make millions - I care not.

God, I feel so much better for that.

Comments

[kalypso]

Well, I like it. But then, when I was a sub-editor on Computer Weekly, I spent years waiting for daisywheel printers to be superseded so that I could deploy the headline "Pushing up the daisywheels". It did happen, in the end, and the chief sub gave me the article because he knew I'd been waiting for it!

[steepholm]

That's an excellent boss (and a nice pun too)!

[lamentables]

It made me smile :-)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

It *is* funny, but that's only if you know that Lindens are limes. (And know enough German to equate unten = sub)

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Oh, groan! :op

[adaese.livejournal.com]

Preparing your witticisms and waiting for a suitable feed line rarely works. For years I used to describe the family farm in California as "used to be a literal gold-mine", waiting for someone to call me on mis-use of "literal" so I could follow-up with "it's on the Sacramento". Never happened.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

What a shame!

[larryhammer]

I had to think about it for several seconds ...

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

:)

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I like it! I worked out that Linden must be lime from the context. I've been telling people my Irish/Scottish Gaelic gormless/blue pun (VERY laboured) for a while, but since it depends on mispronunciation at best, it is rarely well-received except through pity.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Ooh, do explain! You're amongst friends here.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Gorm in Irish and in Gaelic (as in Scottish Gaelic) means blue. It is pronounced slightly differently in each, and in neither case like the gorm out of gormless. However! Once I have explained to your captive (note: not captivated) audience about gorm meaning blue, here are several JOKES I then inflict upon them. Both require convoluted set-ups that your audience may not be willing to accept.

1) The art teacher asked me to paint the sky, but I didn't have the right colour, so I just stood there looking gormless.

2) I was on stage introducing the next act of the 90s revival show (bear with me), when it was announced that Duncan James' band weren't ready. So I stood there, looking gormless.

There are many variations! Not one person has yet laughed. It is still not as ill-received as my New Who/Scottish devolution settlement joke.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

It is still not as ill-received as my New Who/Scottish devolution settlement joke.

Well now I'm hooked. Better out than in, as Alex Salmond would say - do tell!

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I used to tell it while I was giving introductory seminars on the devolution context. At the end was a quiz, and one of the questions was "which of these can Scotland legislate on: fur farming, the date of Easter, daylight savings time". The answer is fur farming, because time and space are reserved to the UK Government. "Which may explain why David Tennant used an English accent to play the Doctor!" I grin eagerly and somewhat desperately at the room, who look back stone-faced.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Oh, but that's very good!

Talking of fur farming, why should you never confide your secrets to a mink?

(Because it must tell or die.)

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Groan! I just worked out why Hermione might not wish to take Ron's name: Ermine-y and Weasley are far too much alike.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

:) I'm finding it very hard not to make any more mustelidae puns. Badgers, otters, stoats, oh my! It's all too much...

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

...I think that is funny, but I do live in Wales. ;)

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Also, nice: Better out than in, as Alex Salmond would say

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

You are working in the same garden where grow Tom Swifties. (http://www.fun-with-words.com/tom_swifties_history.html)

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

The dimwitted never get depressed?

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like that! It is better and more subtle than mine.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

It's yours. It's hard to pull off because most people don't visualise words; as you say, Irish/Gaelic "gorm" is pronounced quite differently from English "gorm(less)", so your audience is restricted to "people who have some Irish/Gaelic who also immediately 'see' words in their own mental real-time typography feed". I am lucky to live with such a person, but it also gives me unrealistic expectations where the rest of humanity is concerned.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I think it was Roger Angell who once wrote a piece about a man so hapless at witty party conversation that he laboriously constructed what he pathetically thought was a brilliant bon mot and then saved it up for years, waiting for someone to bring up the possibly unlikely topic of Angela Thirkell in conversation, so that he could then say, "Well, I think Angela Thirkell is a thquare." Bah-dump.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I was beginning to feel like a New Yorker short story. Better to be shot of the thing.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Well, that made me laugh! I love Thirkell, and she was one, by the standards of the 1960s.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

I looked for it on FB to like it. Did you take it down?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

You're very kind - but yes, I struck it down! (I don't purge by halves.)

[forochel.livejournal.com]

I would've liked it! I mean, I don't know German but it's easy enough to extrapolate.

[grrlpup]

LIKE!

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

I saw it! But didn't get it, because lime = linden is brand new to me. Wikipedia tells me it's a particularly UK thing and isn't one I'd had a need to encounter!

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Well, you'll remember it now! It's also a German thing,so you have two for the price of one.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

Well, in German and in US English, it's just 'linden', so I never bothered translating it further. I used to walk down it all the time to get to uni, though. When I saw your status I actually just thought 'hey, wait, is she in Berlin now?' ;)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

The sad truth is that *cough* I've never actually been to Berlin *cough*.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

It is the site of many of my youthful exploits. ;)

[sheenaghpugh]

I didn't get it, not because of any confusion re Linden - I did German to degree level and can see it as soon as you signal that it's a pun. But I don't "get" jokes much outside situations where I am expecting them. If a comedian onstage said it, yes, I'd get it, but in your status I just assumed you were in Berlin and pleased about it - the only thing that puzzled me was that UdL is actually a damn boring street! I think most people assume something is meant seriously unless you indicate otherwise. Maybe we need more fonts!

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I often use FB for throwing out squibs that I've no other use for - a kind of mental housekeeping, I suppose.

A joke font would be handy, though an irony font is probably more urgent for the internet in general!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I really did laugh out loud.

I am clearly the target audience fot that pun.

If we meet in person I shall be sure ask you how you think the famous avenues of European capitals compare.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I look forward to that day.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I admit defeat.

But do you admit de inches?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Q Where did Napoleon keep his armies?
A Sur la côte de la Manche.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

:-)