![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Aha. I've never had much luck with puns in Japan. Usually the people I'm talking to just look at me and ask me why anyone would laugh at that. Of course, Japanese has MANY homophones (words with identical pronounciations, although meanings and kanji typically differ). So many, in fact, that it is fairly common to see people talking, and one person asks the other what they meant, and the response is to draw a kanji in their palm to explain which word they meant. So puns, well, they aren't particularly amusing.
Or so I thought. But I was looking at this rakugo series that I've gotten interested in, and found out that there is a weekly title. And when I looked them up, they are twists on kotowaza - the proverbs that Japanese love. And I was showing these to my wife, and she laughed. These were funny!
For example, one popular saying is (loosely translated) even dust intends to become a mountain (oddly, the English proverb that the websites seem to associate with this is "Light gains make heavy purses" which I have never even heard of before. Also many a little makes a mickle?). Anyway, the "twisted" version substitutes a nickname for the heroine which sounds similar to the word for dust, turning it into "even the heroine intends to become a mountain."
Or the kotowaza that means "you reap what you sow." Literally, it means that from swords comes rust. And the twisted version substitutes a very similar sounding word to tell us that from swords comes a mackerel - which I take to mean that sometimes you get a mackerel in the face, no matter what you do! Again, my wife laughed.
Seven titles, seven slightly twisted versions of popular kotowaza, and according to my wife, these are funny. Not quite puns, but pretty close.
Very interesting. Part of this is the use of kotowaza as the base - everyone "knows" how these should go, so they have to look twice to realize that something is different about these twisted versions. And I suppose that's the humor more than the pun, the accidental similarity of sound.
Or so I thought. But I was looking at this rakugo series that I've gotten interested in, and found out that there is a weekly title. And when I looked them up, they are twists on kotowaza - the proverbs that Japanese love. And I was showing these to my wife, and she laughed. These were funny!
For example, one popular saying is (loosely translated) even dust intends to become a mountain (oddly, the English proverb that the websites seem to associate with this is "Light gains make heavy purses" which I have never even heard of before. Also many a little makes a mickle?). Anyway, the "twisted" version substitutes a nickname for the heroine which sounds similar to the word for dust, turning it into "even the heroine intends to become a mountain."
Or the kotowaza that means "you reap what you sow." Literally, it means that from swords comes rust. And the twisted version substitutes a very similar sounding word to tell us that from swords comes a mackerel - which I take to mean that sometimes you get a mackerel in the face, no matter what you do! Again, my wife laughed.
Seven titles, seven slightly twisted versions of popular kotowaza, and according to my wife, these are funny. Not quite puns, but pretty close.
Very interesting. Part of this is the use of kotowaza as the base - everyone "knows" how these should go, so they have to look twice to realize that something is different about these twisted versions. And I suppose that's the humor more than the pun, the accidental similarity of sound.
