BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Untranslatable puns

Sammy · June 18, 2012 6:14 pm

Oh God! Thank you for explaining the man-about-a-dog-thing!
I never got that...

Hm, well the whole hound/dog business cannot be translated since the word "hound" is a clue because it's out of date and because it's an acronym.
And of course the infamous Belarus scene!
"I'll get hung for this!" - "No, not at all... hanged, yes."

SusiGo · June 18, 2012 6:19 pm

Sammy, when I watched the German version I was constantly thinking what a shame it is that we do not have two words for dog/hound. So much is lost there. A nightmare for translators (I must know, I am one ).

Sherlock Holmes · June 18, 2012 7:21 pm

A jumper is what John wears. Or what Sherlock was at the end of Reichenbach. (Sorry, lol...sick joke!)

SusiGo · June 18, 2012 7:25 pm

SH, now that's really macabre. Shame on you .

Sammy · June 18, 2012 7:50 pm

Sherlock Holmes wrote:
A jumper is what John wears. Or what Sherlock was at the end of Reichenbach. (Sorry, lol...sick joke!)

Oooooh.. ;)
I did smile, though.

Yes, definitely.
The solution they found - "Ho-und" - was very inelegant but still I thought it was better than... well, just leaving it out completly.
My sister and mum almost only watch German stuff and when I watched German Sherlock with them for the first time I was, like, holding my breath for the whole time because I always feared that they would screw up another translation... and when they did I was like: "Oh, that's much better in English! You know, in English it's..."
But that just annoys them.. .____.'

SusiGo · June 18, 2012 7:53 pm

I must admit I also smiled. When I was watching it I kept thinking why the hell do they pronounce it so strangely? Until I realised that they tried somehow to convey the difference between dog and hound. But I did not explain it either, I guess for most people it would be just boring .

KeepersPrice · June 19, 2012 1:07 am

Molly Hooper wrote:
KP, I think that a jumper is more of a pull-over, I wouldn't use it for a cardigan...

Well I really love John's jumpers - especially that gorgeous Irish cable knit. I want one of those! But I really dislike his jumper in the Christmas scene. Is it some kind of rule in both Britain and America that you have to have a really dreadful Christmas sweater? His aunt must have made it. LOL!

Davina · June 19, 2012 5:42 am

The Irish cable knit one is what we call an Arran sweater or jumper here.

The Christmas one is astoundingly revolting isn't it; the costume dept. excelled themselves with that one. I bet Martin LOVED wearing it...NOT!

SusiGo · June 19, 2012 6:06 am

Oh, Davina, finally someone dares to mention the Christmas jumper. It really offends the eye, doesn' it?

veecee · June 19, 2012 11:10 pm

SusiGo wrote:
Oh, Davina, finally someone dares to mention the Christmas jumper. It really offends the eye, doesn' it?

And don't forget that Sherlock points out a hideous sweater (jumper) on someone else in Hounds. It wasn't a dig at John, was it? No, Sherlock would never do that.

SusiGo · June 20, 2012 6:36 am

Of course not. He's a man known for his extraordinary politeness and tact.

hepzibah · June 20, 2012 9:38 am

In Australia, we wear hideous T-shirts with bad puns on them, because Christmas here is hot, hot, hot!

KeepersPrice · June 20, 2012 10:54 am

At least no one at the party put on reindeer antlers like Mrs. Hudson wanted. That would have been just too tacky!

tobeornot221b · June 20, 2012 5:34 pm

Not exactly an "untranslatable" pun, but funnily enough:
We Germans have a problem with the translation of the simple little word "text" in connection with messages on the phone. Of course, there is the common "German" word TEXT for anything consecutive that is written down (or spoken). But TEXT, strangely, doesn't include the text sent or received by mobile phones. This type of text we call "SMS" (for "short message service"). Wonder why we don't go: "Ich texte dir.", instead of "Ich schicke dir eine SMS.", which is extremely awkward. Apparently for that reason, even a new German word was invented: "SIMSEN" (to me, it sounds like bees!): "Ich simse dir"
(I send you a text).
German Sherlock and John would speak of "SMS" (German plural: "SMSsen" ):
"Text from your brother."/"SMS von Ihrem Bruder."

Last edited by tobeornot221b (June 20, 2012 5:35 pm)

Davina · June 20, 2012 5:36 pm

Thanks Tobe I can add that to my vocabulary..and it does sound like bees.

SusiGo · June 20, 2012 7:24 pm

You're absolutely right, Tobe, that's really awkward. I somehow don't like the word "simsen" and hardly ever use it myself. But "eine SMS schicken" isn't much better (I just typed "much besser" ).

tobeornot221b · June 29, 2012 10:02 pm

(Just for the record
There's another untranslatable word: "boyfriend".
In German, there's no difference between "friend" and "boyfriend" – both are called "Freund".
"Dies ist mein Freund"/"This is my friend", may either imply that this male person is just a mate of yours or your (unmarried) partner.
From:"Du bist ein ganz toller Freund!"/"You're a great boyfriend": one can hardly notice the pun which is Jeanette's alluding to John being possibly gay.

SusiGo · June 29, 2012 11:30 pm

Yes, you're right, that's another thing which is lost in the dubbed version. There are so many subtleties that are lost (in translation ).

Audrey Horne · August 11, 2012 10:56 am

There's another untranslatable pun in "The Great Game": the five pips. In German you can't get a connection between the Greenwich pips ("Piepen") and the orange pips ("Orangenkerne"), so they had to make up a different line for Sherlock:

Original line: "Some secret societies used to send dried melon seeds, orange pips, things like that - five pips. They're warning us it's gonna happen again."
German dubbing: "Jemand will uns zu verstehen geben, dass unsere Zeit abläuft, dass uns irgendwas bevorsteht. Es ist fünf vor zwölf. Es ist eine Warnung, dass es wieder passieren wird." ("Someone wants to tell us that our time's running out - that something is about to happen. It's five minutes to twelve. It's a warning that it's going to happen again.")

The translation is very boring and the reference to "The Five Orange Pips" is lost.

Mattlocked · August 11, 2012 11:24 am

And I still don't get it. We watched that scene in English first, then changed to German subtitles to understand. Then in English again. And still: What is meant? Orangenkerne? Hm??