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Author: surgoshan

Dec 17th 2011 at 7:42:50 PM

Actually, my first example is a pun that relies on the multiple meanings of the English word "cold" and the dual stereotypes, but which meaning doesn't actually translate that way into French because "sang froid" is something of an idiomatic phrase, like "coup de grace".  In French, a cold would be a "rhume de cerveau" or "rhume banal".  "Froid" means cold as in temperature, not cold as in the stuffy wheezy mucosal illness.

The first Terry Pratchett example actually is a bilingual pun because arsenic is arsenic in both English and Latin.  "fabricati diem, pvnc" is actually a foreshortened "fabricati diem, pvncti agvnt celeriter" (make the day for the moments pass quickly), and pvnc = punk is entirely a bilingual pun.  The third, about the bossa nova, is a bilingual pun of which neither language is English.  "Bossa Nova" is a style of Brazilian music (language, Portuguese), whereas the Latin phrase means, "Hail!  The new leader, the same as the old leader!" or "Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss."

So, yeah, bilingual puns all.