On May 31st, Xopher Walker, listening to a live opera broadcast on WFMT, groused about the tedium of Wagner’s Parsifal. Ned Deily noted a different radio broadcast (BR Klassik) of the more pleasing Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio) by Mozart. Extensive discussion of Parsifal and performances of it followed.
And then Michael Palmer produced this marvelous pair of puns on the name of the Mozart opera, one in German (playing on Ente ‘duck’ instead of the prefix ent- ‘separate, remove’), one in English (playing on duck instead of the Latinate root –duc- ‘lead’):
Die Enteführung aus dem Serail, aka the Abducktion from the Seraglio
(It’s all about the ducks.)
Applause for Palmer followed.
Palmer then wondered if there was an accepted term for this phenomenon – “puns in two languages that are translations of one another”. Not that I know of.
