[Haskell-cafe] Learn you

[Richard O'Keefe]

On 3/05/2012, at 5:18 AM, Brent Yorgey wrote:

> I am curious how the title was translated.  Of course, the English
> title "Learn You a Haskell for Great Good" uses intentionally
> ungrammatical/unidiomatic English for humorous effect.  Is the
> Japanese title also ungrammatical/unidiomatic Japanese?  Or do
> Japanese speakers not find that humorous?

This native speaker of English doesn't find the effect
of the English title funny, despite finding practically
everything in the world, up to and including a bout of
kidney stones, funny.  Humour styles really don't travel
all that well.  The Little Lisper (and the other books
like The Little Schemer and The Seasoned Schemer) are
presumably meant to be funny, but to me come across as
offensively patronising (you are such a drooling idiot
that if we didn't have this heavy laugh track you'd go
to sleep or something).  Such a pity, because they are
such great books if you can refrain from throwing them
out the window every few minutes.

Now if the Japanese title were *perfect* Japanese,
that *would* be funny, because it would be a case
of a good translation being a bad translation.

I did say that humour doesn't travel well...