经济学人138:谈独特玩笑

　　Telling jokes
谈独特玩笑
Have you heard the one…
你有没有听过…
Groucho Marx liked a good one
Groucho Marx喜欢听精彩的
No Joke: Making Jewish Humour.By Ruth Wisse.
不许说笑：犹太式的玩笑
THIS sharp and thoughtful study presents a reviewer with an unusual challenge: which joke do you quote? One cannot tell them all, both because space forbids it and because some of them replicate¹, in order to mock and render harmless, noxious² Jewish stereotypes³.
尖锐而又内涵的研究将一个不寻常的挑战放在读者面前：这句玩笑你引自何处？人们通常说不出所有之乎者也来，一方面是篇幅限制，另一方面是很多玩笑是照葫芦画瓢的，用以嘲讽和带恶意的或没有恶意的犹太人的固有看法。
谈独特玩笑.jpg
The most telling joke is one that Ruth Wisse, professor of Yiddish literature at Harvard, attributes to Immanuel Olsvanger, a folklorist⁴ who was born in Poland in 1888 and who collected Yiddish humour. Here it is, paraphrased⁵. When you tell a joke to a peasant, he laughs three times: once when you tell it, next when you explain it to him and finally when he understands it. The landowner laughs twice: once when you tell it and again when you explain it. The policeman laughs only when you tell it, because he does not let you explain it and so never understands. When you tell a Jew a joke he says, “I've heard it before. And I can tell it better.”
有个讲的最多的笑话是 哈佛希伯来语文学教授Ruth Wisse属于Immanuel Olsvanger ，后者是个搜集希伯来语笑话的民俗学家，于1888年出生于波兰。这里只是转述一下。跟农民讲笑话他会大笑三次，第一次是你给他讲的时候，第二次是你向他解释的时候，最后一次是当他终于听懂的时候。地主会笑两次：你讲的时候还有听你解释的时候。而警察只会在听你讲时候笑一笑，他不会让你解释所以他也不会听懂。但当你跟一个犹太人讲笑话时，他会跟你说“噢，这我以前就听过，我可以讲的更好”。
His joke hinges not just on Jews' fondness for humour, but also on Jewish verbal dexterity⁶, competitiveness and anxiety over social status. But, as Ms Wisse explains, the Jewish reputation for humour is neither universal nor ancient. The connection began with the Enlightenment, but even in the late 19th century London's chief rabbi felt obliged to defend Jews against charges of humourlessness. Jews in Arab countries do not seem to have had the laughing gene⁷, but in the Yiddish-speaking world—and in America and Israel, where many, if not most, Jews descend⁸ from Yiddish speakers—the connection between humour and Jews is so strong as to be almost axiomatic⁹. Ms Wisse sees it as similar to “French cuisine” or “Turkish baths”.
他的玩笑不拘泥于犹太式的幽默，更有犹太人的巧舌如簧，和在社会地位上犹太人的竞争力与焦虑感。但Wisse教授解释说，犹太人的幽默感，名声在外，说既不是被普遍接受的也不是有史可溯的。这种形象起源于启蒙时期，但19世纪末的伦敦的犹太教大法师都感到有必要反驳犹太人无幽默感的说法阿拉伯世界的犹太人也不像有笑神经的人，但在希伯来语世界以及美国和以色列，很多犹太人，如果不是绝大多数，犹太人与幽默的联结在希伯来语世界中强大得如同与生俱来,不言自明的一样。Wisse教授把这种怪圈比作“法国烹饪”或者“土耳其浴”一样。
To her credit, Ms Wisse offers no general theory of Jewish humour in her book, preferring description and textual analysis, at which she excels, to psycho-historical puffery. Yet certain traits persist across temporal and geographic¹⁰ boundaries. Jewish humour tends, paradoxically, to provoke both relief and discomfort¹¹, as with Heinrich Heine's sharp send-ups of Jewish converts in early 19th-century Germany. Much of it tends towards the absurd: consider the inspiring lunacy of Lenny Bruce, the dark surrealism of Franz Kafka or the comparatively light version that imbues¹² the short fiction of Etgar Keret, an Israeli writer.
出于她信誉的原因，Wisse并没有在书中做出犹太式笑话的概括性的论述，而是在她擅长的历史心理学吹赞方面做了些描述以及逐字逐句的分析。但在一定时间、地理范围内是有确切依据的。犹太式幽默常常是似是而非的，带来轻松或者抒发不悦，就像19世纪初德国的Heinrich Heine对犹太人尖酸嘲讽改变了一样。很多犹太人都偏荒诞：比如鼓舞人心的疯子Lenny Bruce，暗黑超现实主义的Franz Kafka又或者相比之下程度较轻的以色列短片科幻小说作家Etgar Keret。
Jewish humour also rests on a closeness but separateness from the societies in which Jews lived—particularly Yiddish-speaking Jews in Europe—and on paradoxes¹³. “A culture forged in the ancient East that developed in the modern West, and a theology founded in divine election whose adherents¹⁴ have been targeted for genocide—such incongruities¹⁵ tickle¹⁶ the modern Jewish imagination,” explains Ms Wisse. In other words, it is much better to have defiant¹⁷, life-affirming laughter than tears and lamentation¹⁸.
犹太式幽默同样依存于一个与他们生活的社会分离的，私密的环境以及种种悖论。Wisse教授解释说，“一个由古老东方孕育在现代西方发展的，他们的神学体系建立在曾经历过大屠杀的后代的牧师选举制之上的文明-诸如此类的不协调启发着当代犹太人的想象力。”也就是反抗着总是好的，生命赋予我们比泪水和哀鸣更多的欢笑。

1 replicate   

v.折叠，复制，模写；n.同样的样品；adj.转折的

参考例句：

• The DNA of chromatin must replicate before cell division.染色质DNA在细胞分裂之前必须复制。
• It is also easy to replicate,as the next subsection explains.就像下一个小节详细说明的那样，它还可以被轻易的复制。

2 noxious   

adj.有害的，有毒的；使道德败坏的，讨厌的

参考例句：

• Heavy industry pollutes our rivers with noxious chemicals.重工业产生的有毒化学品会污染我们的河流。
• Many household products give off noxious fumes.很多家用产品散发有害气体。

3 stereotypes   

n.老套，模式化的见解，有老一套固定想法的人( stereotype的名词复数 )v.把…模式化，使成陈规( stereotype的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Such jokes tend to reinforce racial stereotypes. 这样的笑话容易渲染种族偏见。
• It makes me sick to read over such stereotypes devoid of content. 这种空洞无物的八股调，我看了就讨厌。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

4 folklorist   

民俗学研究者

参考例句：

5 paraphrased   

v.释义，意译( paraphrase的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Baxter paraphrased the contents of the press release. 巴克斯特解释了新闻稿的内容。 来自辞典例句
• It is paraphrased from the original. 它是由原文改述的。 来自辞典例句

6 dexterity   

n.(手的)灵巧，灵活

参考例句：

• You need manual dexterity to be good at video games.玩好电子游戏手要灵巧。
• I'm your inferior in manual dexterity.论手巧，我不如你。

7 gene   

n.遗传因子，基因

参考例句：

• A single gene may have many effects.单一基因可能具有很多种效应。
• The targeting of gene therapy has been paid close attention.其中基因治疗的靶向性是值得密切关注的问题之一。

8 descend   

vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降

参考例句：

• I hope the grace of God would descend on me.我期望上帝的恩惠。
• We're not going to descend to such methods.我们不会沦落到使用这种手段。

9 axiomatic   

adj.不需证明的，不言自明的

参考例句：

• It is axiomatic that life is not always easy.生活并不总是一帆风顺，这是明摆着的事实。
• It is axiomatic that as people grow older they generally become less agile.人年纪越大通常灵活性越差，这是不言而喻的。

10 geographic   

adj.地理学的，地理的

参考例句：

• The city's success owes much to its geographic position. 这座城市的成功很大程度上归功于它的地理位置。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Environmental problems pay no heed to these geographic lines. 环境问题并不理会这些地理界限。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

11 discomfort   

n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便

参考例句：

• One has to bear a little discomfort while travelling.旅行中总要忍受一点不便。
• She turned red with discomfort when the teacher spoke.老师讲话时她不好意思地红着脸。

12 imbues   

v.使（某人/某事）充满或激起（感情等）( imbue的第三人称单数 )；使充满；灌输；激发（强烈感情或品质等）

参考例句：

• Love for one's fellow creatures imbues every line of the drawing. 这张画的每一根线条都浸透着这种感情。 来自辞典例句
• We cannot assume that merely learning a language imbues one with any kind of value system. 我们不能假定说，学习某种语文就会吸收某种价值观。 来自互联网

13 paradoxes   

n.似非而是的隽语，看似矛盾而实际却可能正确的说法( paradox的名词复数 )；用于语言文学中的上述隽语；有矛盾特点的人[事物，情况]

参考例句：

• Contradictions and paradoxes arose in increasing numbers. 矛盾和悖论越来越多。 来自辞典例句
• As far as these paradoxes are concerned, the garden definitely a heterotopia. 就这些吊诡性而言，花园无疑地是个异质空间。 来自互联网

14 adherents   

n.支持者，拥护者( adherent的名词复数 )；党羽；徒子徒孙

参考例句：

• He is a leader with many adherents. 他是个有众多追随者的领袖。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The proposal is gaining more and more adherents. 该建议得到越来越多的支持者。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 incongruities   

n.不协调( incongruity的名词复数 )；不一致；不适合；不协调的东西

参考例句：

• The maid's vigilance had always spared her the sight of such incongruities. 女仆一向非常小心，不让她看到这种使她不快的景象。 来自辞典例句
• Western humour was bound to reflect these incongruities. 西部幽默当然会反映这些滑稽可笑的东西。 来自辞典例句

16 tickle   

v.搔痒，胳肢；使高兴；发痒；n.搔痒，发痒

参考例句：

• Wilson was feeling restless. There was a tickle in his throat.威尔逊只觉得心神不定。嗓子眼里有些发痒。
• I am tickle pink at the news.听到这消息我高兴得要命。

17 defiant   

adj.无礼的，挑战的

参考例句：

• With a last defiant gesture,they sang a revolutionary song as they were led away to prison.他们被带走投入监狱时，仍以最后的反抗姿态唱起了一支革命歌曲。
• He assumed a defiant attitude toward his employer.他对雇主采取挑衅的态度。

18 lamentation   

n.悲叹，哀悼

参考例句：

• This ingredient does not invite or generally produce lugubrious lamentation. 这一要素并不引起，或者说通常不产生故作悲伤的叹息。 来自哲学部分
• Much lamentation followed the death of the old king. 老国王晏驾，人们悲恸不已。 来自辞典例句