While on a trip to Japan in the early 1980s, the President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, made a pun. After a short hesitation his interpreter translated the witticism into Japanese. The Japanese audience burst into excessive laughter, which later prompted the President to ask the interpreter what exactly he had translated. Was his pun really that humorous? The interpreter admitted that, instead of attempting to translate the pun, he had simply said in Japanese: “the President of the United States has made a pun. Please laugh”. More »

See: TLS
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