Curios
Lager beer (P.L. Dunbar)
Un "poème pour rire", dont le narrateur est à l'évidence un Allemand, amateur (repenti) de bière blonde (lager beer). L'accent allemand est caricaturé en inversant les consonnes sourdes et sonores (t pour d, et d pour t, par exemple).
I lafs und sings, und shumps aroundt.
Und somedimes acd so gueer.
You ask me vot der matter ish?
I'm filled mit lager peer.
I hugs mine child, und giss mine vife.
Oh, my dey was so dear;
Bot dot ish ven, you know, mire friend,
I'm filled mit lager peer.
Eleetion gomes, I makes mire speech,
Mine het it vas so glear:
De beoples laf, und say ha, ha,
He's filled mit lager peer.
De oder night I got me mad,
De beoples run mit fear.
De bleeceman gome und took me down
All filled mit lager peer.
Next day I gomes pefore de judge,
Says he, "Eh heh, you're here!"
I gives you yust five-fifty-five
For trinking lager peer.
I took mine bocket book qvick oud,
So poor I don't abbear;
Mine money all vas gone, mine friend
Vas gone in lager peer.
Und den dey dakes me off to shail,
To work mine sendence glear,
Und dere I shwears no more to be
Filled oup mit lager peer.
Und from dot day I drinks no more,
Yah, dat is very gueer,
But den I found de tevil lifed
In dot same lager peer.
Sotally Tober
SOTALLY TOBER
Starkle starkle little twink
Who the hell you are I think
I'm not under what you call
the alcofluence of incohol
I'm just a little slort of sheep
I'm not drunk like tinkle peep
but the drunker I stand here
the longer I get
Just give me one more drink
to fill me cup
'cuz I got all day sober
to Sunday up
(Trisha Goodermote)
"Cul-de-sac to an affaire"
Petit encouragement pour ceux qui désespèrent de maîtriser un jour un minimum de vocabulaire anglais. (Et pour réconforter ceux qui s'indignent de voir les "web", "planning" et autres "footing" s'installer dans la langue de Molière):
"Cul-de-sac to an affaire"
Yvonne sat at the banquette, in the buffet restaurant, with her suave fiancé Charles. She wore a cerise blouse on her après-ski costume.
They left her chaperon, a blonde Swiss au-pair girl, at the café with an apéritif, while they went off to Charles's pied-à-terre for their tête-à-tête. His apartment was full of bizarre bric-à-brac. Mostly brassières and other outré articles of lingerie for which he had a penchant. For these reasons he liked her to be dressed in a tulle negligee, despite her protestations that it was too risqué for an ex-débutante. Their affaire was still in its early stages. Today, while Yvonne went into the boudoir to change, Charles lay on his beige chaise longue, inhaling eau de Cologne from a chiffon scarf.
" Pardon me if I seem brusque or gauche, he said, I am no bourgeois voyeur, as you might imagine. In fact I am an émigré Russian prince, engaged in espionage to restore the ancient regime by a coup d'état. Our marriage would have been no mésalliance for your family. But life is an inscrutable game of roulette, and I have reached the cul-de-sac of my role. Take my attaché case. Inside you will find a solitaire. Give it to the au-pair girl who has always been my paramour.
(by Auberon Waugh)