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Well, I thought it was clever...
Un petit d'un petit
S'etonne aux Halles.
Un petit d'un petit,
Ah! Degres te fallent.
Indolent qui ne sort cesse,
Indolent qui ne se mene.
Qu'importe? Un petit d'un petit
Bague tout gai de Raguennes.
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doc c -- I recall reading this a long time ago. I believe it was part of a collection of nursery rhymes, all using French gibberish to approximate phonetic English. Very clever. Appealed to the same audience that made Fractured French a big hit. Do you happen to know the title, and if it's still available.?
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Do you happen to know the title, and if it's still available?
No idea and no idea. Sorry.
Edit: "Mot d'Heure Gousse, n'Heure Souris Rames" and no idea.
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Luis D'Antin Van Rooten, Mots d'Heures: Gousses, Rames (London: Angus and Robertson, 1967)
-- and it is indeed wonderful, if your french is good enough.
out of print, but a few used copies seem to be available through the on-line services
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Cute. I got the English reference when reading it aloud, but would anyone care to translate the French there? 'Spect it's nonsense, but would like to know the translation anyway.
Merci,
OrB~
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THANK GOD! I thought I was losing my mind. I was thinking "what on EARTH is he saying, that's not a nursery rhyme, those aren't even French phrases."
You have to read it with an English accent to get the gist of it because if your really read the words in French you are nowhere near Humpty Dumpty.
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Will someone please help me out. I just plain do NOT get this. I've been looking at it for ten minutes and it makes no sense.
TEd, who may never pun again (well, no that's not strictly true.) But I still don't get this!
TEd
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I just plain do NOT get this.
TEd, can I sit with you while we wait?
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Thank you, bel! Long ago and far away, I took French in college, learning (and remembering) just enough to know how to pronounce the words in the nursery rhyme - made no sense whatsoever. Even trying it en Anglaise didn't help - until you provided the Rosetta Stone, Humpty Dumpty! Merci bien 
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I thought I was losing my mind. I was thinking "what on EARTH is he saying, that's not a nursery rhyme, those aren't even French phrases." bel, I should have warned you. The mock-premise of the book is that these passages are taken from medieval manuscripts recently found in an old ruined abbey. The author then proceeds to "explain" each phrase with a series of pseudo-scholarly footnotes. In other words, all must be read with a very large dose of  . For example, the book's footnotes will soberly inform you: Un petit d'un petit (1)
S'etonne aux Halles (2)
1. The inevitable result of a child marriage
2. The subject of this epigrammatic poem is obviously from the provinces, as a native Parisian would take this famous old market for granted.
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Ah, come on, guys! Will one of you translate the bloody nursery rhyme as it is? Just break the whole thing down phrase by phrase...please? Pretty please with little chou-fleux on top?
Bemused remarks,
DubDub
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For you, dear Dub-Dub, anything.  For quiz purposes, others of the poems (unfootnoted) will follow. Do you perhaps speak enough french to wish to attempt your own translation? Tous droits réservés par Luis d'Antin van Rooten ©Un petit d'un petit[1]
S'étonne aux Halles[2]
Un petit d'un petit
Ah! degrés te fallent[3]
Indolent qui ne sort cesse[4]
Indolent qui ne se mène[5]
Qu'importe un petit d'un petit
Tout Gai de Reguennes.[6][1] The inevitable result of a child marriage.[2] The subject of this epigrammatic poem is obviously from the provinces, since a native Parisian would take this famous old market for granted.[3] Since this personage bears no titles, we are led to believe that the poet writes of one of those unfortunate idiot-children that in olden days existed as a living skeleton in their family's closet. I am inclined to believe, however, that this is a fine piece of misdirection and that the poet is actually writing of some famous political prisoner, or the illegitimate offspring of some noble house. The Man in the iron Mask, perhaps?[4],[5] Another misdirection. Obviously it was not laziness that prevented this personas going out and taking himself places.[6] He was obviously prevented from fulfilling his destiny, since he is compared to Gai de Reguennes. This was a young squire (to one of his uncles, a Gaillard of Normandy) who died at the tender age of twelve of a surfeit of Saracen arrows before the walls of Acre in 1191.
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I wish to publicly thank Dr. Bill for kicking me in the butt in PM and telling me what this was all about! Is there an emoticon for [duhhhhhhhh!]? FWIW, I speak no foreign languages and cannot pronounce the French, so this was a stretch for me. May I add, someone had suggested when a language other than English is used, that the translation be put in white for those of us who are foreign language challenged. This would help!
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Small of small Be astonished with the Markets. Small of small: Ah! Degrees are necessary for you! The indolent who has no destiny, forever The indolent who does not lead. What is important, small of small? Very merry of Reguennes! Or something like that. More: http://ransom.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/funny/MotsDHeures.htmlAngel, there was intentionally no translation, because the translation is not where the humour lies. I do not speak French either.
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Dear doc_comfort: Humpty Dumpty murders French enough to constitute an International Incident. No way could Humpty Dumpty sit on those Halles. No wonder all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put him back together Raguennes.
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Dear Doc:
Thanks for the "something like that" translation. My
French I got me nowhere!
It's rather humorous translated, huh? Small of small! Degrees are necessary for you! What is important, small of small?--Gosh, that's just terrific stuff there!!
Astonished with the Markets,
Wind of wind
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"Astonished with the Markets," Forgive this old curmudgeon, but the originator should have been able to find a French word that sounded like "wall"
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Bill, I think the problem lies in the near complete absence of words in which the A is pronounced like in wAll - let alone ones that finish in LL.
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The O in vol sounds like the O in Ordinary rather than the A in wAll.
It's tricky, eh? I find it hard enough to find rhymes in one language, I think it is probably even harder finding words that rhyme using a different language.
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Dear belMarduk: The "a" in wall sounds to me like small, tall, fall, ball.
Vol=theft I thought sounded a bit like and ethnic speaker saying "wall".
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Oof, it is realllly a stretch Bill. Halle sounds much more like wall than vol. Well actually vol does not sound like hall at all in French. Are you pronouncing vol like in vollyball? That would explain it.
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I know "vol" sounds like "Pole". I was thinking that "vol" to a Yiddish speaker might sound a bit like "wall".
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But surely - unless my schoolboy French has totally dissappeared - the "W" sound comes from the pronunciation of "aux" when it comes before a vowel (or dropped [h]aitch), does it not?
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Could "Pas d'elle yeux Rhone que nous," be the motto of a French individualist?
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Will one of you Frenchie-Speaks help me with a question I’ve held for thirty years, namely- How is possible, as it is reputed, that Edgar Poe’s poems The Raven and The Bells, became even better poems through the translation into French? This, to me, is impossible, regardless of the ability and liberties taken by the translator.
Anyone read the French versions?
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Dear RC: I was taught that "aux" before a vowel was pronounced like "ose" in "nose". I was also taught to padde my own que nous.
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Dear Milum: I found a very large Poe site. If you scroll way down to the bottom, it gives a French translation of the Raven. I got a disconnect, and did not look at it. http://www.comnet.ca/~forrest/library.html
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Great site Bill, thanks, I put it on my one-click. Now I will laboriously try to
retranslate The Raven back into proper English.
Milum.
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I was taught that "aux" before a vowel was pronounced like "ose" in "nose". I was also taught to padde my own que nous.
You mean like in Beaux Arts?
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retranslate The Raven
My favourite "translation" of E. A. Poe is to music. The Alan Parsons Project album: Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Excellent version of 'The Raven', 'Tell-tale Heart' and 'Cask of Amontillado' amongst others...
Hev
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I was also taught to padde my own que nous.Raz, raz, raz yeux botte, gentil donne thé strie... 
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Could "Pas d'elle yeux Rhone que nous," be the motto of a French individualist?
I thought that went "Pas de leur on connu!" :-)
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