Glossary entry (derived from question below)
French term or phrase:
“Le piano, comme l’argent, n’est agréable qu’à celui qui en touche.”
English translation:
\"[Playing] Piano is like money - it\'s pleasurable only if you can get your hands on it\"
French term
“Le piano, comme l’argent, n’est pas agréable qu’à celui qui en touche.”
| 3 +2 | "[Playing] Piano is like money - it's pleasurable only if you can get your hands on it" |
Daryo
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Apr 10, 2018 22:17: Yolanda Broad changed "Term asked" from "“Le piano, comme l’argent, n’est pas agreable qu’a celui qui en touche.”" to "“Le piano, comme l’argent, n’est pas agréable qu’à celui qui en touche.”"
Apr 13, 2018 10:07: Daryo changed "Edited KOG entry" from "<a href="/profile/2429524">NinaCH's</a> old entry - "“Le piano, comme l’argent, n’est pas agréable qu’à celui qui en touche.”"" to ""\"[Playing] Piano is like money - it\'s pleasurable only if you can get your hands on it\"""
May 1, 2018 12:11: Daryo changed "Level" from "Non-PRO" to "PRO"
PRO (3): Antonio Tomás Lessa do Amaral, Sandra & Kenneth Grossman, Daryo
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Proposed translations
"[Playing] Piano is like money - it's pleasurable only if you can get your hands on it"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Satie
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Note added at 11 hrs (2018-04-11 08:51:04 GMT)
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http://matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article4091
| agree |
Sandra & Kenneth Grossman
: Nice!
1 day 2 hrs
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Thanks!
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| agree |
Lorraine Dubuc
1 day 5 hrs
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Merci!
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Discussion
"The piano is like money: it's enjoyable only for those who know how to use it."
http://www.heimdallr.ch/Art/satiegb.html
I know what Satie means, too, in what they say was his love and hate at the same time for the piano. "The piano is like money," he wrote, "it's enjoyable only for those who know how to use it."
http://the-daily-growler.blogspot.co.uk/2006/06/whatever-hap...
"Le piano, comme l'argent, n'est agréable qu'à celui qui en touche." about 130 ghits
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q="Le piano, comme l'argent,...
OTOH
"Le piano, comme l'argent, n'est pas agréable qu'à celui qui en touche"
gives the impressive grand total of .... zero, zip, zilch, nada ghits (except this Proz question)
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q="Le piano, comme l'argent,...
In this case the "reasoning based on statistics" does make sense, and can lead to only one conclusion:
this question is about a misquoted quote and should be changed to:
"Le piano, comme l'argent, n'est agréable qu'à celui qui en touche."
Also, nowhere any comment or explanation to be found, so we can rely only on the usual meanings of words; so
"getting your hands on the money/a piano" seems the best you can do in English.
https://books.google.es/books?redir_esc=y&id=KLOyAAAAIAAJ&fo...
I think it originally comes from Satie's Sports & Divertissements (1914).
And of course Tony is right about the pun. "Get your hands on it" seems to me an excellent rendering.
In his Satie the Bohemian, Steven Moore Whiting suggests that Satie's bon mot may have been inspired by Vincent Hyspa:
"Le Piano montre toujours les dents comme une jolie femme. Reçoit-il le moindre coup de poing sur la gueule qu'il se lamente comme si on lui avait marché sur la queue ; et il en sera toujours ainsi tant qu'on n'aura pas trouvé un traitement radical des mélodies honteuses pour pianos à queue."
https://books.google.es/books?id=SD2RZ3taYQUC&pg=PA447
Satie is of course a great source of quotations. He was sentenced to eight days in prison for insulting the composer and critic Jean Poueigh: "Monsieur et cher ami, vous n’êtes qu’un cul, mais un cul sans musique." Fortunately they settled it amicably.
If you scroll down, you will find the quote, which matches that found in all other sites found by Google. Good luck with your translation.
I don't know how to set about translating an equivalent pun, but I do think awareness of this subtlety is necessary to inform our interpretation.
I also agree with Phil, 'agréable" here really is nothing to do with 'fun' (s'amuser etc.), but much more to do with 'enjoyable' — indeed, other versions of the Satie quote I've found use 'plaisant'.
I feel sure that Marco's corrected version is the original intention — 'is not enjoyable only to ...' simply doesn't make much sense here.
And sadly, it has to be said that even the curators of worthy museums have been known to make blunders of this magnitude — as I know to my cost!