Poor Vincent van Gogh
(Red. Comment ça se prononce: Van Gogh?, lieten wij in December een Fransman zeggen. In The Foreign Press News (Juni 1950) stond het volgende wel grappige, kreupele rijm. Het is beslist onvertaalbaar.)
Through the halls of Metropolitan Museum of Art
Move the well dressed throngs of the set called smart
To behold and admire the works of a painter
Than whose lifestory surely none could be quainter.
The connoisseurs criticize, argue, comment
In unmeasured eulogy and learned dissent;
Debating the merit of this worldwide vogue
For that strange Dutch painter, Vincent van Gogue.
A lady who paints tells a stockbrokers wife:
‘Be sure that you read Stone's “Lust for Life”;
It will thrill you and give you a delightful shock
To read of the past of Vincent van Gock’.
A couple of Bostonians, with an air of ennui,
Search through the catalog for the man's pedigree;
His family is old and so they bestow
Their stamp of approval on Vincent van Go.
The radio announcers gather in huddle
To find a solution for this phonetic muddle
And seek their way through the thickening fog
Of Van Gogue, Van Gock, Van Go and Van Gog.
Then fortune leads to this excited knot
The unruffled face of a tartan-kilted Scot,
Who scornfully states: ‘In my hoos at Lomond Lochch
We ken this famous painter as Vincent van Gochch’.
Another passer-by, overhearing that much,
Joins the wrangling group; it's clear that he is Dutch,
For this throat begins to splutter till he finally stammers: ‘Ochch...
The right pronunciation? - Sure, it's Vincent van CHCH-O-CHCH’.
De Penningmeester verzoekt leden en lezers hun bijdrage over 1954 (voor leden: minimum f 2,50, voor lezers f 2, -) zo spoedig mogelijk te doen overschrijven op de postgirorekening van de Administratie van Onze Taal te Leiden, no. 529740. Na Februari zal over het verschuldigde bedrag gedisponeerd moeten worden met de kosten en moeite van dien.
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