This article suggests some approximate similarities between translation, puns, clichés and plagiarism. For this reason, it switches between English and French, so as to emphasize the straddle-position of the translator and the constant shuttling between two languages. Amongst the authors quoted for their views on such matters are: Joseph Addison, Jean-Paul Sartre, Vladimir Nabokov, Valéry Larbaud, Jean Cocteau, Michel Tournier, Raymond Queneau, Paul Claudel, George Steiner and Georges Darien. It is argued that the translator should seek to escape the prison-house of his or her native language and, above all, to counter the old song of the untranslatability of wordplay. Some examples are offered of problems surmounted in this area, taken from the author's own translations.