 The Importance of Being Earnest 's popularity has meant it has been translated into many languages , though the <unk> pun in the title ( " Ernest " , a masculine proper name , and " earnest " , the virtue of steadfastness and seriousness ) poses a special problem for translators . The <unk> case of a suitable translation of the pun , perpetuating its sense and meaning , may have been its translation into German . Since English and German are closely related languages , German provides an equivalent adjective ( " ernst " ) and also a matching masculine proper name ( " Ernst " ) . The meaning and tenor of the wordplay are exactly the same . Yet there are many different possible titles in German , mostly concerning sentence structure . The two most common ones are " Bunbury oder ernst / Ernst <unk> ist <unk> " and " Bunbury oder <unk> <unk> es ist , ernst / Ernst <unk> <unk> " . In a study of Italian translations , Adrian <unk> found thirteen different versions using eight titles . Since wordplay is often unique to the language in question , translators are faced with a choice of either staying faithful to the original — in this case the English adjective and virtue earnest — or creating a similar pun in their own language . 
