Peanuts in French

A crossword clue — three letters, “Parisian’s ‘Rats!’” — made me wonder what Charlie Brown says in French. And now I know.

A New York Times article from 1975, “Peanuts Bridges a Language Gap and Captivates the French” gave me an initial answer:

Zut et grands dieux! — Rats and good grief!

They said it would never happen here, but a million French are now hooked on Peanuts, the comic strip by Charles Schulz with the water‐headed beagle Snoopy, the lifetime loser Charlie Brown and the horrible Lucy, all speaking the Gallic tongue here.

But I wanted better evidence. I found some in Google Books, in strips collected in two volumes of Snoopy et le petit monde de “Peanuts” (2014, 2015). Behold:

  [Peanuts, November 11, 1973; September 10, 1978. Click either image for a larger view.]

And here are the originals, from the GoComics Peanuts page, which has the strip’s complete run available for browsing:

  [Peanuts, November 11, 1973; September 10, 1978. Click either image for a larger view.]

Just as in the crossword, the exclamation “Zut!” is the French equivalent of “Rats!” I could not find panels with “Grands dieux!” [Great gods!], but Snippet View makes enough of Peanuts visible to confirm that “Grands dieux!” is (or was) indeed the French equivalent of “Good grief!”

Related reading
All OCA Peanuts posts (Pinboard)

It’s the most wonderful time

Madame Laoutaro speaks:

Robertson Davies, The Lyre of Orpheus (1988).

The Lyre of Orpheus is the third novel of The Cornish Trilogy.

Related reading
All OCA Robertson Davies posts (Pinboard)

SASE, PetSmart

I learned only a few days ago that a self-addressed stamped envelope is an envelope addressed to yourself.

I’ve always known, of course, that the address on a self-addressed stamped envelope is your own. (Well duh.) But I always thought that self-addressed meant that you had addressed the envelope yourself, that you hadn’t left it for someone else to do. But no, self-addressed means that it’s addressed to you yourself.

Elaine learned a few days ago that PetSmart is a pun: Pets Mart, a market for pet supplies.

Yes, it’s called life-long learning. See also Kasie DC, Men’s Wearhouse and TUMS.

Byronic

Geraint Powell has a question. Does Simon Darcourt have an answer?

Robertson Davies, The Lyre of Orpheus (1988).

The Lyre of Orpheus is the third novel of The Cornish Trilogy.

Related reading All OCA Robertson Davies posts (Pinboard)

Recently updated

Words of the year Dictionary.com chooses pandemic.

“As a gifted cook makes soup”

Simon Darcourt, decision-maker:

Robertson Davies, The Lyre of Orpheus (1988).

The Lyre of Orpheus is the third novel of The Cornish Trilogy.

Related reading
All OCA Robertson Davies posts (Pinboard)

“Lola” at fifty

Ray Davies on “Lola” at fifty: “I didn’t think the song would be so ahead of its time.”

I am a latecomer to the greatness of the Kinks. Better late than never. As I wrote in a 2016 post, “I’m now convinced that there were three great pop groups in the 1960s: the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Kinks.”

[But hey, New York Times, a National guitar is not a dobro (which is played flat), nor does it have “the hard, tinny sound of a banjo.”]

Recently updated

The Old Landmark A Bowery establishment makes yet another appearance in Naked City. Why am I drawn to the Old Landmark? Elaine and I had lunch at 359 Bowery (now Phebe’s) in the summer of 2019.

$69.95

I was teaching a novel, an enormous novel, at least four inches thick, by a Latin-American writer whose name I had picked up from reading Jorge Luis Borges. Do you like this novel? I asked my students. Oh yes, everyone really liked it. I explained that I had decided to teach the novel before reading it and that I too was now reading it for the first time. The list price: $69.95.

I knew that I would have to “use” this novel for at least two more semesters — a condition of the university’s textbook rental system — and I had no idea how I might manage that. Perhaps I could just add the novel to future book orders and have students hold on to their copies.

The novel had a reference to the Marx Brothers, so I was looking forward to showing a clip from one of their movies.

Related reading
All OCA teaching dreams (Pinboard)

[This is the twentieth teaching-related dream I’ve had since retiring, and it’s the rare dream in which the work goes well, even if improbably. I taught at a university with a textbook rental system (a hangover from “normal school” days and an anti-intellectual selling point: rent your books, then turn them in at semester’s end). The three-semester rule was grounded in reality, not my dream life.]

Here’s where I live

A bowling alley and “lounge” to its customers:

TO EVERYONE WONDERING AND ASKING YES WE ARE STAYING OPEN AS IS WE JUST ASK TO TAKE YOUR SAFETY PRECAUTIONS AND WE WILL AS WELL. WE RECOMMEND YOU TO HAVE A MASK WITH YOU FOR SAFETY BUT NOT REQUIRED. HOPE TO SEE EVERYONE OUT ABOUT THIS WEEKEND AND LETS HAVE SOME FUN.

No, let’s not.