{"id":4254,"date":"2019-04-16T22:25:01","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T21:25:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/library\/?p=4254"},"modified":"2024-07-19T10:20:17","modified_gmt":"2024-07-19T09:20:17","slug":"blistering-barnacles-and-thundering-typhoons-the-language-of-captain-haddock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/library\/blistering-barnacles-and-thundering-typhoons-the-language-of-captain-haddock\/","title":{"rendered":"Blistering Barnacles and Thundering Typhoons – The Language of Captain Haddock"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone who has read the Adventures of Tintin<\/em> by Herg\u00e9 will have no doubt enjoyed the strange but colourful exclamations and bizarre insults hurled by the irascible and often inebriated Captain Haddock at his foe, phrases such as \u201cblistering barnacles\u201d and \u201cthundering typhoons\u201d. But where did these quirky phrases come from and do they have any historical precedent?\u00a0 Using digital resources at Canterbury Christ Church University Library<\/strong>, I set out on my own adventure (minus wire fox terrier) to find out.<\/p>\n

Firstly, I decided to do a bit of Googling and took a peek at the Wikipedia <\/strong>article. The comic books were originally written in Belgian patois between 1929\u20131976 but the first story translated into English was \u2018King Ottakar\u2019s Sceptre\u2019 which appeared in Eagle <\/em>magazine in 1951. Seven years later, Michael Turner and Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper began translating the series of 24 comic books for the publishers Methuen. I wanted to know more about them and decided to follow up some of the material cited in the Wikipedia article.<\/p>\n

I discovered an interview with the translators at Tintinologist.org<\/strong> in which they discussed the problems they encountered translating the stories into English, not least the fact that they had to adapt the text to make sure that it fitted into the text balloons. It never occurred to me that this might be a problem and that direct translation was not possible. The exclamations and insults had to inhabit the same space on the page, as in the original. \u00a0In the English translation of The Secret of the Unicorn, <\/em>Captain Haddock exclaims \u201cBlistering barnacles to that pirate Red Rackham, and his treasure!\u201d In the original version he says \u201c\u2026Et tant pis pour le tr\u00e9sor de ce gredin de Rackham le Rouge.\u201d The French phrase is 62 characters (including the spaces and ellipsis), the English is 66, occupying a similar if not exact space in the speech bubble. Phrases therefore were chosen for size, but this was not the only reason.<\/p>\n

\"Thompson<\/a>
Thompson and Thomson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Image by\u00a0Vinson Tan ( \u694a \u7956 \u6b66 )<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n

To learn more about the process of translation, I decided to look at the original French stories. I knew that my knowledge of French was a bit rusty so I would need a good dictionary. Collins Robert<\/em> <\/strong>and Larousse<\/em><\/strong> are considered two of the best, but I wondered whether an online dictionary could do the job. Google Translate<\/strong> is a translation tool that uses a database of frequency of word pairs between two languages. It is not recommended as a tool for translators as its translations are often awkward and literal. For the sentence cited above, it gave a translation of: \u201cAnd too bad for the treasure of this rascal Rackham Red.\u201d It was a word for word translation, which gave me the gist of the sentence, but not a natural language equivalent.\u00a0 I wondered if I could get a more natural translation by using other sources. Linguee<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is a free dictionary which shows language in context so that you can fully appreciate the nuance of a sentence. After searching for examples of \u201ctant pis\u201d in various translated sentences, I decided that maybe \u201cSo much for that rascal Red Rackham\u2019s treasure!\u201d might sound a little more natural as a translation. At 47 characters it fell short of the original 62 characters in the French version.\u00a0 Zut, zut et zut (or Blistering barnacles!)\u00a0 I needed something to fill the gap! I began to understand how hard Turner and Lonsdale-Cooper had worked to produce their translations. Unlike me, they didn\u2019t have the benefit of the Word count dialog box tallying the character count for each phrase, but had to do it by eye. It could take the duo anything up to four hours to translate one page.[i]<\/a><\/p>\n

In The Secret of the Unicorn, <\/em>Captain Haddock continues by saying of Rackham\u2019s treasure \u201cI\u2019d sooner do without it.\u201d In the original version he exclaims \u201cJe pr\u00e9f\u00e8re y renoncer, mille sabords!\u201d A Google translation of this phrase is \u201cI prefer to give it up, a thousand ports\u201d Linguee <\/strong>was able to supply me with some clues. A sabord is a gun port, or a port hole, not a dock or wharf as I had imagined when I had seen the Google translation.\u00a0 The phrase \u201cmille sabords\u201d has been translated as \u201cYo ho, yo ho!\u201d in Linguee but I was not satisfied with this as an answer. It seemed to be an exclamation expressing disappointment or annoyance when used in Tintin, rather than a seaman\u2019s chant.\u00a0 I thought \u201cShiver me timbers, I\u2019d sooner do without it!\u201d might be more in keeping with the nautical theme. However, my choice of hackneyed phrase would have failed to give the translation a true sense of the richness of the original language. Turner and Lonsdale-Cooper\u2019s unique and amusing translation of \u201cmille sabords\u201d as \u201cblistering barnacles!\u201d gave Tintin a whole new appeal for its British audience. The Belgian boy became almost quintessentially English!<\/p>\n

There is also a metaphorical meaning in the translation. A ship covered with a thousand port holes can be seen as analogous to a ship covered in small round barnacles. As thousands of barnacles on a ship can cause drag, they could be said to \u2018blister\u2019 or damage the efficiency of a ship. Haddock uses the expression \u201cmille sabords\u201d several times in The Secret of the Unicorn<\/em>. At one point he exclaims \u201cMille millions de mille sabords\u201d which Turner and Lonsdale-Cooper translate as \u201cBillions of blue blistering barnacles\u201d. You may wonder why they used the phrase \u201cblue blistering barnacles\u201d, as barnacles are neither blue nor cause blistering. At this point, I could start talking about blue mussels clinging to rocks, and add in a few more theories but if I\u2019m honest I think it\u2019s simpler than that. I believe Turner and Lonsdale-Cooper wished to stay faithful to the alliterative quality of the original sentence.They worked closely with Herg\u00e9 and these phrases reflect their desire to create a beautiful translation that remained faithful to the humour displayed in the original.<\/p>\n

Another example of the use of alliteration is in the phrase \u201cThundering typhoons\u201d which replaced the original phrase \u201cTonnerre de Brest\u201d. Many theories about the French phrase abound on the internet. It is said that it could refer to a common French clich\u00e9 that Brest experiences more stormy weather than the average town or to the thunderous roar of cannon fired from the Brest Arsenal.\u00a0 By searching Google.fr<\/strong> you will find a Wikipedia article in French all about the phrase. It cites three possible origins: one to a huge clap of thunder in Brest in April 1718; one to the daily firing of the cannon at the Brest Arsenal at 6.00 am and 7.00 p.m.; and a third to the use of the cannon to warn the people of Brest about escaping prisoners. \u00a0Whatever the definition of the phrase, it is as nebulous as \u201cthundering typhoons\u201d.\u00a0 A term frequency search across the Gale Primary Sources<\/strong>, a database of 17th<\/sup>, 18th<\/sup> and 19th<\/sup> century news sources\u00a0<\/strong>reveals that the exclamation \u201cThundering typhoons!\u201d was probably an invention of the translators, presumably for its dramatic sonorous effect.\u00a0 One could argue that the phrase is in keeping with the colonial geopolitics which pervade the stories, and reveals the depth of understanding of the translators for the author and the world that he is conveying in his fiction. You can read more about \u201cIdentity and geopolitics in Herg\u00e9\u2019s Adventures of Tintin\u201d in an article by Oliver Dunnett.[ii]<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\"Professor<\/a>
Professor Calculus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Image by\u00a0Vinson Tan ( \u694a \u7956 \u6b66 )<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n

I decided to use the Oxford English Dictionary<\/strong> (OED) online to investigate some of the other words used in the English translations. The Oxford English Dictionary<\/em> is an authoritative source for word etymology as it shows examples of words in context and attempts to establish derivations and earliest known uses of words. In Prisoners of the Sun<\/em>, Haddock calls his foes \u201cSlubberdegullions!\u201d It is defined in the OED as a slobbering or dirty fellow, a worthless sloven.\u00a0 The earliest reference to the word is found in 1612, although other internet sources suggest that its origins date from 16th<\/sup> century Holland or Germany. [iii]<\/a><\/p>\n

If you want to know more about word usage over time, you can search a corpus or body of texts. By searching the Early English Books Online<\/strong> Corpus<\/strong><\/a> I was able to discover the phrase \u201cthou hast deserv’d, base slubberdegullion, to be serv’d as thou didst vow to deal with me\u201d used in Samuel Butler\u2019s 1663 work Hudibras<\/em>. I was getting the sense that the word was not in everyday parlance in the 1950s and was used for its wonderfully onomatopoeic qualities by its very creative translators. I began to wonder more about these wordsmiths and their educational background. I was able to find an obituary of Michael Turner in The Times<\/em>. (Aug. 4, 2009)<\/strong>, available via Gale Primary Sources<\/strong>. He was born in 1929 and read English at Trinity College, Cambridge. \u00a0He wrote a number of publications about Victorian and Edwardian parlour songs which may explain the comedy, melodrama and musicality of his Tintin translations. The National Portrait Gallery has a wonderful photograph<\/a> of the translators laughing together.\u00a0 Lesley Lonsdale-Cooper was born in 1924 and worked as an editor.\u00a0 I was fortunate to have an opportunity to talk to Lesley in the weeks before she died in 2021, and I told her how my sons enjoyed her wonderful translations. I said that I thought she must have a marvellous affinity with children, but she modestly said that it was Michael, who was the better judge of that, having children of his own. She admitted that phrases like “Blistering Barnacles” were hers, but that if she came up with any phrase that Michael didn’t approve of, he would say “Oh, no, you can’t put that, Lesley!”<\/p>\n

I imagine that the translators enjoyed translating Herg\u00e9\u2019s comic books and putting their own English spin on them, just as much as thousands of children and adults alike have enjoyed them ever since.<\/p>\n

Michelle Crowther \u2013 Learning and Research Librarian \u2013 Humanities and Languages.<\/em><\/p>\n

Images by Vinson Tan, from Image by Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n

[i]<\/a> Tintin.com<\/a> (accessed April 16, 2019).<\/p>\n

[ii]<\/a> Oliver Dunnett, \u2018Identity and geopolitics in Herg\u00e9’s Adventures of Tintin,\u2019 Social & Cultural Geography,<\/em> 105 no.5 (2009): 583-598.<\/p>\n

[iii]<\/a> www.dictionary.com<\/a> (accessed April 16, 2019).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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