Locusfr

Traduction of Picsou

I do not know if you're a native speaker of French, but from your message, I'll imply for the sake of argument that you're not. Please excuse me if this is not the case. I'm afraid I'm not convinced by your explanation for the following reasons:

• To alter the written form of consonants in invented names for comical purposes is not at all uncommon in French. To say that the pic of Picsou is necessarily “peak” because of the way it is written is, I'm afraid, rather narrow-minded. In this case, couldn't pic also refer to the bird?
• Besides, you explanation frankly doesn't sound logical to any of the French native speakers I asked for confirmation. All seamed to have understood “pic” in the sense of “piquer” (maybe you're the exception qui confirme la règle).
• I also asked how they would then invent Scrooge in the sense you intended and they all came up with “Topsou” (and even so “sou” would seem really weird).
• It should also be mentioned that Scrooge in France is not renowned for being at the “summit of millionaires” but for his miserliness. In French, before receiving the name Picsou, Scrooge was styled Harpagon and I therefore have serious doubts that the translator would have used pic in the sense of peak.
• In such names, because sou is a noun, pic should be an adjective, or a verbal form. Yet, your translation would imply that pic is also a noun, and in French it would then sound very very very weird.
• Finally, pique- doesn't necessarily imply “to steal” as it is now in use in the modern slang (I reckon the translation was a bit pejorative) but also “to grab” or “to seize”. It enters in expressions such as pique-assiette. From there, the expression pique-sou should be well understood as someone who'd try and take hold on any coin he'd find. And from what my grandfather told me, this expression was sometimes informally used before Scrooge appreared in France (and probably even before Carl Barks invented him). It isn't hard to understand that Piscou was thus derived from it, as the personality of the character really fits its definition. --Sixsous 12:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello, I confirmed that I'm french. Your explanations are good but in a old french article ( from, perhaps, picsou mag or journal de mickey)I remember that their explanation of his name it wasn't only his avarice but his fortune. It was the main of my interrogation on your traduction. temporary, his name was Harpagon, at his french beginning--Locusfr 23:02, 31 July 2006 (UTC)