Ducks affecting language?

Petri Kanninen pkannine at cc.hut.fi
Tue Jan 8 02:13:39 CET 2002


Hi!

I've been reading the celebration book of 50 Years of Aku Ankka (the
weekly) in Finland. It's titled "Maailman hauskin kuvasarjalehti"
meaning The World's Funniest Comic book. The fun part of the title
is the word "kuvasarjalehti" as it is the old expression used for
comic books in Finland. The modern version isn't that much
different "sarjakuvalehti" but it gives the title a nice old
flavor. It contains a lot of articles: analyzing the duckworld,
the editorial staff and the making of the magazine, information
of different artists (made by list member Timo Ronkainen, great
job!), a history of Disney comics published in Finland etc.
Also there is a story from every decade of the weekly and small
lists of different things from the comics, like the worst jobs
DD ever had, acronyms for JW titles, weird animals, political
happenings, Gyro's inventions, adresses of different characters
just to mention few.
Now, why I'm babbling about this? At the final pages there is
an article about the effect of duck stories to Finnish language.
People who are lucky are often called Gladstone Gander, rich Scrooge 
and inventors Gyro Gearloose (in Finnish of course). Also for example 
police's special force is called The Beagle Boys (I really like this 
one:-), Kaj Stenvall does paintings starring ducks or the anonymous
alcoholics are called Donald Ducks (since the abbreviations for both
are AA in Finland). Reading this made me wonder if there are same
kind of things in other countries? I would think that in Scandinavia
something like this could have happened or in Germany where the
translations of Erica Fuchs are so loved. Or are we Finns alone with
this habit?
And as a conclusion since the winter olympics are on their way, a
short quote from a book by Sakari Pietilä and Kari Tyni (sport people
from Finland) for all you Swedes out there:
"Gladstone Gander equals heavenly luck, fitting cross playing and
gold podium. Gladstone Gander X 23 = The Ice-hockey team of Sweden."
Hope we meet in the final! :-)

--
Petri Kanninen (pkannine at cc.hut.fi)
Aku Ankan taskukirja -tietokanta: http:/www.perunamaa.net/taskarit/

"Elokuvataiteen kannalta Van Damme on ollut merkittävimmillään
Replicant-elokuvan loppuhuipennuksessa, jossa hän potki ja
pieksi perusteellisesti itseään." -Mikko Vienonen, IS 13.10.2001




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