The margarine mystery (was: Duckburg's 12 landmarks)

Gerd Syllwasschy gerd.syllwasschy at web.de
Sat Jun 29 14:42:43 CEST 2002


Frank Bubacz wrote on 2002-06-28:

> >From: Halsten Aastebol
>
> >Barks' skunk oil factory was translated into margarine factory in
> >Scandinavia. Later, it has become an established fact (more or less) in
> >Scandinavia that Donald works at the margarine factory.
>
> The same is true for Germany, if we're talking about WDC 165. As far as I
> can remember the term has also been used in other stories. Maybe newer
> translators changed it to skunk oil factory again, but I can't really
> imagine. "Stinktieröl-Fabrik"? No way!

This is quite a mystery to me. The German translator got her texts from
Egmont (Gutenberghus) in Copenhagen, but she did not translate from Danish
(or any other Scandinavian language), she translated from English, i.e.,
from Barks' original text. Likewise, the Scandinavian translators did not
use the German version, AFAIK. And I don't believe in accidence so much that
I think it likely they all came up independently with the same exotic
substance which is not even remotely related to skunk oil. (Actually, it's
more related to soap, as I've been told ...)

So Egmont seems to have edited Barks' text in this case. But why would they?

(And yes, Frank, the margarine theme is still used in German translations.
It was at the heart of a Vicar story in one of the last issues of the German
weekly.)

Gerd





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