The ‘Mr. Men’ in French

I was born too soon to learn to read with the help of the Mr.

Men books, written and illustrated by Roger Hargreaves. But my children did, and now I enjoy them again with grandchildren. And finding them in French is a strange new delight.

Titles and names Mr. Bump becomes

M. Malchance, literal collisions conceptualised for the French mind. Mr. Chatterbox becomes

M. Bavard. He’s grown older, because chatterbox in English is said more about children, perhaps because a box filled with chatter is smaller than the word’s user. Indeed, garrulity isn’t limited to children. In another series, the Little Misses become Madames: Mme. Bonheur, Mme. Beaut´e. Curious!

Mr. Nosey

Even curiouser, Mr. Nosey becomes M. Curieux: more dignified, as if his foible was an adult one, general not juvenile, though still affectionate. It’s as if French adult readers look out at themselves in social action, while Anglophones look down at the children they read with,

noticing the smallness not the behaviours.

Defamiliarising

Now try these equivalences: Mr Dizzy = M. Nigaud,

Mr TopsyTurvy = M. Mal Poli,

Mr Worry = M. Inquiet.

Minauder

The French versions delighted me because I could read and understand them up to speed, thanks to the pictures alongside. Not every word, though. Several of the new ones were verbs. Chatouiller, to tickle; hence Mr. Tickle = M.

Chatouille. When Mme. Bonheur

(Little Miss Sunshine) cheers up Mme. Beaute´ by telling her how good she looks, the latter lady begins ‘‘minauder’’ — to simper. Not just a smirk on the face, but to walk coyly, in that character.

Slang

More of the new words were slang. My school French kept clear of slang, centring on travel and social transactions. A good moment, then, when M. Bavard, blathering on like a runny tap, couldn’t keep up with himself and slid into et patati et patata.

Nothing to do with potatoes: they are patates. The phrase means blah blah blah.

Flavouring

Now ‘‘blathering’’ (blah) may seem the same thing for any language or situation, but now I see why not. Blah blah blah

diminishes and dismisses. It says, Your speech is just repetitive noise, like a stuck buzzer. But Et patati et patata mimics the tongue rattling on the teeth, chattering or tattling or tinkling. It makes pictures and sounds, how the blather looks when you distance eyes and ears and mind from it.

Sound effects

That example shows French hearing an event, or reading a situation, differently. Think of comics. Billy Bunter incurs punishment: ‘‘Yarooch, roared the Fat Owl of the Remove’’. When Superman biffs some villain, the sound made is Pow.

But when Asterix biffs some Roman opponent, the sound is

Poc; crisp and precise. Is violence different? No, only how it is heard. Or again, when some snow slides en masse off the roof onto M. Malchance, it is heard as Vlon! (The snow slides [vvvv] then falls with a big flop

lon.) Or guili guili, from Mr. Tickle; not the sound of tickling, but the glee of the tickler. These exclamations depend on pronouncing the French properly, another bonus.

Seasonal significance

Now none of this has great significance. Just vive la

difference! And yet . . . Do these things merely sound better in French, or do they intrigue the mind after all?

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