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Monday, July 7, 2008

Felicity Schickfick

As the result of aimless Wikipedia-wandering, I somehow ended up on the page for Heather Graham’s character in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. Why she warrants her own Wikipedia page, I couldn’t tell you, but the article includes an interesting section in which it lists the various ways her name — “Felicity Shagwell,” a pun in the classic Bond girl fashion — was translated into other languages. Some good ones:
  • In Danish: Felicity Bollergodt, with boller godt literally translating to “fucks nice.”
  • In Dutch: Felicity Neuktgoed, with neukt goed meaning “fucks well.”
  • In French: Felicity Felicity Bonnebez, with bonne baise meaning “good fuck.”
  • In French-speaking parts of Canada: Félicité Chaudolit, with chaud au lit meaning “hot in bed.”
  • In German: Felicity Schickfick, meaning “Felicity Fucknice.”
  • In Italian: Felicity Ladà, with the last name translating as “(she) gives it.”
  • In Portuguese-speaking Brazil: Felicity Façobem, meaning “Felicity (I) Do It Well.”
  • In Portuguese-speaking Portugal: Felicidade NaCama, translating in full to “happiness in the bed” and the only one of the translations that uses her first name in the sense of happiness.
There’s a few others that aren’t translated on the Wikipedia page, and I suspect Babelfish would not prove especially useful: Estonian (Õnnelik Kargaja), Finnish (Unelma Panopuu), Latvian (Felisitija Labdrāte), Polish (Felicity Robidobrze), Russian (Фелисити Добротрах), and five different ones in Spanish (Marifé Lación, Felicity Buenfollón, Felicity Revueltas, Felicity Revuelcabién, Felicity Lación).

“It’s tough being a globe-trotting pun,” says Heather Graham.

EDIT: Of course, I meant to say "Bond girl," not "Bong girl," though I suppose a bong girl would think sex puns are hilarious.

2 comments:

  1. Can't help with others, but:

    et: Õnnelik Kargaja -- Happy Fucker. Why they deemed necessary to translate surname too is beyond me. However, the connotation is rather mischevious and still light-ish, unlike in Finnish, which uses surprisingly strong word.
    fi: Unelma Panopuu -- Dream Slut.
    ru: Фелисити Добротрах - Felicity Goodfuck.

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