My stepdaughter is learning French, so she gets Donald Duck comic books in French. The thing is, instead of the name being “Le Canard Donneau”, or some such, it’s “Picsou”. My question is, what if anything does Picsou mean, and why would the French translators have given the famous webfooter that name?
I’m afraid you’re confused; “Picsou” is the French name for “Scrooge McDuck.” They just call Donald Duck “Donald.”
(A sou is an old French coin; I think “Picsou” must mean something like “pennypincher.”)
Sou = five centimes.
Pic - sounds like “pique”, from the verb “piquer” = (in one of its meanings) “to steal”.
The previous posters are right. “Picsou” sounds like “Stealcoin”. And Picsou is Scrooge Mc Duck" And indeed, for some reason, the monthly Donald comic book is titled after Scrooge Mc Duck, instead of Donald Duck. I’ve no clue why…
Arnold I guess we know which side of the Alps you come from.
Notwithstanding my OP I’d suspected something like this; but concluded it couldn’t be the case because then why would it seem like all my s.d.'s magazines were named after Scrooge McDuck? Of course I don’t follow the Donaldverse in English, let alone French, so maybe Scrooge is more prominent than I realize.
FYI - “sou” is pretty common in Quebec to mean a penny. You often also hear “piastres” meaning dollar.