Hugh!

[incandescens]

So I'm reading the Et Cetera manga in French translation, which is set in a fairly classic Wild West (with additional bits, as so often happens in manga) and trying to work out why the Red Indian characters keep on saying, "Hugh!" in greeting situations. (I know Native American is a more appropriate term, but the author is being cheerfully Classic Western.)

Oh. Doh. Of course. ("Visages blancs," was much easier to work out.)

Still, we've had runaway trains, gold mines, gamblers, cards up sleeves, alcohol, knives, and lots of guns. I can handle Hugh. Really, I can.

(twitch)

As a side-note, the two Hellboy books The Chained Coffin and The Conqueror Worm arrived today. I've now got all sorts of urges to run modern occult stuff. And, you know, you could easily work some of the background, or even the general atmosphere of the thing, into Scales . . .

---

The cicadas sing
in the twilight
of my mountain village --
tonight, no one
will visit save the wind.

-- Ono no Komachi

Comments

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Hugh? Not 'comment'?

[incandescens]

No, "Hugh!". Most strange.

Still, we've just had turn up a Female Mastermind of Evil in a buttoned-down dress with neat cuffs and a thin pipe to smoke. For that I can forgive much.

[marith.livejournal.com]

Not sure I get it...."Hugh" as someone's translation of "How"?

My cultural speedbump for the week: in Theodore Stephanides' WWII memoir, seeing yet another British supply truck with "Annie Lorry" stenciled on the side, and how that joke never seems to get old.

Took me a minute. :)

[incandescens]

Not sure I get it...."Hugh" as someone's translation of "How"?

Looks that way. Alas, have low acquaintance with French Westerns, so am not sure if this is common or not.

Annie Laurie. Heh. Pity, the rising generation may not know that tune much longer . . .

[solaas.livejournal.com]

*grins* Well, in classic western up here, the term is "Ugh." Pronounced fast & concicely "oogg". So the grand cliché would be: "Ugh, hvite mann". (How, white man.) Maybe the French have used something similar. :)

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I thought in fact that hugh might be French for ugh, but living in a country that has genuine Amerinds in it my instincts were that nono you wouldn't make Indians say Ugh how condescending. How of course is quite acceptable. (/irony)

[mikeneko.livejournal.com]

If it's "classic" Western cliche, then it's supposed to be "How!", usually accompanied by the hand lifted, palm outward. (The answer is "Scrambled!" ;)

[incandescens]

There was indeed waving around of hands (and tomahawks) and the traditional greeting of sharp pointy things moving rapidly in the direction of the heroes, due to recent passage through of bad guys, etc, etc. (Good to know the "Scrambled!" one survives in America too. :))