Tintin Forums

Would please someone be so kind to answer these two small questions:

- in the UK, does capitalized Bordures* or Borders refer to anything in particular?

- in 'Destination Moon' English version, how are the Thompsons named by the military, when brought handcuffed and in Syldavian* costumes to Baxter (p.18-C3)?

Thanks in advance.

yamilah,

The answer to the second question is: "These are the two birds sir."

There are a few things that could refer to "Borders" Do you have a specific context?

Cheers,
Ranko.

Ranko
There are a few things that could refer to "Borders" Do you have a specific context?

Just the local geographical context: e.g. does Tintin cross 'Borders' to get to Scottish 'Kiltoch' and to Gaelic 'Craigh Dhui'?

Thanks for your response about the
Thompsons; those 'birds' do match the original version, that reads 'Voila les oiseaux, Monsieur le Directeur'.

Do you think the successive puns handcuffed birds & sealed avian twins & Syldavian drawn costumes are just unconscious, or meant to be kind of passwords* or rebus?

Yes, the 'border' might be the border between England and Scotland, the two largest kingdom's of Great Britain. Hope this helps.

Ambrose
Yes, the 'border' might be the border between England and Scotland, the two largest kingdom's of Great Britain. Hope this helps.

In the UK, can 'the Border' also mean some Gaelic one, aside from the Scots?

yamilah
In the UK, can 'the Border' also mean some Gaelic one, aside from the Scots?

It isn’t clear if you mean does “border” mean something in the Gaelic language, or if there is a geographical border; if the former I am not qualified to say, not having the Gaelic myself, but if the latter, no there isn’t.

In Scotland, Gaelic is now spoken most widely (and that isn’t very wide - there are allegedly more Scottish Gaelic speakers in Canada than Scotland) in the islands, but I think that this is because these speakers were isolated from Scots and English; elsewhere Scots and English have replaced Gaelic, although there are still thousands of place names etc. with Gaelic origin all over Scotland.

The Border is always that between Scotland and England.

jock123
The Border is always that between Scotland and England.

Can't 'the Border' (in the English language) also refer specifically to the one that exists between Northern Ireland (part of UK, as far as I know) and the Irish Republic?

Can't 'the Border' (in the English language) also refer specifically to the one that exists between Northern Ireland (part of UK, as far as I know) and the Irish Republic?

To a certain extent yes, and maybe moreso in N. Ireland; that is of course an international border, and as such not within the UK. Anyway, the English expression “the border” can in the same way “refer specifically” to the border between any two states, if those were the two in questiion.

However, I think that were you to stop the vast majority of people in Britain and ask where “The Border” was, they’d say between England and Scotland - most likely because that’s where the bulk of the people live. I’m sure if you were in N. Ireland that the response might be different, but it could be different in Wales, and different in Cornwall for that matter…

The Border (and more often “the Borders”) is most often the area around the Scottish/ English border, and it’s even the name of the local ITV company…

There is also a border between Wales and England, but I’m not sure that it is often called such.