Not to get overly carried away with Martin Brodeur’s NHL-record 552nd goaltending win last night, but during the game broadcast, a newspaper headline flashed onscreen, and I liked it:
LE NOUVEAU ROY
I know only enough French to get my face slapped, but I could translate this phrase easily enough: THE NEW KING.
But that’s only the surface meaning. The double-entendre, in good sports-journalist tradition, had to do with who’s career-wins total Brodeur bettered: Patrick Roy’s. So the compact pun: Brodeur is not only the new record-book king, but also, in a sense, the new Roy. Only works in French, and that language-specificity makes it that much cooler.
Wish I could confirm which Quebecois newspaper that was. The only online trace I could find was this re-use by Fanatique.ca; it’ll have to do.
Bonus blog-reader points to anyone who can translate my all-Gallic title for this post
Category: Hockey, Wordsmithing
| Permalink | Trackback |
As the webmaster of Fanatique, I can confirm your point
But I will just add that ROY mean KING only in old french… as of today we write it ROI but it’s all the same pronounciation.
Comment by Emile — 03/18/2009 @ 03:00:11 PM
Dang, I should have known that, thanks. I’ll pass that off as phonetic wordplay and thus preserve my premise
Comment by CT — 03/18/2009 @ 03:12:11 PM