French Derivatives & Translation Issues

[nplyon]

No: HPFGUIDX 40516

"mingarooni" <minga at i...> wrote:
> Hooch becomes Bibine, which is intersting because
> Bibine in French is a bad quality alcoholic drink! (Unless of course
> Hooch means the same in English and, being Australian, I don't know
> the slang, forgive me if this is well-known as I haven't researched
> it).
> 

I know that, at least in US English, hooch is a word for low-quality 
liquor, the kind of stuff someone's grandfather might have made in 
his bathtub during Prohibition.  In fact, there's currently a lemon-
flavored malt beverage on the market in the US that is called Hooch.  
Do British English speakers use hooch in this way as well?  This 
makes me wonder if the company that translated the book from English 
into French used American or British translators.  This just makes me 
very glad that I am a native English speaker as it's sad to think 
that a lot of the wit of JKR's writing was lost in the translation to 
other languages.  At any rate, I question the necessity of 
translating the names into French.  I mean, when I read an English 
translation of Les Misérables, it's not as if Marius has been changed 
to Bob and Eponine to Chrissy.

~Nicole, who hopes she's not veering too OT here.