A discovery was made on a subject that long piqued my curiosity. It is the meaning of the words often shouted at Nathan's soccer matches...Hélicopter! Mike and I have tried for a long time to figure this one out. I even asked another French father what it meant...was it a soccer term in French or what?! He had absolutely NO clue what I was talking about. Then right next to us a mother screamed it out. I said to him...Voila! That is the phrase I cannot understand.
What it turns out to mean truly is "Allez Quentin!" or "GO QUENTIN!!"
When said very loud, quickly and with the strong accents of the men I hear it from, I'm sure I heard Hélicopter. There are THREE boys named Quentin on Nathan's team and evidently all play strongly. To say the least, it was so embarassing to have my bad ear for French so openly publicized. No doubt all of the fathers got quite the chuckle out of that one!! That americaine and her thorough knowledge of the French language and soccer vocabulary!!
This past weekend while I was watching Nathan's game (By the way...Nathan had his game on!! SO impressive! His coach was overjoyed with his play!!) Over and over I heard "Allez Quentin" rubbing that salt in the wound.
OK, this brought to mind stories of lyrics to songs that get mangled when heard, like my sister singing "she's got electric boobs" to Elton John's Benny and the Jets...the foreign language issue aside, maybe the helicopter misunderstanding was more just an oral thing!
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