[Sethomas]

So, I was reading different editions of Wikinews, and in a French article about the Russian elections I noticed that the bloke we anglophones refer to as "Vladimir Putin" has his surname spelled in French as "Poutine". I found this a bit odd, as Poutine is a Québecois staple food based on french fries, curds, and gravy. I looked up its etymology, which seems to be obscure but one guy claiming to have invented the dish said of it that it looked like "une maudite poutine", meaning "a damned mess" (Wikipedia translated it, "a hell of a mess", but I don't agree with that.)

I thought it would be hilarious if l'Academie Française made a scathing political commentary on how to translate Putin's name from the Cyrillic alphabet, but I asked my Russian/Georgian friend how the Cyrillic form of his name is pronounced. She said "Poo-teen", which matches the French spelling exactly in terms of phonetics.

Eh, it was a fun thought while it lasted.