The English Oracle

What does "Thundering typhoons" mean?

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Chapters
00:00 What Does &Quot;Thundering Typhoons&Quot; Mean?
00:14 Accepted Answer Score 10
00:49 Thank you

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Tags
#phrases #meaningincontext

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ACCEPTED ANSWER

Score 10


Thundering typhoons! is an alliterative phrase (sometimes in the extended form Ten thousand thundering typhoons!) used by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner to translate Hergé's Tonnerre de Brest! (a loud daily canon shot to announce the closure of the arsenal at Brest).

It is simply a exclamation not designed to mean anything. Captain Haddock also says Blistering barnacles (or Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!) as a translation of Mille millions de mille milliards de mille sabords! (literally, thousands of millions of thousands of billions of thousands of portholes).