actually, the official french word for raccon also seems to be raton laveur (washing) and not voleur (stealing), but i dont speak enough french to know if they are called raton voleur in some dialect or slang

[–] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It's also washbear (pesukarhu) in Finnish!

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

Also in Danish (vaskebjørn)

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 4 points 4 months ago

It's a regional expression

[–] Kaput@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Have you encountered raccoons? I've met racoons they'll steal everything from you in a heartbeat, and the mask is a dead giveaway. You think the guys roommate would complain about the raccoons of they came by to do his laundry instead of stealing all his stuff. Laveur is just a typo, Erwin Guttenburger admitted it in 1678 that he tripped while putting the letters in the press for the wildlife almanach. It went out as Raton-loveur at first. Correcting the error would throw the whole books layout out of alignment so the next edition was changed by replacing the O for an A, to put an end to that weird new fetish that was gaining popularity among the literate elite.