The captain feigning offense at Peter's use of language states:
Welllll, that's true of British bikes, but not European. F'rinstance, if they're French they have "gardes boues."
I know that you try hard in French, Sheldon, but what you write is not completely correct. While it has become commonplace to use "gardes boues" in France, any member of the Académie Française will tell you it is actually grammatically incorrect. The correct plural for garde boue (a direct translation being mudguard) is actually "gardes boue" without the 's' at the end of boue.
In Italian it is parafango or parafanghi in plural, which also translate directly to mudguard. In Dutch the term used: 'Spatbord' translates to 'splash board'; the German equivalent 'Schutzblech' becomes 'protection iron'...
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Steven 'not bilingual' Maasland
Moorestown, NJ