Gross Market
Wednesday July 12th 2006, 9:01 am
Filed under: signs, weird

gross market
Driving out of Avignon, I noticed a sign “Gross Market,” pointing toward the opposite direction from which we were heading, but I had just enough time to take a photo of it in the roundabout, since there was a firetruck blaring its siren. In France, a blaring siren from a fire truck means, “get in front of the firetruck and obstruct it from reaching its destination!” This slowed the traffic WAY DOWN.

The “Gross Market” sign baffled us. We later asked people from the area about it. No one knew anything about it, or even realized it was there. Was it a large open market? Why wasn’t it “Le Grand Marché?” You know, something in French, since this is France. But the real pressing question was: Is it gross?

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8 Comments so far
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Shortened from Grossiste? Market is English though… Are there lots of English in the area?Or it could be a mix of a couple of languages. Market for English and Gross for German?

Other than that… Absolutely NO idea…

Comment by Jennifer 07.12.06 @ 9:12 am

ahhah once more, you make me laugh so much!!!

You are good to have been able to notice that:
get in front of the firetruck and obstruct it from reaching its destination!”

In the US, when I first got here, I always wondered: “mais pourquoi ils s’arretent tous!” ;-)

Aren’t we just so different ?

Comment by bea 07.12.06 @ 1:45 pm

Bonjour,

M.I.N. = Marché d’Intérêt National

Un clic sur cet article Wikipédia vous donnera plus d’information sur ce type de marché qui peut être effectivement très “gros”, celui de Rungis (région parisienne) étant le plus important au monde dans la catégorie “produits frais”.

Amitiés,

Didier (photo blog)

Comment by transall 07.12.06 @ 11:03 pm

according to didier, you’re right jennifer.

merci pour l’explication, didier, mais pourquoi “market” au lieu de “marché” ?? pourquoi pas “grossiste”? la combinaison des mots m’a fait rire de toute manière :D

Comment by ptinfrance 07.13.06 @ 1:20 am

I think this is a poor translation of ‘Marché du gros’ aimed at truckers who may not speak French but do speak or at least read English.

I shudder to think how they would translate “Boulodrome” – “Balls-o-Dome” ?

Comment by Marvin Gardens 07.13.06 @ 4:02 am

Bonsoir,

Comme le fait fort justement remarquer Marvin Gardens, il semble bien que, dans un souci de clarté vis à vis des transporteurs, ceci soit la traduction approximative de “Marché de gros” (qui correspond en France à un marché sur lequel s’échangent des volume importants de marchandises).

Par curiosité, j’ai testé la traduction de “marché de gros” sur Alta Vista – Babel Fish Traduction et voici ce que cela donne :

“market the large one”

pas vraiment mieux si je me fie à mes petites notions d’anglais !!!

A tout hasard, pourriez-vous nous indiquer quelle peut être la traduction appropriée pour “marché de gros” dans la langue anglaise?

Merci d’avance,

Didier (photo blog)

Comment by transall 07.13.06 @ 2:53 pm

good question. i think it would be something like: wholesale food market. (maybe bulk food market)

Comment by ptinfrance 07.14.06 @ 2:42 am

marvin, you’re probably right. makes sense. oh, and you’re probably right about the market translation too. ;-)

Comment by ptinfrance 07.14.06 @ 3:21 am



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