February 7, 2013 French bar punnery
L’Eau Peine Bar is pronounced (basically) like “L’Open Bar.” The name reminds me of a place I used to go to with my friends in college called Our House. When I was actually living in a house with friends, it was always an Abbott and Costello routine to figure out where we were meeting: “Christ, does this note say ‘after work Our House’ or ‘after work our house’?!” Maybe it’s funnier if you’re college aged. Or drunk.
Address: 26 Rue de Lappe 75011 (map)
Métro: between Bastille (M1, M5, M8) and Ledru-Rollin (M8)
Nothing to learn here, move along
The name is clearly meant as a pun since it doesn’t really mean anything. Eau is ‘water’ and peine means ‘worth,’ as in “this bar doesn’t sound worth visiting but I might anyway because I love shitty dive bars.”
Tags: bar, Bastille, Paris, Who's On First?, wordplay
- 5 comments
- Posted under observations
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Trying to be Conscious
said
Love this pun :-)
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le cul en rows
said
You must reply in kind with Antipodean punnery!
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Suzanne et Pierre
said
“Peine” actually has a lot of different meanings depending of the context. It can mean:
- punishment, sentence in a prison context;
- grief, sorrow, pain, anguish when you try to express emotion;
- effort, hard work, exertion in the context of work; it can mean trouble, difficulty in the context of effort.
And a few more. You can check it out here.
Though, even with all of these other definitions, the name of this bar still makes no sense at all!!!
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le cul en rows
said
The name of the bar still doesn’t mean anything though, right? I couldn’t make any other kind of sense out of it.
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Suzanne et Pierre
said
Totallay right…means nothing. At least, I can’t figure it out if it does.