We've become friends with a family from North Carolina, and we picnicked with them last Friday again in Parc Montsouris. They told us two funny stories, one involving something I have always been curious about.
They were watching TV one evening and asking their son, who was on the computer, to translate. At one point during a newscast, the translation came back as "The bison is yellow this morning, but will be red this evening and then green tomorrow." Green bison? Red bison? What's going on?
I explained the mystery. There is an agency of the French government in charge of advising on traffic conditions. It is called "Bison Fute." During periods such as the present, when many people are going to or coming back from vacation, Bison Fute will provide a general forecast for traffic -- green for OK, yellow for a little worse, red for bad, and black for horrible. So the bison that was changing color on the newscast was not really an animal, but rather the expected traffic conditions.
And where did that name come from. It literally means "cunning bison," which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The best explanation I've been able to find is here:
The "Bison futé" (in English the cunning bison) is the one that does not follow the crowd, but seeks out less crowded easier routes, the "routes bis", thus the "bis-on". If you see a bison futé sign, it will be directing you either to information about alternative routes, or (usually) to the alternative routes themselves. On summer Saturdays, being a cunning bison is often well worth it, unless you love sitting in traffic jams.
Voila, a mystery solved!
The second funny story they told was about walking past a school in Paris called the "Ecole Nationale de Ponts et Chausees." They looked at the school's sign and translated it as "The National School of Bridges and Socks." Close but not quite. "Chaussette" is a sock; "chausee" is a road, or more precisely, a roadway (a frequently seen road sign is "chausee deformee," or 'uneven road surface'). The Ecole Nationale de Ponts et Chausees is a venerable public works engineering school, there being not much to engineering a sock.
The final observation is an observation about the Bois de Boulogne, which, as mentioned previously, has a reputation for odd nocturnal activites, as noted here:
WARNING! It’s best to avoid nocturnal cruising along the roads of the Bois de Boulogne if you find the sight of transvestite streetwalkers upsetting (although tough new laws have greatly cut down on this over the past few years).
Well, we saw a couple of them on our brief walk yesterday; at first we thought they were just slighly overweight, not entirely attractive women, putting on their makeup, but then we heard their voices and thought, nope. Not upsetting, but not expected either.
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