A French play on words?
March 13, 2009 @ 12:31 am — Tags: advertising, French language
I saw this advertisement for a carpentry business in a local paper recently, and I think it’s meant to be a clever play on words. The French word for building is batiment, which, with a French accent, sounds a bit like batti-mon. Given that their logo shows a man with a house on his head, I’m sure that the company has chosen to mix English with French to create a word that means house man. But I suspect the play on words goes further than that. Batman the movie kept its title here in France and Batman, lets face it, is a hero. What company wouldn’t want to be associated with a hero? I asked a French friend what he thought and he didn’t think it was a play on the movie title. I think it’s too co-incidental not to be. What do you think?
Hi..
Nice blog..
Congratulation..
☆ Martinha ☆
=)
http://travelandtrips.wordpress.com/
Love your blog, April.
I agree with you: Definitely a reference to Batman, that what’s the logo suggests anyway.
It could also stand for batty-man, meaning crazy man LOL.
Excellent, so that’s two votes FOR it being Batman (and maybe crazy man too), and one unrelated comment intending to advertise a different blog. Is that even an acceptable thing to do? Should I remove the link?
You can take it for grated that Batiman used Batman in the name of their company. Batman has been a hero in France for many, many years (don’t forget he actually is an old man already, they just keep remaking him), and the company Batiman isn’t from yesterday either. The French are pretty smart on that point and have some cute ones many people (even French) don’t see. Here’s one example: Kiabi = Qui habit (who dresses … not bad for a clothing shop)
Sunny regards from … France (Atlantic coast),
Deborah
yoho yoho: take it for graNted
Oooh, I do like the Kiabi play on words. Thanks for sharing it. :O) It’s dumping down with snow over on this side of France and looks like doing so all week long. Snow on the West coast might not be as welcome…
If you promise to keep your snow, I’ll send you lots of lovely sunshine, since Spring has sprung overhere. Mornings still a bit nippy, but afternoons! If this comment sounds like a purring cat … that’s me, sitting in the sun.
A+,
Deborah