Amusing French town names

[MaisonMetz]

For those who enjoy French language word games in any form, you might find this of interest from the June issue of Jeff Steiner's Americans in France newsletter:

"France has a number of villages and towns that have amusing names or bring out the French fondness for word play – les jeux des mots...There is an association of communities with amusing names: Association des communes de France aux noms burlesques et chantants."

Here's the website: www.commune-burlesque.com/

Jo

[Anne]

The most famous French village must certainly be Montcuq (phonetic translation : my as*s) in the Lot département (SW of France) .
A very few years ago, toys manufacturer Hasbro decided to create a new Monopoly where the street names would be replaced by French town names . There was a big vote on the internet where people suggested and voted for the towns which should be on the new board (great marketing operation of course), and Montcuq won the vote so it should have ended up as the town on the highest value square . However, Hasbro finally decided to refuse Montcuq altogether for whatever reason (correctness ?) . But due to the general outcry, they finally offered to create a special Montcuq Monopoly, where all the squares are streets of Montcuq, and this time they sticked to their word .

BTW, Montcuq is a lovely big village in a great area, we holidayed there twice .

[Becky (Berkeleytravelers)]

Anne, very funny story - is the game still on the market?

[Anne]

Yes it is :
www.amazon.fr/Hasbro-Monopoly-Montcuq/dp/B0017P7VEA

Towards the end of the Wikipedia article you can read the whole story :
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montcuq