Bippers and Zébras

On our way up the stairs to our apartment last week, we noticed this announcement, taped to the wall:


Without going through the trouble of translating the whole thing, it's basically about automating the heavy wooden doors (porte cochère) that allow entry into the apartment complex from the street. It used to be you had to pull your car up, get out, open the doors, get back in your car, drive through, then close the doors behind you. Now, all you'll have to do is press a button to open and close the doors from the comfort of your own vehicle.

There were two things we learned from this announcement. The first was that in French, a garage-door opener is called a "bipper."

Bipper is one of those French words that comes from an English word but that adopts a French phonetic spelling based on the English pronunciation. Bipper pronounced à la française is pronounced the same as "Beeper" in English. It's just that "bipper" looks a lot funnier, no matter which language is your native one. (I can't think of any other words in French that look even remotely like it.)

The other thing we learned from the announcement is a second meaning of the word, "zébre."

Yup - it means stripes, whether they're on the eponymous animal or marking a spot where you might get clobbered by automatic doors if you're not paying attention. The word is also used to describe crosswalks, which makes sense.

Too bad we don't have a car, otherwise we could use our bipper to open doors that swing gently open over black-and-yellow zébras. Maybe next time.