Vous pouvez allez a Casino pour faire des achats! ( You can go to the casino to do your shopping.)
After having settled down in Paris, the first thing I needed to do was grocery shopping because dining out in Paris is very costly. Amidst the grandeur of Paris, one thing that really annoyed me was the paucity of supermarkets in this touristic city. So I approached a stranger along the streets if there was a supermarket nearby where I could get the daily necessities. His reply was” Vous pouvez allez a Casino pour faire des achats! The literal translation in English is : You can go to the casino to buy groceries.
I was a bit puzzled then because when Monsieur said casino, my first thought was: Casinos are places where you gamble , not a place for shopping ! So I took the metro (train) ,alighted at this station called Montparnasse, took a 5 minute walk to casino. It was only upon reaching the place that I realized that CASINO was a name of a supermarket where you do all your grocery shopping there. There are many branches of casino in the whole of France. It is second largest supermarche (supermarket) in France after Carrefour. Surprise is over! The very thought of naming a supermarket CASINO made me laugh. Any English speaker would find this amusing. Do you think there’s an underlying motivation for such a name? In French, just like in English , casino simply means a place where you gamble.
I wonder why this supermarket should be called CASINO?
There were so many hilarious encounters that I had while in France. This other one happened one Sunday evening. Axel , my hostel mate asked me : Tu veux un Desperado? (Do you want a desperado? ) Now, that got me laughing! My British friends were shrieking with laughter too especially when Axel repeated the question in English. D o you want to have a Desperado?
Definition of this lexical word desperado from cambridge dictionary
desperado noun
/ˌdes.pəˈrɑː.dəʊ/ /-doʊ/ n [C] (plural desperados or desperadoes)
someone who is willing to do things that involve risk or danger, and often criminal things
MW defines desperado as :
Main Entry: des•per•a•do
Pronunciation: \ˌdes-pə-ˈrä-(ˌ)dō, -ˈrā-\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural des•per•a•does or des•per•a•dos
Etymology: probably alteration of obsolete desperate desperado, from desperate, adjective
Date: 1647
: a bold or violent criminal; especially : a bandit of the western United States in the 19th century

Arrivée de la Desperados Red

The desperados come in many colours and flavours. From the definitions ,there seem to be an underlying motivation in naming this drink a desperado. First of all, this is an alcoholic drink which is suppose to get you drunk when you’re celebrating with your friends or when you’re in a pub. The name is very appriopriate here as there seems to be a connection between what alcoholic drinks can do to you and the literal definition of the word desperado. A drunk person will feel high, as if they are in cloud nine, lose their sense of conciousness and resort to doing dangerous things like drug taking, smoking weed, getting themselves involved in promiscuous sexual acts with anyone they see, speed driving along the streets. By consuming this alcoholic drink, you become a real desperado- as implies by the name of the drink.
Conclusion: Sometimes the meaning of certain lexical items are adopted as a strategy to market a product by advertisers. A study of lexical items should not be limited to whether or not it is strange in a particular context, or whether or not it poses a problem to our understanding. We should take a broader perspective when analysing lexical items and see how it relates to us in our everyday lives as well. In this discussion, what I wish to highlight is that lexical meanings of a lexical item can be exploited as a strategic tool for advertising to make their products more appealing. As it can be seen in this context, there exists a connection between the alcoholic drink and the meaning of the lexical term desperado. The underlying meaning of the product becomes explicit through the labelling of this product.