by Kevin Burton
The Burtons love a good farmer’s market. And the local weather has been conducive to attending the outdoor version.
So this could happen pretty soon. Sign us up!
A farmer’s market of course, is the much yummier first cousin of a garage sale.
But what of a flea market?
A flea market sounds like something to avoid for sure. Sounds like a really bad sales idea, a non-starter.
We are going to look at how such pleasant outdoor markets got such an itchy name. We’ll get help from Merriam-Webster.
But first, a detour. A Mexican detour.
When I fell in love with Mexico, I fell in love with Flans. Flans is a three-piece female Mexican, made-for-television pop music group. Think the Monkees with boobs.
“Bazar,” one of their bouncier lightweight tunes, was among the first I heard. The idea is the singer-protagonist fell in love with some guy at a bazaar “Entre cuadros y revistas, camisetas, discos y jeans, which means “amidst paintings, magazines, t-shirts, records and jeans.”
The cool thing about learning Spanish the way I did is that even a song so corny that Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods might turn it down, is a terrific translating, learning experience.
The boy, love interest in the song tells the girl to put down a blouse she has picked out and select another color, then asks “What are you doing later?” and invites her to lunch.
The song resonates with me because an outdoor market is exactly the kind of “date” a Mexican patriarch dad would let you take his daughter to, as opposed to a movie.
The song escorts me in spirit back to Puebla, where I lived in Mexico. Also because it has a repeated backup lyric, “n-n-n-n-n-n-now”, it reminds me of the way we used to talk at the blind school in Ohio.
It does not remind me of fleas. Which brings us back to this curious term, flea market.
Here’s Merriam-Webster on that term’s derivation:
“Many people find pleasure in shopping at, or simply browsing in, flea markets. They seem to be not at all put off by the name, even though few would welcome the titular pest into their homes. Where did the term flea market come from, and does it have anything to do with real fleas?”
“The origin of flea market is somewhat of a mystery, although the etymology likely traces back to the French marché aux puces (literally “market of fleas”). How did a market of secondhand treasures earn such an unseemly name?”
“One theory points to a bargain hunter who declared Saint-Ouen market, the largest outdoor bazaar in 1880s Paris, “le marché aux puces.” The market, lined with stalls of upholstered furniture and pre-owned clothing, seemed a natural place for nuisance insects to take up residency, and the eccentric moniker stuck.”
“There is some evidence that casts doubt on this theory: there are newspaper articles from the 1880s in the US, referring to this same type of flea market (one that sells second-hand clothes, crockery, and the like), but this one was in Copenhagen, not Paris.”
“A second theory points to mid-19th-century street renovations in Paris. As boulevards were widened, displaced shop owners lost their storefronts and were forced to “flee” to outdoor market stalls. This theory contends that the markets were initially called flee markets in English, and the spelling morphed into flea. It should be noted that there is considerably more evidence for flea than flee.”
“In any case, by the time secondhand markets became mainstream in the U.S. in the 1960s, the name flea market had lost much of its negative connotation. Today no one seems to bat an eye while purchasing antiques from a market that is probably named after a bloodsucking insect, a testament to the evolution of language (and love for a good bargain).”
Two parting thoughts. First, since the goods at a bazaar/flea market are typically secondhand, would a follow-up Flans song perhaps tell of how she dumped the boy? We will never know.
Second, there is an actual intersection of Flans and insects.
They did a song called “Mosquito Bilingüe” (bilingual mosquito) about a student who doesn’t want to do her homework. She is about to kill a pesky flying insect when the mosquito begs for his life and promises to do her homework for her.
When the mosquito doesn’t follow up on the promise, we get the payoff lyric for the song:
“Pobrecito el mosquito, pobrecito el mosquito, en un libro” …(wait for it)…”Aplastado”
I bet you figured out without translation, that the poor bug-boy got squished between the pages of the girl’s textbook.
“Aplastado” is plastered? Sounds right to me.
But again, no follow-up song.
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