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Can someone explain this, please?


ssomon

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In a discussion about the names of nearby, now defunct, factories, I came across this saying or pun, which I don't understand.

"les usines prenaient le nom d'un lieudit, d'un hameau, d'un moulin ou d'une métairie ...... mais Cayenne reste une énigme. Cazals risque une hypothèse qui viendrait de l'argot. «La boîte, c'est l'atelier quand on ne l'appelle pas simplement Cayenne»."

https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2018/09/20/2872083-la-route-des-usines-monde-industriel-a-redecouvrir.html

 

 

Edited by ssomon
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La boite is a slang word for workplace. Cayenne was a very distant colony in South America where there were some penal institutions that were particularly brutal, see the book and film Papillion. So, it could simply refer to a distance place as in other cases and/or refer to the factory as a prison or bagne.

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