It's a new tradition with our family that after a day of skiing, no matter where we are, lodge, hot tub, or hill, we meet at the Beaver Tails shack for a gooey, sweet, super-messy "Tail", topped with apples and cinnamon or maple syrup or bananas and chocolate. Last week, as we waited for our warm sugar blast, I contemplated the Beaver Tails sign and logo. It's pure Canadiana with a pioneer font and standard French translation: Queues de Castor. I instantly imagined orderly lines of portly beavers in R.C.M.P.-red jackets standing hairy shoulder to shoulder. Not so says my son:
"Queue" also happens to be French for "tail"
As I ruminate about beaver lines, cinnamon, and maple syrup, my 16-year old historian son tells me that the British adopted the French word "queue" after the Franco-Prussian war. According to him, during the war, the British ex-pats living in Paris wrote home about the lengthy "queues" of people eager for food rations. English, apparently not having a word to describe lines of waiting people, borrowed the word "queue" and never gave it back.
Cric! Crac! Croc!
BTW: there are often lengthy queues for beaver tails at the ski hill around 3:45