Re: [DIYbio] Fwd: [diybio-eu] DIYbio achievements and projects - a question

"La Paillasse" does mean "pallet", but it's the vernacular for a lab
bench; a native speaker will recognise it as such, apparently.

Although "bínse" is the more common word for "Bench" in Irish, it's a
transliteration from English. While "Fórma" may be correspondingly a
transliteration from latin, at least Irish derives (distantly) from
latin, so it's more appropriate in my view.

Plus, Fórma is phonetically straightforward for non-Irish speakers; it
sounds as it looks, whereas Bínse is pronounced "Been-sheh"; plenty of
scope for misspelled domain names if you were directed vocally to our
website!

The Spaniards have chosen a name which is likewise a local version of
"the bench"; it seems our Francophone friends have started a trend. ;)

PS: The main language in Ireland is English, although we all learn basic
Irish (Gaelge) in school. However, one of our founding members is a
_gaelgeoir_, or native Irish speaker, so we're on a winner as far as
using our native tongue. He coined the term "Brú beatha" (literally
"Gathering place of life") as an Irish phrase for "Biomakerspace", too,
which will be fun to introduce to the country's hardcore Irish speakers. ;)

On 23/07/14 20:23, Nathan McCorkle wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 11:45 AM, Cathal Garvey
> <cathal...@cathalgarvey.me> wrote:
>> Eh, this is hardly secret. It's been happening for months and both
>> biostrike and the biocommons projects have been discussed on
>> well-trafficked lists and been the subject of dedicated meet-ups
>> independently and at larger events.
>>
>> To add to the events worthy of mention, La Paillasse (Parisian
>> biohackerspace) appears to be successfully franchising around France and
>> the Philippines, with some new biomakerspaces in Spain and my home city
>> of Cork, Ireland naming themselves similarly in tribute in the local
>> language (Fórma, in our case).
>
> what does Fórma have to do with ireland? I thought the local language
> there was Gaelic or English. Even Paillasse seems to translate as
> 'straw' or 'pallet' or 'straw mattress'. I am confused.
>

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