Today's Sale: 'Mongoose Madness!' Posted Wed, 29 Dec 2004

With it's Latin roots (ferrum meaning iron and everything), I understand why in Catalan (and Spanish), a hardware store is called a ferreteria:

/copyrighteous/images/ferreteria-small.png

What I don't understand is what you call a store that sells ferrets.

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"Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)"
Ferret Fer"ret, n. F. furet, cf. LL. furo; prob. fr. L. fur
  thief (cf. Furtive); cf. Arm. fur wise, sly. (Zo"ol.)
  An animal of the Weasel family (Mustela or Putorius furo),about fourteen inches in length, of a pale yellow or white color, with red eyes. It is a native of Africa, but has been domesticated in Europe. Ferrets are used to drive rabbits and rats out of their holes.

Maybe a store that sale things for ferrets?
Posted by gaba at Wed Dec 29 17:49:26 2004
Curious thing:

Since in Catalan, "iron" is "ferro", ins Spanish is "hierro". So

"ferro" -> "ferreteria"
"hierro"-> ¿"hierrerería"? but "ferretería"

Curious, isn't it?

albert...
Posted by Albert Mora at Thu Dec 30 06:30:03 2004
'The Ferret Store' perhaps?
Posted by ffub at Thu Dec 30 12:11:26 2004
Albert Mora: the thing is that the h used to sound like f in the old spanish. We still use fierro sometimes to talk about hierro in the city i am from in uruguay. It happens something like this with the j and the h, too...
Posted by gaba at Fri Dec 31 02:40:39 2004
gaba: this think you comment about 'f' and 'h' is clearly seen in Galician-Portuguese, where "iron" is "fierro" (if I remember correctly)...
Posted by Albert Mora at Fri Dec 31 08:43:00 2004

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