Word Stories: bistro
Steve Taylore-Knowles looks at the stories behind the English language.
On a recent speaking trip to Russia, I found myself reading a lot of shop signs. When you’re at that stage in learning a language where deciphering the alphabet still presents something of a challenge, they provide a wonderfully rich context for induction. As you idle in the Moscow traffic, you have plenty of time to stumble through the Cyrillic meanderings of a word like ‘apteka’, and the fact that it’s hanging outside a pharmacy does not go unnoticed by the alert language learner.
On one occasion, I was surprised to see that a down-market eaterie with the name ‘CafeBurg’ (a subtle bit of word play on the fact that it was in St Petersburg and served burgers) described itself as a bistro. Now, to the English ear bistro (also spelled bistrot) has a number of associations, which may differ from person to person, but I would say that in general it brings to mind a small French restaurant with red-and-white checked tablecloths, candles on the tables and over-priced onion soup – the kind of place the English middle classes flocked to in the 1970s, a time in Britain when wine was a novelty and pasta was an exotic ingredient. The term didn’t really seem to fit the hole-in-the-wall burger joint that I was looking at, so I asked Masha, my Russian companion, about it.
The explanation given was that bistro is actually derived from a Russian word bistro (rapidly, quickly), which the French acquired during the Napoleonic Wars, and that bistro in Russian just means a fast food place. The story goes that the Russian soldiers occupying Paris after the Napoleonic Wars would bang on the table and shout the word at French waiters in an attempt to get fed more quickly.
Sounds like a good story, but there doesn’t really seem to be much evidence for it (sorry, Masha). In fact, the 70-year gap between the Russian presence in Paris and the first appearances of the term suggests that it’s probably a bit of folk etymology. No-one seems to be certain, but other suggestions are that it derives from a French dialect word, bistraud (lower servant), or the name for a drink of coffee and brandy, bistrouille.
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