I was reading the Straight Dope and was mildly amused at the question about a flea circus. Somehow this reminded me of a flea market - a place where entrepreneurs set up tables to sell their wares.

What is the origin of the word flea market? What other names do people from your part of the world use for this concept? The only one I can think of right now is bazaar - I know it's stolen from Turkish - but I know it to mean a sale, in a gymnasium or outdoors, where ladies (from a church, say) sell crafts and baking to raise money for something.

Dear Bean: here is URL with definition of "flea market".
http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20010709.html
It is a disparaging term referring to
low quality and dubious origin of the merchandise. My wife and I used to enjoy going to them
because we often did find real bargains. I still have in my desk a ream of top quality legal
typewriter paper I got for two bucks. I occasionally use it for letters on which I want to add
diagrams, or a handwritten P.S. I got three dozen excellent jack-knives for a buck apiece,
which made very acceptable presents for ten years. The flea market covered perhaps six acres.
You could spend all day there and not see it all. Most of it was junk, but interesting to browse
through. Admission was a buck per head.

Dear Dr. Bill,

They seem to have a flea market on Sundays at the mall, after the stores are closed (which they are at about 5:00pm on Sundays). People set up tables there and sell either homemade or second-hand stuff. We ran across it by accident after a movie once.

Edit: I don't know if I trust the fact that the Yahoo answer person got their answers from the Web. I had looked at Quinion's site first, then decided to post it here.

Hereabouts we have "carpark markets", "tailgating" - (ie selling from the tailgate of your car, not following too closely) and "car boot sales" - we use "boot" where you'd use "trunk" for the rear compartment of a car.

There's also "trash n treaure" markets and "garage sales" - the latter held in your own driveway.

stales

I think I've mentioned before the English propensity to gather in throngs at car boot sales. Outside Wellybro there's an area called the "Mad Mile" (don't ask; I dunno) where car boot sales are held every week or fortnight on a Sunday morning, starting at an unconscionably early hour. People buy junk and people sell junk. Not all of it, of course, but a goodly proportion of it. I allus go to them to buy small electrical items like plugs, extensions, bulbs, etc. Much cheaper than the official market in Wellybro market square, three times a week. Probably all off hijacked rigs, I suppose.

We have garage sales, but they're also sometimes called yard sales. Or rummage sales. (That one sounds American to me.) Or white elephants (again there is somehow a church connection in my mind for that one).

re:Probably all off hijacked rigs, I suppose

Here abouts, such things are described as Falling off the back of a truck or alternately, It fell off...

some people are defined as being the kind of person who always around when things are fall of the back of truck.

We had a yard sale recently (because we don't have a garage!), and I remember going to lawn sales and garden parties to get all sorts of nifty stuff when I was little.

Curiously (at least to me), I've seen marche (accent aigu needed there) des puces in French and Flohmarkt in German - I wonder which language's flea-term came first?!

"Flohmarkt"...floh -> flotsam? That would be apropos.

>okay, TEd, I gave ya your chance<

Flea market, of course, has to do with the flea trade...has anybody seen any cheap fleas, lately? If so, I'll take a dozen...fried.

>okay, TEd, I gave ya your chance<

Perhaps TEd's above such petty puns, and chooses to ignote such opportunities. Ogden Nash, however, did say:

A fly and a flea in a flue
were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly, "Let us flee;"
Said the flea, "Let us fly,"
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

Earlier someone mentioned holding sales in a gymnasium, with chruch ladies present. Hmmm.... Since "gymnasium" literally means "naked place," I'll assume the church ladies were either Druids or Unitarians. Whaddaya think, Jackie - any naked Southern Baptists out your way?

Perhaps TEd's above such petty puns, and chooses to ignote such opportunities.

All the puns here are just in fun! It was admittedly an obvious groaner, Geoff. And it was just a joke. Get it?

any naked Southern Baptists out your way?
As my (probably) long-lost, late cousin Lewis Grizzard said, if you're unclothed in the South, you can't be naked: you gotta be nekkid...you know, as in nekkid'r'n a jay bird.

Okay, so which is it? Butt nekkid or buck nekkid? When I was younger, I could swear it was buck nekkid. Now, it seems as if the youngers all say butt nekkid.

All the puns here are just in fun! It was admittedly an obvious groaner, Geoff.
Of course! Now, as fer them church ladies in the gymnasium baring their puns...

All the puns here are just in fun! It was admittedly an obvious groaner, Geoff.

Of course! Now, as fer them church ladies in the gymnasium baring their puns...

And, akshully®, I was kinda hopin' to prod TEd into another one of his usual great stories by embarrasskin' meself like that!

>Falling off the back of a truck

We'd use a similar expression "it fell off the back of a lorry" and some people are always around ...

USns also use tailgating to mean pregame party in the parking lot with beer and whatever served off the tailgate of the vehicle.

Here's a little story about a true event that happened near my home town some 20 years ago.

A goods train derailed in a relatively remote part of the hills north of Dunedin. The alternate lifestylers are fairly thick on the ground in the area, although personally I lived nearly five miles away as the crow flies.

This was a Thursday.

On the train was a wagon containing fridges, freezers, washing machines and clothes dryers from the local whiteware manufacturing plant. Along with about three other wagons, it tipped over and spilled its contents into the paddock the railway line ran through. The insurance assessors were on the scene almost immediately, and the decision was made to leave the three wagons where they were, put the other wagons back on the track and worry about it all at the weekend when the train traffic was lighter. The other problem was the remoteness of the crash site and the roughness of the ground was such that getting wheeled transport in was going to be a problem, and they formulated a plan to build a temporary road up to the tracks at the crash site.

Come the Saturday, they used a bulldozer and pushed a road over the worst of the ground, gravelling it as they went. They got up to the crash site by about lunchtime. Only to find that there wasn't a washing machine, clothes dryer, fridge or freezer to be found. The locals had been up there, in spite of the access problems, and snaffled the lot.

I never did hear what happened after that. There was probably an underground railroad shifting them all out of the area! If it worked, it wasn't run by New Zealand Rail.

As well as going westward to the Turkish etymon for bazaar travelled eastwards to Indonesia to become pasar, meaning market.

One variation not mentioned so far is the jumble sale. Again jumble sales were usually held by church groups or other good causes, and offered for sale things which would otherwise only get thrown away. I was quite an avid attender of jumble sales as a small boy with my grandmother. I forget what it was she used to buy, but I always had a great time going through the used books.

Quick edit. As I posted this I thought Turkish didn't sound right. According to the online AHD, bazaar is from the Persian.http://www.bartleby.com/61/52/B0125200.html

Bingley

Quick edit. As I posted this I thought Turkish didn't sound right. According to the online AHD, bazaar is from the Persian

How bazaar, how bazaar!

Yeah, you're right, Bingley, I'm pretty sure it's pazar in Turkish but got changed slightly on its trip into English. Like kebap became kebob or kebab, depending on your preference. That word also does not follow the rules of vowel harmony so I suspect it may be a Persian import as well.

Not, I hasten to add, that I know any Turkish, although I have heard about this vowel harmony thingy -- a trifle vague on how it actually works though.

I was just going by who was likely to have brought the word to Indonesia, and thought it was most likely to be Indian traders, who at the appropriate dates would have been more likely to have got the word from Persian than Turkish.

Bingley