Tuesday, April 24, 2012

What is a chateaux?

I don%26#39;t mean to be dumb, but are these museums, palaces, hotels????




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Château n. singular, (Châteaux - plural)





1. Fortified, defended fort or castle of the middle ages.





2. A Royal residence or Palace





3. Large residence or manor for the owner of and located on a large estate





4. also Château d%26#39;eau - a large water tower




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A big house, basically. Whether it functions now as a museum or hotel or anything else depends on if the family has fallen on hard times and developed it or sold it off.




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A chateaux is usually a very large house built on grounds with gardens, parks and rivers. Today, they may be privately-owned or function as museums, hotels, or wineries.




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A %26quot;chateau%26quot; is also a vinyard property. In this sense it has nothing to do with a %26quot;castle%26quot; as such.




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Here in Limerick it is pronounced Chat Eau and is the water given to the cat.





Chat Eau X is the extra strong water we give him when he is unwell.




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On this side of the river Shannon, it is considered polite to respond to an offer of the cat%26#39;s water at single strength with a simple :





%26#39;sea - do%26#39;





Translated, it means %26#39;yes, two%26#39; - and oddly enough, it%26#39;s pronounciation is similar to Chat Deau (more shah- doh), which can cause quite alot of confusion at times because of varying dialect, and also due to the subtle differences in interpretation.




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