VOCABULARY WORD Public Deposited
TROUILLOTEUSE
The E-Sylum: Volume 4, Number 29, July 15, 2001, Article 11
VOCABULARY WORD: TROUILLOTEUSE
Martin Purdy of New Zealand posted the following
query on the COINS mailing list: "A translator friend
came across an article in Le Monde about French franc
coins being perforated when they are returned to the
bank in exchange for Euros, to prevent their being
extracted and re-exchanged elsewhere. The device
used to do the perforating is called a "trouilloteuse" in
French; the best option I can come up with in English
is "perforating machine" - is there any other term that's
better, or more official?"A link to what I believe is the article in question (in the
original French) appears below. With the help of some
machine translation, the gist of the article seems to be
as follows:"An admirable word has just made its appearance in the
country: trouilloteuse. The word is an admirable object.
Clever. Definitively modern. And, let us dare say,
revolutionary. The trouilloteuse is this fabulous machine
tasked with boring twelve holes in the surface of the old
franc coins.In a few months now, when it is a question of the whole
country exchanging old francs for the euro, a large
army of trouilloteuses will be put on line like combine
harvesters on a farm. 50,000 to 60,000 trouilloteuses
will be delivered to the French banks.The holed coins, better perforated one hopes than the
ballots in Florida, will thus be effectively demonetized."- 2001-07-15
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