Long ago, the word engine simply meant device. Engine got whittled down to gin, as in cotton gin and gin trap.
The delightful beverage gin filtered down from a different root, geneva.
You may now return to talking about wascawwy Fwench wabbits. 
Their website seems to be in exquisite repose, too. I was trying to get an idea of what else people with $40g’s to drop on a blankie like to shop for, but I couldn’t get in to the US or UK “boutique”.
[QUOTE=WF Tomba ]
You can drive the price especially high if your salespeople describe it as an animal rather than as a rabbit.
“This meat is harvested from an animal specially created, through thousands of years of selective breeding by artisans in the Near East and Europe, for superior taste and tenderness.”
[/QUOTE]
Right. What with the guy in the shop describing a mysterious animal that exists only in France, I figured he didn’t want to dirty his shop with discussion of livestock. The Poitou region has several heritage livestock breeds that are pretty near extinction and desperately need some new marketing strategies. With the description of “pretty long, maybe covered my hand” I was angling towards a critter with hooves.
[QUOTE=Projammer]
Duck Duck Goose just beat me to it. My research turned up Orylag as the most likely candidate as well.
[/QUOTE]
That website contains the following somewhat mysterious claim:
Leaving aside that the passage begins with “resembles” a legend and ends by asserting it is “legendary”…what’s the basis for their claim that it’s “ethical”?
The text asserts that it’s ethical, but then advances no reasoning as to why. The main ethical concern I’m familiar with is that animals are killed. Are they claiming their animals shed their skins and live happily ever after?
Sailboat
[QUOTE=NajaNivea]
Their website seems to be in exquisite repose, too. I was trying to get an idea of what else people with $40g’s to drop on a blankie like to shop for, but I couldn’t get in to the US or UK “boutique”.
[/QUOTE]
That’s because the link in the OP is malformed.
Here’s the correct link:
[QUOTE=outlierrn]
Many years ago I put my hand on a real California sea otter pelt, and it was good in a way that made me want to stuff it down my pants and smoke a cigarette, and I thought ‘yeah, I can see how these were almost trapped into extinction.’
[/QUOTE]
(wiping a tear from my eye) Oh my. How am I going to explain the chuckles all day?
[QUOTE=aldiboronti]
That’s because the link in the OP is malformed.
Here’s the correct link:
Hermes.com
[/QUOTE]
Dude, I’m quite capable of removing a tacked-on parenthesis. I run a couple script-blockers and selectively accept cookies*, so sometimes I fall into a black hole of unable to redirect.
*chocolate chip and shortbread always welcome
Since it’s just rabbit fur, I wonder how it holds up in the long-term. Where I come from, “rabbit” is considered a cheap fur, something that’s suitable for children, and for women who can’t afford mink, or even fox; one tends to associate a rabbit-fur coat with the girl who works at Woolworths, and her teenage younger sister, and their cocktail waitress mom. And of course rabbit is the essential trim on Baby’s hood.
So no wonder they prefer to call it “orylag” or “the exclusive, very rare, French animal”.
Wow. This is the strangest thing I’ve read all week. I was thinking of going downtown to the Platinum Kilometre* and checking this thing out, but I suspect that the store’s ‘insufficient money’ alarm would go off as soon as I darkened its door.
If I had a blanket worth 40,000 dollars, I certainly wouldn’t be throwing it around. 
[sub]*That strip of Bloor west of Yonge is not the ‘Golden Mile’. The Golden Mile is in Scarborough.[/sub]
[QUOTE=xiix]
So I was looking for a small leather accessory this afternoon and thought I would check out Hermès (http://www.hermes.com/). I wondered into their Toronto boutique and found some reasonably priced leather accessories, but then decided to explore what else they happened to have lying around. Thats when I saw a rather attractive blanket, which I promptly ran my hand through, only to discover what I can categorically say must be the softest fur I have ever had the pleasure of caressing. When I asked my salesperson the price, the expression in his face changed, as if, he was having tremendous difficulty uttering the figure without bursting out in laughter. Before telling me the amount, he went into a little story about how the animal is very rare (apparently it is a specially bred animal only found in France, and only sold in small quantities to French-owned companies as per their law). And then, he indeed confirmed that the price was forty thousand dollars. There was also a matching cushion, equally soft and lovely (but only half the size of a regular pillow) for $39,000.00
My question is, what might this animal have been? I believe the name started with an O…perhaps similar sounding to ‘urcourt’ or something like that, but I could have misheard. So far I’ve googled for rare french furs, as well as going through what I can find from Hermes catalogues, but I imagine its a rare item not really sold online.
So from what animal did this über-expensive fur originate?
[/QUOTE]
The French word for “bear” is “ours,” but I can’t find any subtype that would fit your phonetic description.
[QUOTE=Savannah]
I can say with some confidence, that I will never buy or even be given as a gift, a $40,000 blanket. This, alone among all things, I am certain of.
[/QUOTE]
I just bought you one yesterday, but since you don’t want it …
[QUOTE=Manduck]
I just bought you one yesterday, but since you don’t want it …
[/QUOTE]
Send it here, I’ll stick it on eBay. 1 cent starting bid, free shipping.
[QUOTE=Q.E.D.]
I wonder if he meant vicuña, which is not French, but is extremely expensive:
Extrapolating, a blanket could easily approach $40,000
[/QUOTE]
Good heavens! :eek: And here I have a blanket made out of vicuña pelts that my Mom got in South America around 50 years or so ago. I wonder how much it’s worth? It has a few skins separated, but I have them all…
I should add, btw, that my mom purchased that blanket in the late 1950s, long before the vicuña were protected. She’d never have purchased it illegally.
[QUOTE=xiix]
… the item I found is described as an ‘Orylag fur Troika throw’.
[/QUOTE]
A French throw for a Russian sled? At least it’s Orylag, not Gulag!
I don’t know what Gulag fur is either. And I don’t want to.
Drat, now I have that Troika tune from Lieutenant Kijé running through my head.
[QUOTE=lobotomyboy63]
The French word for “bear” is “ours,” but I can’t find any subtype that would fit your phonetic description.
[/QUOTE]
I think we’ve pretty well established that it’s a very-very-special French rabbit. See previous posts. 
[QUOTE=Manduck]
I just bought you one yesterday, but since you don’t want it …
[/QUOTE]
I’m just over in Langford, and I can hop in the car!