Hacker News Reader

> The myth is tenacious [...]

I love how the article starts!

> In the café’s heyday Flore, regulars would say they were going “à Flore”, rather than “au Flore.”

Does that translate to "in the style of Flore"? Also, I suspect the first Flore is a typo -- or am I missing a pun of some sort?

View on HN

It rather suggests they're going to someone or something devoid of a definite article (going to Flore). "Aller au Flore" means "Going to the Flore", with the implied idea "going to the café de Flore" (this is the normal way of saying it for any café, restaurant...). So it indicates, for the speaker, that (the) Flore is more than a café.

There's a footnote at the bottom that explains why it said 'a flore'.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com