Talk:Quebec French profanity

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Canada Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Canada and related WikiProjects, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles on Canada-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project member page, to join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.
Quebec
Quebec Portal
This article is part of the Quebec WikiProject (Discuss/Join).
This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Languages, an attempt at creating a standardized, informative, and easy-to-use resource about languages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
language Portal
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.

Contents

[edit] Moved section

In D'Amour P. Q. Jacques Godbout uses the expression maudite marde de pape en plastique. Is that a common expression or his own creation? Jfitzg

No, this is his own creation. "Maudite marde" is very common though. Junesun

Thanks. It's a great expression.Jfitzg
Yup. One of the best features of sacre is indeed that you can string together pretty much any amount you want. - Montréalais 02:51, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Maudite marde is more or less equivalent to "holy shit". I use it sometimes. Hugo Dufort 19:53, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
I disagree, it's more like "Fucking shit".. you wouldn't use it in the same impressed manner as holy shit. haha..Dan Carkner 16:41, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
The literal translation would be "Damned shit". It is much less shocking than "fucking shit". You can utter "maudite marde" in front of your mother in law, and get away with a frown. Hugo Dufort 17:31, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I thought it would amuse everybody here to know that sacres are not unique to the Quebecer language. I heard some of them quite often in Bavaria too -- namely Sacrament and Crucifix. Valmi Dufour 05:58, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Hardly just the Scots use "shite". It's common across the UK and Ireland, as well as many Commonwealth nations such as Australian and New Zealand.

Are you sure that cristie is derived from hostie? I thought it was from Christ and also not as mild as the article claims. Sympleko 18:31, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)


I'm shure cristie is derived from crisse, but it can sound less offensive from its use in other ceontexts i.e.: Agatha Christie the author or Mr Christie a cookie company
I'm pretty sure that "cristie" is derived from "sacristie" (which is the room at the back of the church). I might also be a deformation of "christ", or even both! Hugo Dufort 19:52, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

The decrease of the catholic church, and the change in quebecois profanity. From my experience, church swearing has become less offensive, and english swearwords such as 'fuck' have come into play. Notably, 'shit' plays less of a role, as 'merde' offers a decent substitute.

'Shit' is very common and not very offensive, just like 'fuck'

'Shit' is not only used as an expression of dismay, but also to refer to some type of gunk or dirt and, although not as often, to clutter. I believe this is similar to uses of 'shit' in English. But 'marde' is so much more effective when referring to feces...

I've just removed the following item from the list, with its accompanying comment. The comment shouldn't be in the article, and I have no idea myself whether the profanity is legit or not. --PeruvianLlama(spit) 20:38, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

  • étole (Note from S. D. Lacombe : I'm a French Canadian born and living in Quebec, and I've never heard that one)
neither have I.

May 18, 2006, R. Denis: "étole" refers to a liturgic decorated fabric strip worn around the shoulders by priests. I am 53 years old born and living in Québec and I have heard this one very often. I agree that the expression has aged somewhat nowadays surely because the religion has aged also...

I have heard it (believe it or not) in a humorous beer publicity ("C'est bon en étole!"). Old people sometimes use it, but it is getting out of fashion. Hugo Dufort 03:20, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I've mostly heard it used when refering to someone : "Toé, mon étole....". --Marc pasquin 18:44, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sacrer

Victor Hugo used "Sacrer" to refer to swearing, and he certainly was not from Québec... Juppiter 05:33, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

If it was in one of his novel written after his "exile" to the channel islands, it might be indicative on its use *there*.--Marc pasquin 18:44, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bon Cop Bad Cop

There is a "lesson in sacre" given to an Ontarian police officer by a Quebec police officer in the movie "Bon Cop Bad Cop" (2006). It would be nice to add a reference in the wiki article. By the way this wiki page is well done and quite relevant. Hugo Dufort 19:50, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Convoluted intro

I don't understand the convoluted introduction.

'The literal translation of the French verb sacrer is "to consecrate". However, in Quebec it is the proper word for the form of profanity used in Quebec French. The noun form is sacre.'

Rather, I would consider that the proper translation would be "to swear". The correct french word for "to consecrate" would be "consacrer". We might note that the french word takes its root from "holy" rather than from "oath" as in english, but it's hardly the only word where different languages have different etymologies, and we don't write down every little quirk that might arise from a literal translation on every article. UnHoly 13:49, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

I have a Québécois-French dictionary [1] (compiled by a guy called Léandre Bergeron) which might be helpful for backing up some of the citations-needed in this article (which is actually a pretty good article, n my opinion, but then I love Quebec profanity). Other texts that might be useful would be literary ones, which would contain examples of usage; Tremblay's 'Les Belles-Soeurs'[2] is one, and another famously profanity-ridden exercise in written joual is Jacques Renaud's late 60s novel 'Le Cassé'[3], which I only have in translation. I would just go through all these texts and see if I can't put in the sources myself, but then I have a small baby right now. Lexo 11:40, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Religious roots of québécois profanity

Using religious-oriented vocabulary "in vain" (i.e., one of the commandments) was acutally considered a sin for which you could be excommunicated. Thus, the sacres where used as a strategy to avoid this.

For example, instead of saying "tabernacle", québécois would say "tabarnak" (So they could say it without "really" saying it), in the same way that English people might say "shoot" or "fudge", or in the same way that modern-day Québécois now say "tabarnouche" or "cibol" instead of "tabarnak" or "ciboire". However, over time these watered-down sacres became "hard-core" sacres in their own right.

I'm a student in linguistics (and have taken sociolinguistics courses here in Québec), but I unfortunately don't have the sources for any of this handy. If I ever dig them up I'll add them to this page. It's fascinating stuff! (Or, as a Québécois might say, "C'est le fun en crisse!")