Sacrebleu

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This article refers to the French phrase. For the album by Dimitri from Paris, see Sacrebleu (album).

Sacrebleu is an old French profanity, meant as a cry of surprise or anger.

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[edit] Usage

In French, sacrebleu or sacredieu is always written as one word without accent, the 'e' in the middle being pronounced like a faint and short 'eu' (ə). In English, the phrase is often written with two words: sacre bleu.

Even though present in modern french-language dictionaries, the phrase is not in use in everyday conversation at all anymore[citation needed].

It is often considered in the English-speaking world as a quintessential French phrase, even though it is not[citation needed]. Written with two words (sacre bleu!), it has been popularized by Agatha Christie's Belgian hero Hercule Poirot. The word is also occasionally used by French people depicted in American cartoons. In the popular old comic book, Blackhawk, the phrase is Andre the Frenchman's favorite oath.

[edit] Origin

The phrase originated from the swearwords "sacré bleu", a Marian oath, referring to the color (i.e., "sacred blue") associated with Mary, mother of Jesus.[1]

Other sources[who?] propose it coming from old blasphemous curses relating to God, used from the late Middle-Age (some are attested as early as the 12th century) to the 14th (at the latest), with many variants: morbleu or mordieu, corbleu, palsambleu, jarnidieu, tudieu, respectively standing for mort [de] Dieu (God's death), corps [de] Dieu (God's body), par le sang [de] Dieu (by God's blood, the two latters possibly referring to the Eucharistic bread and wine), je renie Dieu (I deny God), tue Dieu (kill God)... Those curses may be compared to the archaic English [God']sdeath, sblood, struth or zounds (God's wounds). They were considered so offensive that Dieu was sublimated into the similar sounding neutral syllable bleu. The verb sacrer has several meanings, including to crown, to anoint, to name someone [champion, best actor, etc], and in the past, rarely in France but more common in French Canada, of swear, curse. Therefore, sacrebleu could be in modern French je sacre par Dieu and in English I curse by God.

Some[who?] think that the value of the word bleu is used to designate the blue of the vein. As opposed to an artery, carrying red blood, a vein flows back to the heart, carrying blue, deoxygenated blood. Deoxygenated blood represents the empty or evil: "sacre bleu" is thus any omen of bad news or shocking ill fortune.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Johnson, Kevin Orlin (1994). Why do Catholics do that?. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-39726-6.  Chapter 32

[edit] External sources

  • Dictionnaire étymologique, éditions France Loisirs Librairie Larousse 1971