(no subject)
In French-Speaking Canada, the Sacred Is Also Profane
Quebecers Turn to Church Terms, Rather Than the Sexual or
Scatological, to Vent Their Anger
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 5, 2006; A21
MONTREAL -- "Oh, tabernacle!" The man swore in French as a car
splashed through a puddle, sending water onto his pants. He could
never be quoted in the papers here. It is too profane.
So are other angry oaths that sound innocuous in English: chalice,
host, baptism. In French-speaking Quebec, swearing sounds like an
inventory being taken at a church.
English-speaking Canadians use profanities that would be well
understood in the United States, many of them scatological or
sexual terms. But the Quebecois prefer to turn to religion when
they are mad. They adopt commonplace Catholic terms -- and often
creative permutations of them -- for swearing.
In doing so, their oaths speak volumes about the history of this
French province.
"When you get mad, you look for words that attack what represses
you," said Louise Lamarre, a Montreal cinematographer who must
tread lightly around the language, depending on whether her films
are in French or English. "In America, you are so Puritan that the
swearing is mostly about sex. Here, since we were repressed so
long by the church, people use religious terms."
And the words that are shocking in English -- including the slang
for intercourse -- are so mild in Quebecois French they appear
routinely in the media. But not church terms.
"You swear about things that are taboo," said André Lapierre, a
professor of linguistics at the University of Ottawa. In the
United States, "it is not appropriate to talk about sex or
scatological subjects, so that is what you use in your curse
words. The f-word is a perfect example.
"In Canadian French, you have none of the sexual aspects. So what
do you replace it with? You replace it with religion. If you are
going to use a taboo word, it would be anything related to the
cult, to Christ, the Communion wafer, Jesus Christ, vestments, and
elements of the altar like tabernacle. There's quite a few of
them."
Visitors from France are dumbfounded at that use of French, said
Lamarre. "But that's because they got away from domination of the
church a long time ago. They cut off the head of the king really
early. We didn't do that."
The Catholic Church was overwhelmingly dominant in Quebec from
early in the province's history -- England's King George III gave
the French Catholic clergy enormous power in 1774, in part to
counter the growing American insurgency to the south. In the
"Quiet Revolution" of the 1960s, Quebecers rebelled. They "just
stopped going to church one Sunday," as Lamarre put it.
The swearwords have persisted even though church attendance has
plummeted in the past 40 years. Because of that drop, "when the
young kids on the street are swearing, they don't even know what
they are swearing about," mused Monsignor Francis Coyle, pastor of
St. Patrick's Basilica in Montreal. "They're baptized in church,
and that's about it."
Last spring, the Montreal Archdiocese commissioned an advertising
campaign that erected large billboards in the city intended to
shock and educate. Each billboard featured a word like
"tabernacle" or "chalice" -- startling swearwords on the street --
and offered the correct dictionary definition for the religious
term. Such as: "Tabernacle -- small cupboard locked by key in the
middle of the altar" containing the sacred goblet.
"The point was to try to get people not to use the terms too
glibly," Coyle said.
The campaign ended, but Lapierre said Quebecers continue to use
the words in highly inventive ways -- as expletives,
interjections, verbs, adverbs and nouns. One could say, for
example, "You Christ that guy," to mean throwing a person
violently. "I don't know any other language that does that so
well," he said.
The French here also modify the oaths into non-words, depending on
the level of politeness desired. The word "bapteme" -- baptism --
is used as a strong oath, but a modification, "bateche," is
milder. The sacramental wafer, a "host" in English and "hostie" in
French, can be watered down to just the sound "sst" in polite
company. "Tabernacle" can become just "tabar" to avoid too much
offense.
The oaths are so ingrained that one cannot converse fluently
without them, said Lapierre. "I teach them in my class."
Quebecers Turn to Church Terms, Rather Than the Sexual or
Scatological, to Vent Their Anger
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 5, 2006; A21
MONTREAL -- "Oh, tabernacle!" The man swore in French as a car
splashed through a puddle, sending water onto his pants. He could
never be quoted in the papers here. It is too profane.
So are other angry oaths that sound innocuous in English: chalice,
host, baptism. In French-speaking Quebec, swearing sounds like an
inventory being taken at a church.
English-speaking Canadians use profanities that would be well
understood in the United States, many of them scatological or
sexual terms. But the Quebecois prefer to turn to religion when
they are mad. They adopt commonplace Catholic terms -- and often
creative permutations of them -- for swearing.
In doing so, their oaths speak volumes about the history of this
French province.
"When you get mad, you look for words that attack what represses
you," said Louise Lamarre, a Montreal cinematographer who must
tread lightly around the language, depending on whether her films
are in French or English. "In America, you are so Puritan that the
swearing is mostly about sex. Here, since we were repressed so
long by the church, people use religious terms."
And the words that are shocking in English -- including the slang
for intercourse -- are so mild in Quebecois French they appear
routinely in the media. But not church terms.
"You swear about things that are taboo," said André Lapierre, a
professor of linguistics at the University of Ottawa. In the
United States, "it is not appropriate to talk about sex or
scatological subjects, so that is what you use in your curse
words. The f-word is a perfect example.
"In Canadian French, you have none of the sexual aspects. So what
do you replace it with? You replace it with religion. If you are
going to use a taboo word, it would be anything related to the
cult, to Christ, the Communion wafer, Jesus Christ, vestments, and
elements of the altar like tabernacle. There's quite a few of
them."
Visitors from France are dumbfounded at that use of French, said
Lamarre. "But that's because they got away from domination of the
church a long time ago. They cut off the head of the king really
early. We didn't do that."
The Catholic Church was overwhelmingly dominant in Quebec from
early in the province's history -- England's King George III gave
the French Catholic clergy enormous power in 1774, in part to
counter the growing American insurgency to the south. In the
"Quiet Revolution" of the 1960s, Quebecers rebelled. They "just
stopped going to church one Sunday," as Lamarre put it.
The swearwords have persisted even though church attendance has
plummeted in the past 40 years. Because of that drop, "when the
young kids on the street are swearing, they don't even know what
they are swearing about," mused Monsignor Francis Coyle, pastor of
St. Patrick's Basilica in Montreal. "They're baptized in church,
and that's about it."
Last spring, the Montreal Archdiocese commissioned an advertising
campaign that erected large billboards in the city intended to
shock and educate. Each billboard featured a word like
"tabernacle" or "chalice" -- startling swearwords on the street --
and offered the correct dictionary definition for the religious
term. Such as: "Tabernacle -- small cupboard locked by key in the
middle of the altar" containing the sacred goblet.
"The point was to try to get people not to use the terms too
glibly," Coyle said.
The campaign ended, but Lapierre said Quebecers continue to use
the words in highly inventive ways -- as expletives,
interjections, verbs, adverbs and nouns. One could say, for
example, "You Christ that guy," to mean throwing a person
violently. "I don't know any other language that does that so
well," he said.
The French here also modify the oaths into non-words, depending on
the level of politeness desired. The word "bapteme" -- baptism --
is used as a strong oath, but a modification, "bateche," is
milder. The sacramental wafer, a "host" in English and "hostie" in
French, can be watered down to just the sound "sst" in polite
company. "Tabernacle" can become just "tabar" to avoid too much
offense.
The oaths are so ingrained that one cannot converse fluently
without them, said Lapierre. "I teach them in my class."