Admittedly, having completed a large portion of my schooling as part of the French Immersion program (pre-school to first year university) has been a huge asset to me these past three months. I would also have to say that my accent and confidence have improved tremendously in the short time we have been here, and my ability to speak and understand French has made my life infinitely easier in every way, from finding a job to shopping for groceries.
However, because school is supposed to teach you how to do things properly, there were a number of essential words and terms that I had to pick up on the fly. I am referring of course to slang, and the Quebequois of course have their own very specific and unique terms for all kinds of things. In lieu of just listing every bit of seeming gibberish I've picked up since October, I've opted to split the topic into several posts, beginning with the most fun: swearing!
I had an interesting bar conversation with someone not too long ago about swearing, and specifically how a culture's curse words actually reveal a lot about the particular hang-ups of that culture. For example, in English, most curses have to do with sex or bodily functions (ex: Fuck, Shit...); while in Polish a lot of curses have to do with disease and illness, a hold over from the plague days. In war ravaged areas of Eastern Europe the curses are generally very convoluted and violent (an example along the lines of "skull fuck your mother through the eye with a dog penis" comes to mind). So, it should come as no surprise that the majority of Quebequois curses have to do with the Catholic church, specifically: deliberately mispronouncing the words for sacred things.
Below are some of the most popular Quebequois swear words along with explanations and examples of their use. Please note that some of these words have multiple spellings as the issue has more to do with the pronunciation.
Tabarnak: [tah-behr-nak] This one is a play on tabernacle (same in English & French) and is probably the grand-daddy of Quebequois curses. The usage is similar to that of "Fuck" in English, although it probably isn't quite as harsh. Variants include "tabarwhet" and "tabarmoush", which are basically the same as saying "fudge" or "fiddlesticks".
Ostie: [uh-stee] A play on ossuarie or ossuary. Generally used in the declarative, or as a preposition: "Ostie,que t'est con!" Not as bad as tabarnak, it can also be shortened to "'sti" as one would shorten "Goddamn" to "damn".
Calisse: [koh-lee-ss] This one comes from calice or chalice. One of my current favourites. It is very fun to say and immediately gets across how you feel.
This of course is just a sample, I do plan on posting lots more in the future as well as some less offensive slang. While not extensive, these words are more than enough to get you started, and you can of course combine them in a host of ways to come up with new curses as demonstrated by Tom Green in the clip below:
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