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Speaking French!?!

Speaking French!?!

Old Feb 23rd 2016, 3:49 pm
  #31  
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Default Re: Speaking French!?!

Originally Posted by bgpz
Don't suppose you (or anyone else on here) has any links to stuff on t'interweb that highlights the differences between Quebecois and franco-Ontarian pronunciation?

...

Just taken a quick peek at offqc.com as I've not looked at it much recently... wow, it's grown! This seems a good place to (re)start...
Have asked. Thanks for the link, I hadn't seen that and am chuckling now.
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Old Feb 23rd 2016, 4:00 pm
  #32  
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Default Re: Speaking French!?!

Originally Posted by Souvy
There is no mystery about this.

F**k etc are not considered to be very rude words in Quebec. The churchy ones are.
I'd say that something being the absolute reverse of most places was the very definition of mystery. Unless I'm mistaken and it's common in other places too.

Perhaps I just became more aware after living in Quebec for a bit and it is common elsewhere.

As a child, saying Christ! wouldn't get much disapproval but even a bloody would get me a telling off. My parents went to church and I went to Sunday School so it's not as if religion was absent from our family.
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Old Feb 23rd 2016, 4:11 pm
  #33  
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Default Re: Speaking French!?!

Originally Posted by Souvy
There is no mystery about this.

F**k etc are not considered to be very rude words in Quebec. The churchy ones are.

I can always tell whether I'm listening to a QC music station on the radio or a station from somewhere else. The QC ones don't bleep the F-word in songs.
Originally Posted by BristolUK
I'd say that something being the absolute reverse of most places was the very definition of mystery. Unless I'm mistaken and it's common in other places too.

Perhaps I just became more aware after living in Quebec for a bit and it is common elsewhere.

As a child, saying Christ! wouldn't get much disapproval but even a bloody would get me a telling off. My parents went to church and I went to Sunday School so it's not as if religion was absent from our family.
Agreed, BristolUK.
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Old Feb 23rd 2016, 4:21 pm
  #34  
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Default Re: Speaking French!?!

Originally Posted by BristolUK
I'd say that something being the absolute reverse of most places was the very definition of mystery. Unless I'm mistaken and it's common in other places too.

Perhaps I just became more aware after living in Quebec for a bit and it is common elsewhere.

As a child, saying Christ! wouldn't get much disapproval but even a bloody would get me a telling off. My parents went to church and I went to Sunday School so it's not as if religion was absent from our family.
I think it comes down to what is considered to be rude/taboo.

For us Anglo Saxons, it's body parts/functions/secretions.

For Quebeckers and other Catholics, it's churchy stuff. I had this conversation a long time ago with a colleague from Portugal. It's the same there.

It may be the time to invent new swearwords.

My first attempt, "taberfuque" was not well received.

"Taberbollox" could work, though.
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Old Feb 23rd 2016, 4:31 pm
  #35  
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Default Re: Speaking French!?!

Originally Posted by Souvy
I think it comes down to what is considered to be rude/taboo.

For us Anglo Saxons, it's body parts/functions/secretions.

For Quebeckers and other Catholics, it's churchy stuff. I had this conversation a long time ago with a colleague from Portugal. It's the same there.

I'm - or at least was, dragged up as - an Anglo-Catholic. I'm scr*wed

It may be the time to invent new swearwords.

My first attempt, "taberfuque" was not well received.

"Taberbollox" could work, though.

I'm going to try those suggestions. Will report back
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Old Feb 23rd 2016, 5:45 pm
  #36  
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Default Re: Speaking French!?!

Originally Posted by Souvy
It may be the time to invent new swearwords.
Well, Naff has already caught on even if it's only Fletcher and Oink using it. Maybe borrow something from Rambling Syd Rumpo.
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Old Feb 23rd 2016, 7:47 pm
  #37  
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Default Re: Speaking French!?!

Originally Posted by Souvy
I think it comes down to what is considered to be rude/taboo.

For us Anglo Saxons, it's body parts/functions/secretions.

For Quebeckers and other Catholics, it's churchy stuff. I had this conversation a long time ago with a colleague from Portugal. It's the same there.

It may be the time to invent new swearwords.

My first attempt, "taberfuque" was not well received.

"Taberbollox" could work, though.

So how about calling someone a complete pulpit, or.... a stupid font? would this be ok? I think they sound quite rude They might lose a bit in translation though!

Last edited by Stinkypup; Feb 23rd 2016 at 7:50 pm.
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Old Feb 24th 2016, 11:47 am
  #38  
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Default Re: Speaking French!?!

Originally Posted by bgpz
Don't suppose you (or anyone else on here) has any links to stuff on t'interweb that highlights the differences between Quebecois and franco-Ontarian pronunciation?
While my informant vaguely tries to recall some sort of academic reference, I offer this pithy summation:

"Anyway, this is a bit of a fraught topic. I'll admit my first reaction was to say that the Quebecois speak a dialect. Franco-Ontarians speak Quebecois but it sounds like they are speaking English. Acadiens speak gibberish."
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Old Feb 24th 2016, 12:07 pm
  #39  
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Default Re: Speaking French!?!

Originally Posted by dbd33
While my informant vaguely tries to recall some sort of academic reference, I offer this pithy summation:

"Anyway, this is a bit of a fraught topic. I'll admit my first reaction was to say that the Quebecois speak a dialect. Franco-Ontarians speak Quebecois but it sounds like they are speaking English. Acadiens speak gibberish."
That sounds about right. Several of my neighbours are Franco-Ontarians. They have horrible accents.

Even my missus struggles with Acadians.
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Old Feb 24th 2016, 4:50 pm
  #40  
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Default Re: Speaking French!?!

I remember some of the Franglais that used to circulate such as a headline in one of the Montreal French language papers. "Un autre hold up dans un Caisse Populair" I used to listen to some of the chatter on the bus while going to work in the mornings, people using French words here and English words there. I paid a return visit to Montreal about 9 years ago. There's very little to be seen in English anymore.

I used to live on Queen Mary road about a quarter mile from St Joseph's Oratory. You'd often see penitents working their way up the long steps to the door on their knees and clutching their rosaries. I went inside once. The walls were covered with wooden crutches hanging from hooks. I was told they had belonged to people who had prayed at the Oratory and had recovered. You cant sell me the Brooklyn Bridge nor a yarn like that either.

Last edited by dc koop; Feb 24th 2016 at 5:03 pm.
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Old Feb 26th 2016, 11:08 pm
  #41  
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Default Re: Speaking French!?!

Originally Posted by Pine Cone
My old rellies speak French Canadian (Quebecois Mother, English Father) and had the opposite experience when visiting Paris. The French basically turned their noses up at them, informed them they sounded common as muck, thereafter refusing to communicate with them other than in English.
A Francophone friend, who speaks what I affectionately call 'Gatinese' (from Gatineau, Qc), was posted to Paris for a couple of years and had a really hard time with the locals looking down their noses, calling Quebec French "peasant French".
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Old Feb 28th 2016, 5:20 am
  #42  
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Default Re: Speaking French!?!

Anything's better than the French spoken in Haiti
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Old Feb 28th 2016, 6:42 pm
  #43  
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Default Re: Speaking French!?!

Originally Posted by Souvy
Even my missus struggles with Acadians.
I saw a documentary about Zydeco musician Clifton Chenier on Quebec French tv, and the Louisiana French was augmented by Parisian French sub-titles.
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Old Feb 28th 2016, 8:59 pm
  #44  
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Default Re: Speaking French!?!

Originally Posted by Stinkypup
So how about calling someone a complete pulpit, or.... a stupid font? would this be ok? I think they sound quite rude They might lose a bit in translation though!
How about calling someone an 'Immanuel' as in a Kant?
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Old Feb 29th 2016, 2:57 am
  #45  
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Default Re: Speaking French!?!

Originally Posted by Stinkypup
So how about calling someone a complete pulpit, or.... a stupid font? would this be ok? I think they sound quite rude They might lose a bit in translation though!
You are a complete hassock/cassock!!
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