OT: Tegan's question about Canadian French swear words

Very interesting. The few oaths I learned in French were "mon Dieu" and "Sacre Blue" both religion related.

Funny how most of the regular French I learned has faded to a distant memory, but the swear words linger on!

Caryn

Don't forget the ever-popular "merde" which also counts. {giggling because we're cussin' in another language}

When I was taking German in high school, I believe the slightly off his nut old guy, Herr Fischer, that taught my L2 class had us learning drinking songs and how to curse. So, every Friday we had to sing "Ach du Lieber Augustin" and some various assortment that I can't recall. Plus, I developed the habit of saying "sheisse" and calling people "eisel" (meaning ass) - as in "Du bist ein eisel" (you're an ass). I still say "sheisse" instead of sh*t . And, merde. The French have more curse words than that - but they're pretty bad.

ellice - giggling with you

DD#1 is taking German III now, I don't think her teacher (who seems to have no sense of humor) would appreciate me forwarding your message to DD! lol

DD on the other hand would be giggling up a storm!

Caryn

Caryn skrev:

Funny how most of the regular French I learned has faded to a distant memory, but the swear words linger on!

Caryn

Funny you should mension it, when we lived in the States dad used to swear in Danish, now he swears in English. The Danish word for the s-word is 'lort'.

Aome 'regular' words in Danh mean different things in English:

Smoking = tuxedo and = duck

mom doesn't like it when I ask her in Danish if she wants a little more coffee: 'Vil du have en sjat kaffe mere'

... and then there's the teacher we called "Räudekopf". Poor man had the most dreadful balding pattern I've ever seen.

We sang drinking songs in German class also--well at least I remember "trinken" and "bier" were in the lyrics even if I remember nothing else about them. Sure better than trying to get a bunch of high schoolers to do the polka at 7:30am!

My brother lived in Quebec for 2 years and came back saying that. I didn't remember this until you mentioned that the last two letters were barely or not pronounced.

LOL - DH's family is Lithuanian - though I think he's 2nd generation American. Anyhow, evidently doing the Polka is a big thing - and at the family wedding we attended last year there was a rousing Polka set. I still burst out laughing at the mental picture of the crazy SIL stomping around the floor with some cousin - in her 4-6 sizes too large, too long, Cordorouy printed shirtwaist, with kind of wedgy ballet slippers that looked like nun shoes, and her long (hi, I'm still 16 not 54) ponytail. It was like a vision of Amish girls gone wild. DH was hysterical - kind of some stomping, flying around the floor version. But, in all seriousness - if one can be serious discussing the polka, I gather that his parents were really into it, and did polka contests. Fortunately, DH has not chosen to follow that tradition - though he has been known to goof around in imitation of such while on skates .

Ah, we were actually singing German drinking songs at the CAPS game a few games back, after our friends had returned from their Oktoberfest trip to Germany.

Ellice

Well, in French, depending on the consonants, vowels, what's coming next - the last letters in words are often silent. Imagine this may be true with Quebecois as well. We had many an interesting "grammar" lesson when I was first living in France, and we'd have "class" out in the field, in the chief technician's office. Le haricot vert, les haricots vertes - sound the same.

The 'le' isn't pronounced as distinctly as we do in English, making another syllable. But, what do I know - I'm just another 'murrrican ;^)

ellice

Then you'll have to get them - at least second generation members - an album by Brave Combo. Wildest polka band, evah! We've told them (only

"Jeanine3"

Married to a Montrealler----and he says "tabernac'" and also "tabernoush"---no 4th syllable.

Actually, I got to say "tabernac" last week when an actual tabernacle fell off the wall at my parish church. Had the right word for the occasion all right---but it did startled our caretaker.

Dawne

ROFLMAO (or do I need to translate that into French for this thread?)

Bien Sur - (for sure)

My favourite is 'maudit', basically damn. There is a rather good beer from Quebec called Maudite (feminine form, since beer is feminine)- at

MargW

LOL Marg. Maudit was the name of a cool bar we used to go to when I lived in Italy, I always wondered what it meant!

Jeanine in Canada

Very good. I can only wonder what the alcohol content is on La Fin du Monde. When working in small town France years back, one of the scientists on my team - who most definitely did not speak Frecnh, crazy mathematician guy - insisted that his French pronunciation and phrases were just fine, and clear. This led to many confusing events. The group's favorite: We would go to a little restaurant about 4 villages over - adventurous, dark, windy roady drive - for soup. The place was just a soup specialty place - had about 10 varieties at any time, and wonderful bread. As people may know - in country French restaurants they do not serve butter with the bread - unless you ask for it. This guy, John, would always, always, ask for a beer

- biere - and after a while - he would get a huge hunk of butter. Then one of us would explain after he'd argued that he wanted beer - eventually. About the 4th time we went there for dinner - he actually asked for butter, beurre, for the table, and out came a round of beers - for the whole group (8) It was in a word "Classic" .

ellice