{"id":446,"date":"2006-05-15T03:13:34","date_gmt":"2006-05-15T03:13:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=446"},"modified":"2018-08-22T23:01:58","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T03:01:58","slug":"monday-may-15-2006-french-canadian-swearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=446","title":{"rendered":"Monday, May 15, 2006 \u2014 French Canadian Swearing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Catholic Church in Que\u00adbec has sur\u00adprised every\u00adone with a pecu\u00adliar pub\u00adlic\u00adi\u00adty cam\u00adpaign. They have pur\u00adchased space on bill\u00adboards, bus-stops, and oth\u00ader adver\u00adtis\u00ading places, in order to dis\u00adplay swear-words. This requires some expla\u00adna\u00adtion. French Cana\u00addi\u00adan swear\u00ading is the lamest on Earth. Don\u2019t expect any\u00adthing like the baroque splen\u00addour of Mex\u00adi\u00adcan swear\u00ading, or the earthy imagery in Russ\u00adian curs\u00ades, or even the repet\u00adi\u00adtive sex\u00adu\u00adal obses\u00adsions we are famil\u00adiar with in Eng\u00adlish. The basic French Cana\u00addi\u00adan swear words are dis\u00adtort\u00aded forms of the words for the arti\u00adcles used in a mass: \u201ctaber\u00adna\u00adcle\u201d, \u201cchal\u00adice\u201d, \u201chost\u201d, \u201csac\u00adristy\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

How\u00adev\u00ader, this can\u00adnot be explained by any reli\u00adgious sen\u00adsi\u00adtiv\u00adi\u00adty. French Cana\u00adda, espe\u00adcial\u00adly in Que\u00adbec, is one of the most sec\u00adu\u00adlar soci\u00adeties on the plan\u00adet. Church atten\u00addance is very low in Cana\u00adda, but by far the low\u00adest in Que\u00adbec. The over\u00adwhelm\u00ading major\u00adi\u00adty of French Cana\u00addi\u00adans have lit\u00adtle or no inter\u00adest in orga\u00adnized reli\u00adgion, though many will say they have some pri\u00advate, per\u00adson\u00adal faith, unin\u00adflu\u00adenced by any church. Most peo\u00adple have no idea what\u00adso\u00adev\u00ader what any of these \u201cswear words\u201d mean. If you catch your fin\u00adger in car door, you say \u201ctabernac\u2019 \u201d, or \u201ctaber\u00adnache\u201d. It doesn\u2019t call up any image. It\u2019s just a mean\u00ading\u00adless word. The aver\u00adage per\u00adson, if asked to explain its ori\u00adgin, prob\u00ada\u00adbly wouldn\u2019t be able to tell you. By con\u00adtrast, nobody who swears in Eng\u00adlish is unaware of the mean\u00adings of the swear words.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Catholic Church in Que\u00adbec has appar\u00adent\u00adly come to the con\u00adclu\u00adsion that it might be able to regain some of its for\u00admer influ\u00adence if it can \u201creclaim\u201d the sacred swear-words. Since few peo\u00adple even know the words have any reli\u00adgious sig\u00adnif\u00adi\u00adcance, they\u2019ve put up adver\u00adtise\u00adments with dic\u00adtio\u00adnary def\u00adi\u00adn\u00adi\u00adtions of them. The cam\u00adpaign has cre\u00adat\u00aded a lot of amusement.<\/span><\/p>\n

[A note to those unfa\u00admil\u00adiar with the French lan\u00adguage: Cana\u00addi\u00adan French dif\u00adfers sig\u00adnif\u00adi\u00adcant\u00adly from Euro\u00adpean French, to approx\u00adi\u00admate\u00adly the same degree that the Eng\u00adlish of Chica\u00adgo does from the Eng\u00adlish of Lon\u00addon. None of the Cana\u00addi\u00adan \u201cswear\u00adwords\u201d are used in Europe.]<\/span><\/p>\n

This brings to mind var\u00adi\u00adous ques\u00adtions about the mys\u00adte\u00adri\u00adous word-mag\u00adic of \u201cswear\u00ading\u201d. It is very hard to come up with any log\u00adi\u00adcal or even coher\u00adent expla\u00adna\u00adtion of why cer\u00adtain words are select\u00aded to be taboo, and assigned such absurd emo\u00adtion\u00adal pow\u00ader and sig\u00adnif\u00adi\u00adcance. It is as bizarre as the equal\u00adly irra\u00adtional nudi\u00adty taboo. Most pro\u00adposed expla\u00adna\u00adtions col\u00adlapse with any shift in time and place. Eng\u00adlish swear\u00ading is most\u00adly con\u00adcerned with sex\u00adu\u00adal acts, so an anglo\u00adphone will come up with expla\u00adna\u00adtions based in sex\u00adu\u00adal psy\u00adchol\u00ado\u00adgy. But Dutch swear\u00ading is most\u00adly about dis\u00adease, not sex. French Cana\u00addi\u00adan swear\u00ading has vir\u00adtu\u00adal\u00adly noth\u00ading to do with either, though nobody has ever pro\u00adposed that French Cana\u00addi\u00adans are less inter\u00adest\u00aded in sex.<\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, the mean\u00ading and sub\u00adject mat\u00adter of swear\u00adwords prob\u00ada\u00adbly have noth\u00ading to do with their func\u00adtion\u00ading. \u201cFuck\u201d is a swear\u00adword. \u201cCop\u00adu\u00adlate\u201d is not. \u201cFuck\u201d was used with\u00adout any sense of impro\u00adpri\u00adety in ancient Anglo-Sax\u00adon reli\u00adgious poet\u00adry, but it could not be used that way today. I can write \u201ccop\u00adu\u00adlate\u201d in a news\u00adpa\u00adper arti\u00adcle or a sci\u00aden\u00adtif\u00adic paper, but I can\u2019t write \u201cfuck\u201d in either with\u00adout some\u00adbody get\u00adting upset. Why? Nobody has come up with any expla\u00adna\u00adtion that makes any sense, just as nobody has ever come up with any expla\u00adna\u00adtion of why the human body would be con\u00adsid\u00adered \u201cdirty\u201d, and nobody has come up with any ratio\u00adnal expla\u00adna\u00adtion of why Amer\u00adi\u00adcans elect\u00aded George W. Bush \u2015 except for the sim\u00adplest one: peo\u00adple are very, very, very stupid.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Catholic Church in Que\u00adbec has sur\u00adprised every\u00adone with a pecu\u00adliar pub\u00adlic\u00adi\u00adty cam\u00adpaign. They have pur\u00adchased space on bill\u00adboards, bus-stops, and oth\u00ader adver\u00adtis\u00ading places, in order to dis\u00adplay swear-words. This requires some expla\u00adna\u00adtion. French Cana\u00addi\u00adan swear\u00ading is the lamest on \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-au-blog-2006"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9637,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions\/9637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}