Quebec French profanity


Quebec French profanities, known as sacres, are words and expressions related to Catholicism and its liturgy that are used as strong profanities in Quebec French and in Acadian French. Sacres are considered stronger in Canada than the foul expressions common to standard French, which centre on sex and excrement.

History

The sacres originated in the early 19th century, when the social control exerted by the Catholic clergy was increasingly a source of frustration. One of the oldest sacres is sacrament, which can be thought of as the French-Canadian equivalent of the English "goddamn it". It is known to have been in use as early as the 1830s. The word sacrer in its current meaning is believed to come from the expression Ne dites pas ça, c'est sacré. Eventually, sacrer started to refer to the words French Canadians were not supposed to say. This is likely related to the commandment "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain". The influence and social importance of Catholicism at that time allowed sacres to become powerful forms of profanity.
As a result of the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s, the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec has declined. This has also led to the declining popularity of sacres among younger generations, although they still remain in frequent use among older generations.

List of common ''sacres''

These sacres are commonly given in a phonetic spelling to indicate the differences in pronunciation from the original word, several of which are typical of highly informal Quebec French. The nouns here can also be modified for use as verbs. Additionally, some forms, notably ostie and criss, can become semi-adjectival when followed by de, as in Va t'en, ostie de chat! ; tabarnak is often added at the end for extra emphasis.
Often, several of these words are strung together when used adjectivally, as in Va t'en, maudit hostie de criss de chat!. Many combinations are possible, one of the more fascinating aspects of Quebec profanity. Since swear words are voluntarily blasphemous, the spellings are usually different from the words from which they originate. For example, câlice can be written kâliss, calice, caliss, and so on. There is no general agreement on how to write these words.
Most sacres have modified, milder euphemistic forms. Such forms are not usually considered nearly as rude as the original. They are the equivalent of English words such as "gosh", "heck", or "darn". Many of the euphemistic forms are only similar-sounding to religious terms, so are considered not to denigrate the Church directly.
The following are also considered milder swears:
Sometimes older people unable to bring themselves to swear with church words or their derivatives would make up ostensibly innocuous phrases, such as cinq six boîtes de tomates vartes. This phrase when pronounced quickly by a native speaker sounds like saint-siboire de tabarnak. Another example of a benign word that is church sounding is coltord, which was simply an anglicism for "coal-tar", but pronounced just so, sounds like a merged câlice and tort.

Intricate forms

French-Canadian swear words can be combined into more powerful combinations to express extreme anger or disgust. These intricate uses of French profanities can be difficult to master. The combinations are endless; some people in the French-Canadian community consider mixing and matching swear words to be a sort of skilled art.
A very strong way to express anger or frustration is to use the words tabarnak, sacrament, and câlice. Depending on the context and the tone of the phrases, it might make everybody quiet, but some people use these words to add rhythm or emphasis to sentences.
Usually, more than one of these words is used in French-Canadian profanity. The words are simply connected with de, without any restrictions. Long strings of invective can be connected in this way, and the resulting expression does not have to have any concrete meaning—for example, Mon ostie de saint-sacrament de câlice de crisse holy sacrament of. Non-religious terms may also be strung together in this way, as in Mon crisse de char est brisé, tabarnak de câlisse car is broken, tabernacle of. In areas where English is also commonly spoken, English expletives are often inserted. Fuck ostie is common in Quebec.
The word fucké is much milder than "fucked" is in English. It is routinely used in, for instance, TV sitcom dialogue. The same goes for chit . When used as a verb, Va chier, it means not to excrete but rather to "fuck off". When used in the past-tense chié, it is used exactly as fucké: Mes souliers sont chiés.
Even English-language dialogue containing these words can appear on Quebec French-language television without bleeping. For example, in 2003, when punks rioted in Montreal because a concert by the band The Exploited had been cancelled, TV news reporters solemnly read out a few lyrics and song titles from their album Fuck the System. The same is not true of Quebec's English-language television stations, which follow the same guidelines as other stations in Canada. In November 2017 the CRTC ruled that "fuck" is not a swear word in French.

Non-profane uses

A slang term with the preposition en means "a lot of": d'la bouffe en tabarnak means "a lot of food", similar to English constructs such as "fuck-ton" or "shitload".
Sacres are often used as verbs too. For example, câlisser une volée means "to beat the fuck out of" or, more literally, "to give a beating", where câlisser is used as a stronger form of "to give". There are constructions like détabarnaker or décrisser, which means "to leave" or "to destroy", using the dé prefix, which is about separation. Others include s'en câlicer or s'en crisser, sacrer son camp, and décâlisser. Some are even found as adverbs, such as crissement, meaning "very" or "extremely", as in C'est crissement bon.
In the movie Bon Cop, Bad Cop, French-Canadian actor and stand-up comic Patrick Huard teaches Colm Feore how to swear properly.
These expressions are found less commonly in literature, but rappers and other singers often use criss and câlice as a rhyme. More traditional singers also use these words, such as Quebec singer Plume Latraverse.
One fine example of the use of sacres as different word classes is a dialogue by "Les Cyniques" called Le cours de sacres. The phrase Jules, étant irrité, a expulsé violemment Jacques qui était en colère becomes Le sacrament qui était en calvaire a calissé dehors l'ostie en tabarnak.

Comparison to other languages

The use of liturgical profanity is not unique to Canadian French or Quebec. In Italian, although to a lesser extent, some analogous words are in use: in particular, ostia and sacramento are relatively common expressions in the northeast, which are lighter than the typical blasphemies in use in Italy, such as porco Dio and porca Madonna. Modifying the terms into euphemistic equivalents is used in Italy; for example, ostia is commonly modified to osteria. The word sacramento has produced the verb sacramentare, which colloquially means "to use blasphemy".
Other dialects in the world feature this kind of profanity, such as the expressions Sakrament and Kruzifix noch einmal in Austro-Bavarian and Krucifix in Czech. La hostia is an expletive expression in some Spanish dialects. In Catalan, hòstia is used and is frequently abbreviated to osti. Spanish also uses me cago en... followed by "God", "the blessed chalice", "the Virgin" and other terms, religious or not. It can be shortened to just ¡La virgen! or ¡Copón bendito!. In Romanian, the profanity anafura mă-tii! is sometimes used with "Easter", "Christ", "Cross", "Commemoration", "sacred oil lamp", "God", "Church", etc.
Sheila Fischman's translation of La Guerre, yes Sir!, by Roch Carrier, leaves many sacres in the original Quebec French, since they have no real equivalent in English. She gives a brief explanation and history of these terms in her introduction, including a few not listed here. At a crucial point in the story, a boy swears in the presence of his father. For the first time, instead of beating or punishing his son, the father swears back. This represents the boy's passage into manhood.
Irish Catholics of old employed a similar practice, whereby "ejaculations" were used to express frustration without cursing or profaning. This typically involved the recitation of a rhyming couplet, where a shocked person might say, "Jesus who, for love of me / Died on the Cross at Calvary" instead of "Jesus!" This is often abbreviated simply to "Jesus-hoo-fer-luv-a-me", an expression still heard among elderly Irish people. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" is used in Quebec French: "Jésus, Marie, Joseph!"
Hungarians, primarily Catholics, follow the same suit: instead of Isten or as a curse, az Istenit!, they often use another word which also begins with is: iskoláját or istállóját.