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The Delightful Perversity of Québec's Catholic Swear Words

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Re: The Delightful Perversity of Québec's Catholic Swear Words

#53

Post by cdr »

Symbiote wrote: post #49
tormeh wrote: post #18

As a Norwegian, I find English profanity to be pretty tame. It all means the same, but I think we have more pathos: "May the devil take you" and "go hang yourself" has to be the highlights....

"Go to hell" and "go hang yourself" exist in English. "Devil" is very mild profanity as a noun. It's stronger as an intensifier: "What the devil are you doing?!". I'm British and live in Denmark. Danes swear in English far more than they should, perhaps because they learn all the strongest words from American TV, where swearing replaces humour...

"Go hang yourself" and "devil" are exclusively British English as far as I know as an American. "Go to hell" is certainly also an American swear though.

Re: The Delightful Perversity of Québec's Catholic Swear Words

#55

Post by justinnhli »

fanf2 wrote: post #51

The film "Bon Cop Bad Cop" has a great scene in which the Quebec cop explains to the Toronto cop how to swear properly. Sadly it is dufficult to get a copy of the film with subtitles that do justice to the script, especially in the UK.

Here's the clip in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U72QVCgh_Q

Re: The Delightful Perversity of Québec's Catholic Swear Words

#57

Post by t1m »

olalonde wrote: post #38
fungos wrote: post #19

As an immigrant that have chosen Québec, I can say that one of the various reasons why I've chose this province (and city for the matter) is this distancing from religion and as a bonus the catholic bad words. I simple love it and I love the history of how this come to be. But tabarnak, even after some years here I'm not able to use it naturally. The english words always get out instinctively, even english being my t…

Even if it doesn't sound natural we like it when you try (especially the swear words) :)

I am an anglo who speaks french (like an anglo) and don't think I have amused my Quebecois friends more than when I used 'tabernouche' in a conversation.

It's a bit of a pro-tip for anglos - you can sound a bit crass going full-on tabernak calise etc., but droping the 'tabernouche' with anglo accent wins every time.

Re: The Delightful Perversity of Québec's Catholic Swear Words

#58

Post by gnuvince »

euphemize wrote: post #47
realo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, tabarnak has a verb form: "Je vais t'en tabarnaker une si tu continues." e.g. "I will (provide you violently) a punch you if you continue." tabarnaker: to do with violence

Jamais entendu ça de mes trente ans au Québec

It does sound a little off. "M'a t'en crisser une", "M'a t'en calisser une", and "M'a t'en sacrer une" all sound fine. I'd use "tabarnak" to finish the sentence: "M'a t'en crisser une tabarnak!"

Re: The Delightful Perversity of Québec's Catholic Swear Words

#59

Post by vdl0107 »

carlob wrote: post #6

FWIW some other catholic countries have beautiful blasphemous profanities: Italy and Spain come to mind, but I'm pretty sure Poland has some too. In Italy profanities that attack religion are so pretty much a taboo that is weird to foreigners: you can have a prime time tv show with full frontal nudity and some violence, but you will not hear swearing against god until after midnight. Edited to reflect a comment by ga…

In Argentina -also catholic- is not uncommon to hear "Me cago en Dios" (I shit in God) or "La concha de Dios" (God's pussy/God's cunt) not to swear another one but to express disgust with some event -e.g: the rival team scores a goal-
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