Quebec Expressions Part 10 - des Expressions Québécoises Quotidiennes at Bill Casselman's Canadian Word of the Day

Des Expressions Québécoises Quotidiennes

(Everyday Québec Expressions)

Part 10

T'sais?

Pronounced as tsé?, this might be the most common “pacer” in current Québec speech.

T’sais? is a contraction of tu sais? (English: you know?) and serves an oral purpose similar to English Canada’s frequent “yuh know” of daily speech.

T’sais? has 3 chief functions in speech.

It is a Québécois pacer which permits the speaker to think of what she or he wants to say next.
It is also a little insert in spoken language that seeks the hearer’s tacit or gestural approval of what the speaker is saying.
The third major function of t’sais? and “yuh know” in rapid speech is to insure that the hearer is listening to what the speaker says, paying sufficient attention to follow an argument or a proposition.

Baudelairean Flâneurs Beware !

Québec speech preserves ancient words now lost or obsolete in continental French and also borrows heavily from English phrases, even disguised sometimes in loan translations.

A Parisian might wish faire une balade à pied ‘to go for a walk on foot.’ But, in fair weather on a day in May, a Quebecker might say, “Prenons-nous une marche?” ‘Are we going to take a walk?” directly borrowed from English “to take a walk.”

Flâneur means ‘stroller, lounger, saunterer, slacker or loafer.’ Nineteenth-century Parisian poet of decadence and superb critic Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) added his own definition of flâneur, refining it to ‘a person who walks the city in order to experience it.’ This extra sense caught on, so that flâneur even shows up in English urbanology texts and sociology courses. Baudelaire’s Les fleurs du mal ‘Flowers of Evil’ is one of the great classics of French poetry.

Homer Simpson’s “Duhhhh!” In Québec might be “Dzuhhh!”

The letters /t/ and /d/, called dentals from the way they are pronounced, become affricatives in the daily speech of Québec when /t/ and /d/ occur in front of the vowels /u/ and /i/.

/t/ then is spoken as /ts/ and /d/ becomes /dz/.

The Québec word most commonly mispronounced by Anglos is probably poutine. Its everyday pronunciation is pou-TSIN. The stressed final syllable is not only affricated but shortened slightly, so that poutine never rhymes with the English word canteen.

Other example: Tu es parti (‘you left’) in daily Québec speech is pronounced ‘tsu es partsi.’

Things to Say to an Annoying Ranter in Québec

(a) Tords pas tes bas!

‘Oh, don’t get your stockings in a twist.’

British English might say, “Don’t get your knickers in a twist!”

(b) Brise pas ta chaîne!

‘Don’t snap your leash!’

‘Don’t start climbing the livingroom curtains.’

(d) Mange pas tes bas!

‘Don’t eat your stockings,’ a slightly politer version of “Don’t eat your shorts.’

Et, mes élèves, c'est tout pour aujourd'hui.

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