 Ce que les québécois disent
- Part 13, being 10 more Quebec expressions -
1. Marie-Quatre-Poches
Literally “Mary-Four-Pockets” describes a sloppy housewife, a slovenly québécoise who keeps an untidy abode. She may have four pockets in her housecoat but she can never find anything needed.
2. Le Pouding Chômeur
This is a Quebec dessert named during from the hard days of the Great Depression in the 1930s. It means literally ‘welfare cake’ and was made from inexpensive kitchen ingredients like flour, water, brown sugar and whatever kitchen scraps might taste good is a simple dessert. Still on many a family menu, le pouding chômeur provides a sweet, quick treat. Today in Quebec, la chômage is unemployment insurance.
3. Avoir les orteils en anse de cruche
To be tipsy with alcohol. Literally ‘to have your toes curled in like the handle of a jug.’
4. Ma banane s’est enneigé.
Meaning: the woman said no when I asked for sex.
Literally “my dick (banana) got caught in the snow.”
5. S’enfarger dans les fleurs du tapis
This means: to lose the big picture and get trapped worrying about small details. Literally ‘to get tied down (lost) in the flower designs in the carpet.’
The verb is old rural French that came early to Quebec. S’enfarger has a prime meaning of ‘put fetters on a horse’ so it can’t jump the fence and get out of the barnyard or stable. Une farge is a wood-and-chain shackle, also called a pinoche in older Quebec French.
6. Y a d’la marde dans l’air.
There’s something funny going on around here. Literally “there’s shit in the air.’ Marde is québécois for la merde, standard French ‘shit’ from vulgar Latin merda ‘dung, shit.’
The Latin root, not surprisingly, is found in all the Romance languages, giving forms like Spanish merdoso ‘filthy, sluttish, low’ and Italian merdoso ‘shitty, disgusting.’ The Latin reflex is cognate with Slavic forms like Lithuanian smardas ‘shit’ and Russian смрад smard ‘stink’ and смердеть smyerdetch ‘to stink.’
The root shows up in the exotic English adjective merdivorous ‘eating dung,’ with its synonym, using Greek roots, coprophagous.
7. Je me fens le cul.
Meaning: I’m working like a dog to get that done. Literally “I am breaking my ass.”
8. Y a de la mine dans le crayon.
This means a man is horny; he has a constant appetite for sex. This is the exact equivalent, perhaps even a translation, of the English “there’s lead in that pencil,” referring to an erect penis.
9. C’est un bon jack = quelqu'un de bien, gentil
He’a a good head; he’s a good guy. Literally ‘he’s a good jack,’ with the common given name borrowed from English.
10. Attache ta tuque!
Let’s go. Get ready to rock, dude! Or, in less idiomatic French, tiens-toi prêt! Literally, put on your tuque, your winter cap of wool, beloved headgear of Canucks in frosty weather.
Click here to read more tuque trivia from this website.
For readers interested in French, there is a great deal of material on my website about Quebec French. Just click below to begin.
copyright © 2012 William Gordon Casselman
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