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This quest, less than grail-like but still fascinating, began with an email question from a New Yorker, a happily transnationed actor, writer, producer from Québec.
April 3, 2009 Dear Mr. Casselman, I was wondering if you could not shed a bit of light on the Québec expression jouer fessier? - How should we understand / interpret this expression? - Is there another expression which would have the same / similar meaning? - Can we find a classical saying with equivalent meaning? - What would be a good English translation of this expression? Thanks for your help –
Philippe B. Keb [Casselman note: Among other feats, actor Philippe Keb produced “The Decline of the American Empire” (turned the Denys Arcand film into a theater play) in NYC in 2004, and filled the Gene Frankell Theater every night for a month straight. NYC theatergoers enjoyed it immensely. ]
Philippe - Thanks for your inquiry. Here are things I found. But I could not find the expression in even one dictionary of Québec slang. Some of my translation ideas may be a trifle loopy! Bill Casselman
Basic French Etymology & Definitions First
jouer Jouer means ‘to play.’ Just as the French word jeu ‘game, toy’ and the English word joke both derive from Latin jocus ‘jest, word game, joke, sport, pleasantry’, the French verb jouer, before all the transformations in early French, was the simple Latin verb jocari ‘to joke around, to tell funny stories.’ fessier As an adjective, fessier means ‘of the buttocks’ or ‘gluteal.’ As a noun fessier means ‘bum,’ ‘buttocks,’ ‘ass,’ ‘glutes.’ Le fessier is a politer, familial term for ‘bum, bottom, behind, patootie.” Fessier is not as vulgar in French as cul. It is a later, adjectival derivative of the earlier formed fesse ‘buttock’ and les fesses ‘ass cheeks, buttocks.’ It derives from the Latin form fissa.
Gallic Street Latin In the rowdy, slangy soldiers’ Latin of ancient Gaul fissa was the common street way of saying both ‘asshole’ and ‘butt cheeks.’ Soldiers never used the high-fallutin’, upper-class Latin word anus. That was something Cicero or Caesar might say. Anus gave us prim and proper English medical terms like anal and ano-genital.
Latin fissa arose from the Latin verb findo, findere, fidi, fissus ‘to split, to sunder, to cleave in two, to put a hole in.’ So Latin soldiers’ slang for anus was exactly like our common English vulgarisms: crack, hole, bunghole, arsehole, and asshole. From the same Latin verb findere comes the French noun fente ‘cleft, slit, slot, crack, hole.’ Also from that Latin verb derive modern English scientific terms like nuclear fission ‘splitting the atom.’ In science, one may say that plutonium and uranium are fissile ‘able to be split.’ A cleft in a rock or a natural split in anatomy can be a fissure. Cerebral fissures are the natural clefts that divide convolutions of the human brain.
Jouer fessier - the Phrase Under Question
I found the phrase defined only once in the Québec sources I searched: Jouer fessier, c'est quand t'as eu un beau jeu mais que t'oses pas abattre tes “Jouer fessier is when you have had a good game, but you don’t dare to lay all your cards on the table.” (that is, don’t dare to show your hand) Could it mean sometimes in English: to play dirty? Perhaps not?
Citations from sports pages in Québec newspapers: (a) Je ne serais donc pas étonné qu’elle joue fessier pour gagner! “I would therefore not be surprised if she plays dirty in order to win!”
(b) En effet, je préconise de jouer seulement les grosses mains et je joue vraiment fessier... “and I’m playing it really close to the vest.” (?)
(c) jouer fessier», comme dirait ma grand-mère. Could jouer fessier spring from 19 th century French slang, fesser dans le tas? That’s Quebec grandmother talk, where fesser dans le tas means to spank all the kids, even if only one kid committed the deed that induced the threat of the spanking.
More Citations Showing its Use in Québec French 1. Ottawa va jouer fessier et saupoudrage pour attendre le plus d'injection possible d'argent à la source : les Américains qui ont causé la crise doivent ... Ottawa is going to play hesitantly and.....
2. Cessons de jouer fessier ! Méritons la vie avec enthousiasme! Elle est courte et surtout elle fuit rapidement! Let’s stop holding back out of caution! Let us deserve to be alive with enthusiasm! Life’s short and goes by especially quickly. Perhaps here it means: Let’s stop playing in a hang-back, mopish manner!
Si tu veux vraiment jouer fessier, tu peux faire : 1) If you really want to live cautiously, you can (1).... 4. Kinzer a choisi de jouer fessier et sauter sur l'offre "plus modeste" des Mets. Kinzer chose to play sneaky and skip the more modest offer of the Mets. 5. “Je me suis même permis de jouer fessier cette saison.” I even let myself play not as well as I could this season.
6. Quant à notre prédiction de Canadien en 7 contre le Boston, c’était jouer fessier, et on l’assumait pleinement. “As for our prediction that the Canadiens could take Boston in 7 games, it was way too ‘sucky’ and modest,”
Hi Bill - I think the whole thing about "playing dirty" is actually wrong. I think the reference to "fessier" (ass) is actually used to mean "Sitting on your fat ass" / "Remaining seated, refusing to move" (not taking any chance, even if you have great potential). I think it's more in line with "playing it overly safe" — for example, you have a GREAT hand of cards, but you're still afraid to play it down, because you fear Now, re-read your examples above and see if that fits better. With that particular concept in mind, what do you think would be a better, more "classical" way of saying the same thing (classical saying), both in French and in English? Thanks again for your help Philippe Keb
Friday, April 03, 2009 4:09 PM Philippe - So, by your lights, jouer fessier means 'to sit on your ass instead of playing fully engaged'. Hmmmmm. Some of the sports expressions in French that I sent don't seem to me to fit your translation. But hey, what does a maudit anglais know? Your translation seems to make the expression merely a slangy way of saying "to hesitate." Maybe other English colloquial verbs would be: to hang back, to stall for time, to pull back. So, perhaps a more literary, continental French synonym would be: hésiter ou hésistant? It does not ring quite true to me. But I'll keep looking. I would love to find an actual pronouncement by some expert in Quebec slang, but I can't. Yet. Maybe one of my website visitors/readers will supply the perfect translation? cheers Bill Casselman
Bill – To me, jouer fessier is a bit more "engaged" even. Closer to "Oh my God! Look at yourself! You have all these gifts but you don't do anything about it!" The way I understand it, it indicates a strong contradiction and dichotomy between amazing talents and fearful inaction. See what I mean? I got the expression from the film "L'Audition" with Luc Picard. In the film, a father speaks to his yet unborn boy child through a video camera. We understand that the father is sick and will die before the son is born. He's giving him advice on what life is and the way in which he should look at / lead his future life. The father speaks of how he envies his unborn son also, about to experience starry nights, fire camps, mini-skirts, the smells of fall, etc... Very poetic. And then he says: "La vie s't'un mystère bébé; ya juste les grandes personnes qui pensent le contraire. Pis si jamais t'arrêtes d'la trouver mysterieuse, dis-toi que c'est parce que tu joues fessier." "Life's a beautiful mystery, baby; only grown-ups think otherwise. And if you ever find yourself thinking this way, know that you're______?"
- Philippe Keb
Hi Bill - I'm asking a whole bunch of people and getting the same answers. It's funny - It's a widely used expression but doesn't seem to be referenced anywhere. Philip Butt out in California (joualvert.com) responded: “I'm not sure about the expression you asked about. I think it means: ne pas prendre de risques ou se tenir à carreau [Casselman translation: to not take risks or to watch your step too carefully] but I can't really think of an equivalent expression that is as colorful. Maybe you could say "play it safe" in English....not as colorful though.” P.B. Philippe
Bill – FYI : Here’s another response I got from a French speaker. (Philippe)
To: keb@philippe.ac Bonjour Philippe — Jouer fessier ou jouer fesse: au poker, jouer très serré de peur de perdre de l'argent... - Ya t-il une expression equivalente que l'on retrouverait dans les dictons? - Y'aurait-il une bonne traduction de cette expression en Anglais = ??? - Michel [Casselman translation of first line: “ . . .in poker, to play all tensed up through fear of losing money…” ]
From: Bill Casselman Subject: jouer fessier Philippe - Thanks for that. It does not seem that far from a ‘hesitant’ poker player, as I first suggested. As for the implicit meaning: Surely the chief reason one would hesitate in poker is because one did not want to, or was fearful of, losing money? Cheers, Bill C.
Bill - I also think it implies: being afraid, but you should NOT be afraid, because you hold such a great hand. Philippe
And here's an email from Carole in Montréal. Hi, A person would have a great hand, enough to play "9 no trump", for example, but would only bid "8 clubs", for example (easier to win). That would be "jouer fessier", to prefer a small gain with no risk to a great possible gain subject to a greater risk. When the game was over and the person's hand
was known, the adversaries would cry "Fessier! Fessier!"
We thank all contributors and conclude with a modest new essay. If you have ideas or opinions on the use of jouer fessier, do let us know.
My email address is: canadiansayings@mountaincable.net
Terms That Dare
to Defy Translation a new essay by Bill Casselman
Every verbal nuance, every subtle hue of meaning, every semantic delight cannot always be translated from one language to another. Like jealous goddesses, some languages embosom individual word treasures and — pinchpenny coquettes that goddesses of language are — hide them from the vulgar gawking of foreigners.
Therefore a translator can't bring all the delicate difference of a culture nurtured in a foreign language to English speakers. Do translations of Tolstoy or Pushkin convey perfectly the Slavic subtleties of the Russian language to English readers? Never!
In biblical mythology, the locus classicus of translation collapse is “The Tower of Babel,” here painted by the greatest Flemish painter of the 16th century, Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Painted about 1563 CE, it is oil on oak panel, now at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. In The Tower of Babel myth, a vindictive Palestinian shepherd deity (god) deliberately confounds the tongues of men. In order that sinning humans will never be able to understand one another and to curtail the spread of wickedness (i.e. every thing an impotent old Jewish shepherd chief might object to, for example, young people enjoying the sex he can no longer get it up for) the despicable, senile Almighty makes them speak different languages on purpose, to screw up human progress as long as possible. Simply charming behaviour — even for one of history’s nastiest deities, the cranky, smight-loving, vengeance-crazed lunatic who presides over the world in The Old Testament. Think I’m kidding? Read it for yourself. Just read this sick shit. Here is the story from The King James’ version of Genesis 11:1- “And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children built. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”
In the Genesis writer’s rush to end the Babel story with a moral point, how typical of the Old Testament that the Hebrew smart-ass text of this episode ends with one great, resonant whopper mistake of ignorant etymology. The tower of Babel's name is simply a version of Babylon, that is, in Akkadian, bab-ilim which means ‘gate of the god.’ But the account in Genesis states in Hebrew that the name of the tower of Babel stems from the Hebrew verb balal ‘to confound, to confuse.’ No, it does not. There is not one iota, not one jot, not one tittle, not one schwa of evidence that supports such an infantile and ignorant derivation, especially in the face of the word Babel containing the common, widespread, general Semitic word for gate, bab, prominent in every Semitic language of whose existence we are aware throughout the entire span of history. Even a street beggar of ancient Judea would have been able to tell a passerby that the name Babel was bab ‘gate’ + el ‘god.’ God-gate. But not apparently the divinely inspired, inside-connection-with-god, know-it-all rabbis. I guess they were too exquisitely tuned to the infinite to bother lending an ear to the axiomatic answers available in the everyday speech of the entire ancient Middle East. Ancient biblical etymology appears to have consisted largely of priests sitting around gobbling homophones back and forth to one another until they found some (to them) likely equivalence. Modern Hebrew etymology has found that almost every single word origin proposed in the Old Testament as divinely received etymology direct from god, is, in fact, wrong, ignorant, stupid, and riddled with unthinking error. What the writers of the Old Testament were really doing was using word origin for slanted religious purposes. Each derivation was offered as a covert message from god, as yet another opportunity for a deep, rabbinical putdown of sinning humanity. Hidden within the history of every Hebrew word was a message from god, said the anointed ones. It was almost as if the now-long-discounted doctrine of signatures had taken a fetid toe-hold in the realms of word study. That, of course, is why vast volumes of ancient Hebrew "word study" are today revealed to be unscientific gibberish and every single nikkud must be restudied in the light of modern comparative linguistics — unless of course you are a modern genius like Madonna seeking Kabbalistic word clues under every cactus. Even word derivation could not escape the intrusive ignorance of the god-pushers. Therefore each instance of derivation found in Holy Writ must be treated with analysing scepticism. But how about that biblical story of the tower of Babel? Really! Any reader of humane intention and kindly spirit would be gob-smacked hearing that crap for the first time. Can you imagine a meaner, more miserable, delinquent old prick than god as depicted here? Humans are coming along nicely in their progress, so it’s time, says this vain, buttinsky godlet, that I intervened with these upstarts and really fucked them up good. So he does! And modern people still wish to worship that…thing? God is a hypothetical construct the ancients invented out of their deep guilt and unending self-loathing. Ah, poor wee errant Billy, unfathomable to lowly mortals are the ways of him who dwells above. Yeah, right. Well, good luck, pals, worshipping that old Alts-heimer. The misspelling is deliberate, kiddies. Even infidels are allowed to pun. He’s getting no tithe from this old atheist. Now let us abandon the realms of god myths, where credulous ninnies bow hourly to lick Jehovah’s toe jam and paw his gilded robe begging and squealing to be permitted to live forever. What a load of whinging piffle!
Now, O senile Zeuslet lolling on a cloud, lettest thou thy servant draw a curtain across the sick masochism of organized religion and return to the sanity of word study. Apt in considering any transfer of words from one tongue to another is an Italian expression: traduttore, traditore.
The ways around these translation-resisting words are manifold. The translator may choose terse paraphrase or poetry, or calques. She or he may even lose their way and descend into lengthy, periphrastic, circumlocutionary restatements that drown in a vortex of words or dissolve into a glutinous soup of charmless gobbledygook with dumplings of blather floating atop it, wanly spiced with twaddle and piffle. Much like my last sentence. When we approach another language to discern meaning, it behooves us to obey these three injunctions: enjoy, learn and beware.
© 2009 William Gordon Casselman
Any comments, emendations, additional word lore? Please email it to me at canadiansayings@mountaincable.net
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cartes sur la table. 
3. 
your opponent has an even better hand. Therefore, you are overly safe, not taking any chances, whereas you could have great success if only you took a little chance.
