Etienne, I have a question

From another topic in the forum, I won't mention the one, you used the word tabarnac. Exactly what is its meaning? I've heard it from a friend who has a friend who is French Canadian, but this friend being American, couldn't give me the meaning of it. He just knows that it is a swear.

I believe I understand its general meaning what I am asking is does tabarnac have a literal meaning? Where did it derive.

 The reason I'm interested is because I speak French (married to a French woman) and we both don't know the meaning.  

Well, I'll answer here. The french canadian swears, called "sacres" (meaning consecrations, basically) are all words that are derived from the catholic church or faith (before we were a very pious people and the church had for a long time an hegemony, changed a lot when we realised what they were doing to us). Tabarnac comes from "tabernacle" (which I think is the same word in english), there is a lot of other "sacres" like "crisse" which comes from "christ", etc. Tabarnac is usually considered like the nicest one and even the mexicans call french canadians "los tabarnacos".

Thanks.

 

Now that you mention it, I do remember it meaning tabernacle.  But couldn't understand how it was a swear.

 

Thanks for the lagniappe (means 'extra' in Cajun). I'm referring to the tidbit about what the Mexicans call Canadians. I'll have to remember that one.

Yeah, well no "sacre" really retains it's original meaning, people just know them and know they are swear. They can know what the word comes from, but if you say "crisse" you really said "crisse" and not "christ". The beauty of this is that you can use them when you're happy, angry, surprised, scared, shocked, etc. as an interjection. Or you can use them to say things like "very", or "a lot of". An example: Il y en a en tabarnac (meaning there is a lot of them) or Je suis fatigué en osti (I'm very tired). You can also use them as an insult: le tabarnac! (the "tabarnac"!) or mix them with other insult, like "câlisse de tr** de c*l!" (which equivalent would be f*ck*ng *ssh*l*).

From urbandictionary.com:

"Tabernac is one of the worst curse words you can use in French Canada. French Canada has a strong tradition of Roman Catholicism and this sacriligious word takes the word "tabernacle" in vain."

El_Piton wrote:

From urbandictionary.com:

"Tabernac is one of the worst curse words you can use in French Canada. French Canada has a strong tradition of Roman Catholicism and this sacriligious word takes the word "tabernacle" in vain."

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 HAD a strong tradition of Roman Catholicism. Since the quiet revolution, things have changed, but tabarnac remained .

Etienne wrote:
...all words that are derived from the catholic church or faith (before we were a very pious people and the church had for a long time an hegemony, changed a lot when we realised what they were doing to us)...

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 Was the Church choking your personal freedoms?  I'm guessing.  But readers should realize the Church is there in God's name, and if there are bad eggs among them, don't blame it on the whole. 

Perhaps, but yes indeed it was chocking us, and quite well at that, but not only the Church, but also very much the english speaking people (the story revolving around Maurice Richard and ice hockey at that time is a picturesque example, although only one among many). I think that Quebec's history of the 20th century is particularly interesting and also qvery peculiar, and the quiet revolution (started at the death of Maurice Duplessis, an extremely conservative - and this term here means ultramontanism - dictator, basically, with the benediction of the Church) is one of the greatest achievement a society has ever done to itself, in my opinion.

I understand now (a bit).  Now that I got myself a bit interested (I have cousins living in Ontario)... is Quebec declaring independence from Canada?  And can you really become 'independent'? 

Well there's a movement in Quebec that want independance, there is a federal and provincial party for this movement. There was already two referendums, the first failed (60% to 40%), the second lost very tightly (50.6% against 49.4%) and in the recent years a lot of scandals were discovered on the side of the federalists.

 

Can we really become independant? Federalists like to say no, but independantists claim yes, the only necessary things if we declare ourselves independant is to be recognised as such by other countries.

Your conclusion doesn't follow what I have said. First, Quebec independantists are not a revolutionnary movement (some revolutionnay groups existed at some point, one caused a great crisis too, called October '70, but they don't exist anymore), but a political one, second of all, the scandals were on the side of the federalists, meaning those who were against Quebec's independance, which was in great part the federal government of the time and a satellite organisation.

Perhaps, but when you do not know the context in which you are applying your cynism, it becomes quite pointless and only destructive as opposed to constructive, meaning that what you said was basically trolling.

Thanks for that further explanation on Quebec.  I commend the people over there because you follow the peaceful path, i.e., referendum, elections, etc.  If you talk of independence on this side of the globe, you may be courting disaster.  One thorn over here is Taiwan (our neighbor) wanting to declare independence from China.  As we stand now, Taiwan is a de facto state.  If war comes, it'll just be at our backyard.  People should not be cynical about these things because it can take lives away!  When we're reading history we don't see all the blood and death, etc.  Our view of history should be changed... 

There was some violence at some point, the FLQ in '70 (the October Crisis referred to previously) kidnapped some officials, and even killed a minister (he actually jumped out of a window in an attempt to escape), on this even the War Measure Act was called for the third time in Canada's history (WW1, WW2, October '70, and the last time was 9/11, however not to it's full extent). Most of the terrorists were exiled to Cuba.

Well let's say that from your post I can see that you are aware, but not fully, as you claimed it, but only superficially and that from your post I will claim that you barely know the context. By the way your example of Dumont in your post had zero to do with the question. Usually the people from outside Quebec who claim they know stuff about it, know a thing or two and think they've gone round the question, but it's much more complex than that.

As long as we keep getting that sweet sweet maple syrup, all is cool.

Read with "the topic", or "point". I'm not offended, but the fact that you claim you know about it, while you obviously don't know much, and are trying to make a point, that is quite pointless in the first place, is rather absurd in my opinion. You just came in and talked nonsense about revolutionnary movements, and then when I told you that you knew nothing about probably looked up on internet for a good 5 minutes on the subject for some information and found something about Dumont and plugged it to look like you knew anything about the subject. Am I wrong here?

You do not reqire my permission to come in, and it's not disagreeable to me, but I just find it pathetic, you shouldn't come and claim things about which you are completly ignorant, and defend them after that. You don't need to know every specific? Of course you don't, I don't either, but you don't even seem to have a general idea beside a really fuzzy one. And yes I am in a position to judge the absurdity of your point, because even if you were right to some extent (which would be a kind of hyporcisy like it is present in ANY political idea), your argumentation was wrong, therefore you are wrong.

HotFlow wrote:

Well as I've said, your concern holds little interest to me.  However, to humour me, what evidence or point did I bring to the topic that was incorrect?  Truth is you lack any credible knowledge to disprove my theories.  So no you are not in any position to cast judgement or label anything as wrong or absurd. 

 

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Just a minor point, but a theory is defined as an idea generally held to be true by the vast majority of those who have knowledge on the subject it refers to.  Otherwise you should use the word 'hypothesis' (pl. hypotheses).

HotFlow wrote:

However, to humour me, what evidence or point did I bring to the topic that was incorrect?  Truth is you lack any credible knowledge to disprove my theories.  So no you are not in any position to cast judgement or label anything as wrong or absurd. 

 

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Your Mario Dumont "example" had nothing to do, because besides this you didnt put a single argument beside calling it a revolutionnary movement and putting it in relation to some other (which is also completly wrong, as it is not a revolutionnary movement).

 

And yes I can cast your opinion as absurd because 1) It is uneducated (why cast a "theory" about soemthing you know nothing about? I'd like you to answer this) 2) It is based on an out-of-context mix of comparison and generalisation 3) There is nothing to gain for a politician to be for or against independance unless the question of the referendum is on the table, which happened 2 times in 40 years. 4) Saying that politicians will only do this to have their hands on more power is completly false, as every provincial government is for a decentralisation of power to the provinces, for many reasons.

 

I am not saying there is some hypocrisy but it's only the underlying one that you may find at any level of politics, and perhaps less, because there is not much political gain to be had from this, like André Boisclair realised during the last electoral campaign.