Lately, I've been reading and hearing about a campaign by Catholic churches in Montreal to remind francophone Quebeckers of the true origins of some of their most beloved curse words. They've taken to putting up big banners on the sides of churches with some of the more colourful Quebec oaths, such as tabernacle, ciboire (chalice) and hostie (host), and it seems the campaign is causing a bit of a stir (Montreal Gazette story about it here, and a CBC radio piece here).
I've always found the Quebecois practice of using liturgical forms of profanity to be pretty interesting (and funny, of course - I know, I'm going to Hell). Wikipedia, naturally, has a very informative entry about it here, featuring a history, usage guidelines, and handy list of common sacrés. Heh.
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See, in France, they swear properly, but it's still a little elliptical if you take it literally: c'est quoi ce putain de merde? means "what is this fucking shit?" but literally translates as, "what is this, this prostitute of shit?"
Similarly, putain de, bordel de and de merde are adjectival or adverbial -- the Engish equivalents would be "bloody" or "fucking" -- and they can be compounded. Putain de bordel de merde! might translate as "Motherfuck!" or "Holy fucking shit!" The literal translation, of course, is "prostitute of the brothel of shit."
Mind you, sacrés are used as well. Florence's father regularly uses nom de Dieu or crénom de Dieu (contraction of sacré nom) when cussing a blue streak, but he's old.
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