People in Quebec speak French, however they don’t speak as the French do. The accent, the words, the expressions are all greatly different than the Francophones overseas. Admitedly the accent took awhile to get used to. Quebecois tend to speak quickly with a more nasal quality to their sounds, versus the French who seems to always be pushing words out to the front of their mouth were they will stay. The Quebecois also love to contract words, not helpful for those who can’t catch on to such subtleties.
Who are the Quebecois?
Quebecois Expressions and Idiomatic Phrases
BonjourHi
Hello hi
Ok granted this isn’t a word, but if you’ve spent more than an afternoon in downtown Montreal, or more than 15 minutes in a department store, you will get the words BonjourHi spoken to you, so closely jumbled it’s as if it were one word. This is a bilingual city afterall and most people, in particular those working in restaurants, stores, etc need to speak English and French. Since there is not distinguishing factor on who is Anglophone or Franchophone, the bonjourhi serves to allow the person to answer in his or her stronger language.
Ta Blonde
My Blond
Calling someone your blond is not in anyway refering to their haircolor. Any blonde jokes are not refering to a ditzy personality, or an aloof demeaner. If you tell a blonde joke you better make sure your girlfriend isn’t nearby because you will be making fun of her.
Mon Chum
My bud
To make matters confusing, the word chum can refer to a boyfriend or a male friend. Makes the ‘what are we’ conversations you have with your significant other a little harder to decipher. Are we chums or are you my chum? I also find the traditional French word for boyfriend a bit strange as well. If someone is your petit ami they literally are your little friend, otherwise known as your boyfriend.
Baise-moué l’ail
Kiss my garlic
Come on use your imagination. Kiss my garlic… Kiss my… Don’t know how garlic became appropriate for such a term, but hey, to each his own.
Avoir mal aux cheveux
Have a hairache
If you ever woken up to a splitting headache caused by excessive amounts of alcohol.  We aren’t perfect afterall. To be mal aux cheveux means you have one of the worst hangovers of your life. It’s so bad naturally your hair hurts.
être tiguidou
It’s all good. Everything’s peachy. Okey dokey. Everything is fine.  All is well. Everything’s in order. A-ok. I think you get the picture.
Lâche pas la patate!
Don’t let go of the potato.
Hmm this is an interesting one. When someone says don’t let go of the potato they don’t want you to wimp out. In other words, don’t be a pansy. Not really sure why you have to hold on to a potato to do so. Maybe it has something to do with poutine?
Se laisser manger la laine sur le dos
To let eat the wool right off your back
If you let someone eat the shirt off your back, well then you’re a complete idiot. Although not so sure the other guy is that smart either.
J’ai la langue à terre
I have my tongue on the floor
In Quebec if you have your tongue on the floor it means you are extremely tired or extremely hungry, which can be a little confusing since each time you say it, you will need to elaborate which one you mean.
Note on cursing in Quebec: Similar to other cultures, the Quebecois have appropriated seemingly ‘good’ words and turned around their meanings. Religious terminolgy can be used to express discomfort, annoyance, or merely to tell someone off.  By turning these relgious words into something negative, the Quebecois made a statement against the church, who had a stronghold on French Canadians in the past.
Image via: laurent_gilot
Gadhimai Mela Animal Sacrifice
by Elena on November 27, 2009
Photo Courtesy: Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP/Courtesy WSJ-All Rights Reserved
Images like this man leaping in the air with a machete swung over his head, are what make photojournalism such an affecting medium. It garners discomfort because the viewer knows that seconds after this picture was taken the man’s machete made its way through the animal’s flesh. The story behind the man and this goat elicits a dichotomy between supporters and critics from people around the world. Each year millions of worshipers in Nepal and neighboring India watch the killing of more than 250,000 animals. This festival is in honor of the Hindu goddess of power Gadhimai, where participants offer sacrifices to her.
The thought of sacrificing thousands of animals for what most Westerners would consider insufficient reasons, can make any person cringe, not just vegetarians and animal activists. My initial reaction was of discomfort, but after reading a post by The Travel Photographer, my initial criticisms were stunted. Is sacrificing 250,000 animals to the goddess Gadhimai any different than sacrificing 45 million turkeys for the tradition of Thanksgiving? Admittedly the semantics of the slaughter is like comparing apples to oranges. One ceremony is in your face with blood staining the streets and carcasses laying lifeless. For anyone outside this culture it is very hard to stomach. The ceremony we celebrate here is more subtle. We kill 45 million turkeys, but it is behind the scenes, nicely hidden before we go to the supermarket to buy Thanksgiving dinner.
Growing up in a household where meat is a constant staple in our diet, has made me desensitized to many images that others might find offensive. On trips to Galicia I have witnessed farm chickens being killed, as well as relished the efforts of pig slaughters in the form of chorizo and blood sausage. Like many other cultures, we use every part of the pig, a tradition passed down from people who were poor and had to use every part of the animal. There is an enormous amount of importance placed upon meals and mealtime as a family. For me this is normal, for a vegetarian, probably not so much.
Globalization has made distinguishing what is ‘right and wrong’ slightly difficult. It is a big world and we certainly don’t agree on everything. I consider myself a tolerant person, however there are certain things that I am staunchly against without question ie female mutilation, honor killing; and other things that I am more ignorant and uncertain about such as covering the female form with hijabs and burkas. So where is the line of understanding and injustice? After looking at the picture above a second time, I still feel uncomfortable, but also because maybe I shouldn’t be judging so quickly.
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