Angry about "Sandwich au fromage fondant"? Send a courriel about it.

September 21, 2017 8:10 AM

BBC: "...the Canadian province of Quebec has relaxed its guidelines around some common 'anglicisms'." The Register: "Quebec takes mature approach to 'grilled cheese' ban. It's for the grater good." The Globe and Mail: "...the agency gives the green light to technical words from English such as mayday and humidex, along with bluegrass and haggis." CBC News: "...and mot-clic as an alternative to hashtag." National Post: "And tennis players can take satisfaction from a well hit “smash” after the Office acknowledged that its recommended replacement - “coup d’écrasement” - just hasn’t caught on." Fromages Du Quebec, cheeses of Quebec, Best Quebec Cheeses, On the Quebec cheese trail, and Cheeses from Quebec. [previously]
posted by Wordshore (42 comments total)

words from English such as mayday

Lol. C'est «m'aidez»!
posted by Sys Rq at 8:13 AM on September 21, 2017 [24 favorites]

A lot more people I talk to use e-mail than courriel, and spam than pourriel, which is a shame.
posted by jeather at 8:20 AM on September 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

One of the articles noted that France is (somewhat) more relaxed about these issues than Quebec. I wonder how much France-French and Quebec-French diverge from one another?
posted by orrnyereg at 8:26 AM on September 21, 2017

“that which we call a fromage / By any other name would smell as Limburger"
posted by Fizz at 8:27 AM on September 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

OMBlog, there are few things I despise more than language 'guardians'.
posted by signal at 8:29 AM on September 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

..the agency gives the green light to technical words from English such as mayday and humidex, along with bluegrass and haggis

Notre Dame de Grass should be pleased (their band name is fantastic, IMO).
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:30 AM on September 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

It wouldn't be Quebec without at least some form of clickbait about how English is still a problem to be solved rather than just another language people can speak in addition to French. (I love hearing small bilingual kids! It's so cool!)

I'm more apt to defend La Belle Province now that I no longer live there, but I just remember being very tired at the constant crappiness of both Francophone and Anglophone communities towards each other.
posted by Kitteh at 8:34 AM on September 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

OMBlog, there are few things I despise more than language 'guardians'.

It gets better. Anglo Canadian shorthand for the Office québécois de la langue française is "the language police."

See also "pastagate"....Yes, the Quebec ‘language police’ does serve a purpose:

In 2013, Quebec's language-enforcement agency made a global fool of itself by attempting to crack down on a Montreal restaurant's failure to translate the names of well-known Italian food items on its menu into French. Thus was born Pastagate, which was so embarrassing that it forced the normally hardline (on language) Parti Québécois government of the moment to rein in the Office québécois de la langue française. The head of the OQLF even lost her job.

Since then, the agency charged with promoting French and applying the dispositions of the province's 40-year-old Charter of the French Language, otherwise known as Bill 101, has kept a low profile. The former PQ government freed it of the obligation of having to investigate every complaint it receives, allowing the agency to use its judgment and, hence, avoid future Pastagates to the best of its ability. This rankles some French purists who think the agency, often referred to derisively by anglophones as the Quebec language police, has been neutered.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:36 AM on September 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

A lot more people I talk to use e-mail than courriel, and spam than pourriel, which is a shame.

Why is that a shame? They're not just words in English; they're words from English (and, less recently, from French...) used in nearly every frigging language on Earth -- including France French. Is the goal of the language to communicate, or to isolate?

You know what they write on stop signs in France? "STOP." Quel horreur!
posted by Sys Rq at 8:37 AM on September 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Regarding the cheese links, though...one of the best things about taking a road trip through Quebec is knowing you can hit even big chain grocery stores with the certainty that they will have an awesome selection of cheeses. And fresh bread.

Fuck yeah Quebec cheese.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:38 AM on September 21, 2017 [9 favorites]

My wife is in Montreal this weekend, I've asked her for a status report on the situation.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:47 AM on September 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

My family just returned from a road trip to Quebec City. I can confirm. The cheese is good. No matter what language you speak.
posted by Fizz at 8:50 AM on September 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

Regarding the cheese links, though...one of the best things about taking a road trip through Quebec is knowing you can hit even big chain grocery stores with the certainty that they will have an awesome selection of cheeses. And fresh bread.


The same applies to beer too. I miss being able to go into a grocery store (or dep), peruse the great Quebec beer selection, and then buy it like an adult along with my comestibles. Ontario will never stop making me angry at the existence of the Beer Store. Also, I miss the recycling machines at grocery stores. I just don't understand why that hasn't caught on here.
posted by Kitteh at 8:55 AM on September 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

Counterpoint: the Ontario beer sales setup is what allows the crucial scene in Strange Brew to happen.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:58 AM on September 21, 2017 [6 favorites]

Why is that shame?

I think jeather means that losing that particular pair is a pity because 'pourriel' is a witty variant which evokes the French word 'pourri', which means 'rotten'. That's a sharper joke than English's Monty Python reference.
posted by Segundus at 9:01 AM on September 21, 2017 [11 favorites]

Also, yes, I'm aware that Ontario is slooooooowly rolling out beer sales in grocery stores. Thank god for our craft beer scene here as I just straight up buy from the breweries, thus avoiding the smelly tragedy that is a Beer Store.

I still think that Anglo Canadians should learn French though. Admittedly, as an immigrant, I got to learn for free, but it was so worth it.
posted by Kitteh at 9:01 AM on September 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

Why is that a shame? They're not just words in English; they're words from English (and, less recently, from French...) used in nearly every frigging language on Earth -- including France French. Is the goal of the language to communicate, or to isolate?

It's a shame because I like the words courriel/pourriel better than email/spam. Many places have slang that is unique to them, and this is generally considered positive and charming. This is a set I like (and use myself when speaking French).
posted by jeather at 9:13 AM on September 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

I think I've left this in a discussion about Canadian French/English bilingualism before, but in any case, just leaving it here:

Bonne Entente
by F.R. Scott

The advantages of living with two cultures
Strike one at every turn,
Especially when one finds a notice in an office building:
‘This elevator will not run on Ascension Day;
Or reads in the Montreal Star:
‘Tomorrow being the feast of the Immaculate Conception,
There will be no collection of garbage in the city’;
Or sees on the restaurant menu the bilingual dish:
DEEP APPLE PIE
TARTE AUX POMMES PROFONDES
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:24 AM on September 21, 2017 [13 favorites]

I haven't worked in Quebec in a long long time, but I remember when the push was for "un courriel electronique" instead of "un email" and everyone I knew was flabbergasted that you'd have to use 7 syllables when 2 would do. "courriel" works, in my opinion (not that my opinion really matters in this), and "pourriel" is just great.
posted by sauril at 9:25 AM on September 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

Was just talking about this a few weeks ago with friends who live in Ottawa. One is a fluently bilingual anglophone from Ontario, and the other is a fluently bilingual francophone from Quebec. They also have dear friends in Paris and visit fairly often. My friends are used to talking about "le fin de semaine" and "un courriel". Their French friends say, "Oh, c'est mignon!" ("Oh, that's cute!")
posted by angiep at 9:27 AM on September 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

I write this post from Montreal, where I actually hear courriel a lot. Pourriel not as much, but that might just be because the topic of email spam doesn't come up too often with my coworkers. The best is "clavarder" for internet chat ("clavier", keyboard + "bavarder", to shoot the shit).

I love spending time in Quebec. I don't mind the "ARRÊT" stop signs or the tiny English print on store windows. Language politics are a drag, but even as an Anglo I've come to see them as a necessary evil for a society trying to maintain its individuality. (Better they focus on maintaining French-language institutions than dictating to Muslim women how to dress. But that's another topic.)

And yes, I am actively eating cheese as I write this.
posted by saturday_morning at 9:30 AM on September 21, 2017 [14 favorites]

A friend of mine moved to France and had to reconfigure "fin de semaine" as "Thurs/Fri" and not "le weekend".
posted by jeather at 9:30 AM on September 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

I still think that Anglo Canadians should learn French though. Admittedly, as an immigrant, I got to learn for free, but it was so worth it.

We do? There's mandatory French classes in school through at least junior high. Whether that gets used ever again barring hockey games and food labels, is another issue.
posted by hydrobatidae at 9:46 AM on September 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

I love that there's a language police in Quebec. Without it the world would be a poorer place because we never would have seen this:
Fromidable!
posted by Grither at 9:52 AM on September 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

(Better they focus on maintaining French-language institutions than dictating to Muslim women how to dress. But that's another topic.)

No, it's very much the same topic: Quebec chauvinism.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:56 AM on September 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

I love that there's a language police in Quebec. Without it the world would be a poorer place because we never would have seen this:
Fromidable!

That's federal law. Nothing to do with Quebec. If Quebec's language police had their way, everything would be labeled only in French.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:59 AM on September 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

I wonder how much France-French and Quebec-French diverge from one another?

Dramatically.

OffQC is a great English-language blog (with over a thousand posts) exploring the idiosyncrasies of Quebecois.
posted by 256 at 10:02 AM on September 21, 2017 [8 favorites]

We do? There's mandatory French classes in school through at least junior high. Whether that gets used ever again barring hockey games and food labels, is another issue.

Eh, I tend to see that as the same as Spanish/French classes in US high schools back home. Sure, you can ask for your aunt's pen for a few years, but after that, if it doesn't get used, it goes away. I was surprised and pleased to learn that are a lot of Francophones here in Kingston. So it's a nice moment when I overhear them on the street. My partner, who is way more fluent than I am, absolutely loves to continue his French when chatting with them.
posted by Kitteh at 10:03 AM on September 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yeah, as Sys Rq says, the way to tell that the food labels are subject to federal bilingual packaging requirements is that the French and English are printed in the same size, with no particular priority given to either (and the English is ON TOP - this will become important in a second).

The requirement under Quebec's language regulations is that the French in commercial signange and advertisements must be "markedly predominant."

To see how this works in practice, if we look at...I dunno, the front of Schwartz's Deli in Montreal, you'll see that where it says "Take Out" in English, its French equivalent ("Pour Emporter") is more prominent. Markedly so.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:12 AM on September 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Eh, I tend to see that as the same as Spanish/French classes in US high schools back home. Sure, you can ask for your aunt's pen for a few years, but after that, if it doesn't get used, it goes away.

Yeah, I did all my schooling in Ontario with mandatory French classes, and I even spent a fair amount of time skiing in Quebec in my teens and twenties, but when I moved to Montreal two years ago I was really starting from scratch and don't think I had much of a leg up versus someone who had never spoken a word of French in their lives.
posted by 256 at 10:29 AM on September 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

My partner, who is from Ontario, moved to the Eastern Townships back in the mid 90s to be the station manager for Bishop's campus station. He had taken French in school in Ontario but retained none of that when he moved to Quebec. Eventually he became the sole Anglo employee at an all French advertising/marketing agency. It was the total immersion for his job that gained him a level of fluency that no school course could give him. I mean, in Montreal, you're as likely to hear multiple languages as well as the main two, but in Sherbrooke? Talk about French! It was rare to hear English unless you went to or lived in one of the old Anglo communities dotted around the area. We lived in Sherbrooke proper, so all our neighbours were French; some could speak a little English, but for me--an American who had no real education in foreign languages--it became a matter of learning as hard as I could in order to be understood.
posted by Kitteh at 10:34 AM on September 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Eh, I tend to see that as the same as Spanish/French classes in US high schools back home.

It absolutely is. Most of us have no use for French, so it just falls right out of our heads like so much trigonometry -- and by the end of high school, even if we've earned straight A's, it's unlikely we've been taught to the level of a francophone toddler. (And it's not like we learn Québécois, either, which makes it extra pointless.) It's not good for much beyond the ability to laugh at people who lack even such a basic French education when they try to pronounce French words. ("Enn rowt!" Ha ha!) I gained more actual, lasting understanding of French from a single book on tape than I ever did in the six years I took French in school.

But, crucially, unlike in Quebec, in addition to the pointless French classes most of us take, it is possible throughout anglo Canada to be educated completely in a non-dominant language without having to prove some kind of Right of Return blood quantum bullshit. Try to find a town in anglo-Canada without a French school-- or, hell, an entire French school board. They're everywhere, as they should be, and there's no barrier to attendance. While centuries-old anglo-Quebec communities are being erased by Quebec's language police, Penetanguishene is still a-Penetanguishin'.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:44 AM on September 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

(Credit for being alerted to this, and hence the post, goes to my Wisconsin cheese supplier)
posted by Wordshore at 12:03 PM on September 21, 2017

I think that equating the laws restricting non-French schools (which I disagree with as well) and blood quantum is going way too far.
posted by jeather at 12:07 PM on September 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm more than willing to cut the more strident Quebecois some slack, as there are 3 million Francophones in Quebec surrounded by 300 million Anglophones.
posted by Steakfrites at 12:12 PM on September 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

There have always also been anglophones in Quebec (since colonialism/settlers, so since francophones), whether those strident francophones like it or not.
posted by jeather at 12:18 PM on September 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

Finally, a thread where I can point out that the Government of Quebec's official term for stanced cars is hellaflush.
posted by mhum at 1:12 PM on September 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

I think that equating the laws restricting non-French schools (which I disagree with as well) and blood quantum is going way too far.

Well, I wasn't equating them, only drawing a crude comparison. In order to obtain a certificate of eligibility to attend an English school in Quebec, one must prove that at least one parent₁ is a Canadian citizen₂ who was also themselves educated in English₃ in Canada_4a, and/or authorized to be educated in English in Quebec_4b.

(Beyond merely being a hassle for anglophones to prove their lineage with documentation, these restrictions also very effectively discriminate against francophones who might want options for their children. It's completely ass-backwards; not even the mythical "speak white" anglo elite could come up with a better way of keeping English schools exclusive.)

I'm more than willing to cut the more strident Quebecois some slack, as there are 3 million Francophones in Quebec surrounded by 300 million Anglophones.

Six million.

And they're "surrounded" by 1) New Brunswick, which is 32% francophone (about 240,000 people), 2) Maine, 4% (50,000), 3) New Hampshire, 2% (25,000), 4) Vermont, 1.6% (10,000), New York 0.75% (150,000), Ontario, 4% (540,000), and Newfoundland & Labrador, 10% (40,000). All told, that's a million-strong francophone cushion all the way around.

And we anglophones are similarly "surrounded" by 500 million hispanophones. So what?
posted by Sys Rq at 2:07 PM on September 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

From mhum's hellaflush link: PNEUS TROP ÉTROITS POUR LA JANTE

You can't tell me this wouldn't make a great title for an Acadian fiddle tune.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:23 PM on September 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

Whatever. The woman at reception in my hotel in Paris was froidily impressed that I asked for the mot de passe not le password. I'm sticking to courriel and fin de semaine, maudite tabernacle.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 11:25 PM on September 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

Oh God I don't miss Quebec. Ain't going back.

Back in the 80s the Grey Cup was being held in Montreal. Suddenly I heard people on the street, talking *audibly* in English. They clearly were from east of the Quebec-Ontario border. It made me realize that I was being ostracized for speaking English. Usually no Montreal English speaker dared raise his voice, in case a francophone identified him and gave him a dirty look.

So many little slights aimed at English speakers; it was oppressive. Yes, it was partly the "tongue-troopers" of the OQLF, and their rules about French prominence: English-language bookstores have all their store sections titled in French. Merchants's signs, if bilingual, have to write the English text smaller. Little injuries like that.

But what really bothered me was this constant undertone that there was something wrong with me because I spoke English. Especially off the island proper of Montreal, in the PQ-iste South Shore. A constant undertone of hostility.

I understand the history. For centuries the English upper class dominated the province, and only with the Quiet Revolution of the 60s did the oppressed French shake off the shackles that bound them. They also broke bonds with the church, which sided with the authorities. Today Quebec is secular to a fault. But the 70s and 80s brought waves of laws which claimed to protect the French language, but were just revenge for previous oppression by rich English.

French was not in danger. But resentment ran deep, and, this being Canada, no one was imprisoned in a concentration camp, but you certainly felt ostracized.

Paradoxically, I see this slight backtracking by the OQLF as a manifestation of the success of the French-only agenda: there is a lot more bilingualism, and corrupt French businessmen run the province, replacing the corrupt English businessmen of 50 years ago. The generation that remembers times when English ran the place is getting very long in the tooth, and the new generation (many of them children of immigrants) have no quarrel with the past.
posted by Zpt2718 at 9:29 AM on September 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

Today Quebec is secular to a fault.

Somebody ought to tell the giant cross in the National Assembly.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:47 PM on September 22, 2017 [3 favorites]