OffQc | Québécois French Guide

Lui: Hahaha! T’es devenue tellement intéressante! Je m’en crisse de ta plotte poilue. Elle: Hihihi, moi aussi je t’aime.

So, at the risk of increasing the number of visitors arriving here from Google looking for porn (there isn’t any, you perverts), let’s look at two vulgar words used to refer to the vagina and penis in Québécois French:

• la plotte (a vulgar word for le vagin)
• la graine (a vulgar word for le pénis)

In a comical letter written by Rabii Rammal, we discover an irreverent example of the word plotte in use.

In his letter, Rammal advances that it’s possible to say essentially anything to anybody without causing offence, provided that it’s said with finesse:

Je suis de ceux qui croient qu’on peut tout dire, mais qu’il y a une manière de le faire.

I’m one of those people who believes it’s possible to say anything, but there’s a (right) way to do it.

He discovered this, he explains, the day he witnessed a drunken friend criticise his female frequentation of the moment in a decidedly unclassy way.

What did the friend say to her?

« T’as beau être mannequin, mais t’es tellement superficielle. J’m’en fous de ton corps. Tu devrais passer moins de temps à t’épiler et plus de temps à t’éduquer. Tu deviendrais intéressante et peut-être que là, j’m’en crisserais de ta plotte poilue. »

“You may look like a model, but you’re so superficial. I don’t give a damn about your body. You should spend less time waxing yourself, and more time educating yourself. You’d become interesting, and maybe then I wouldn’t give a fuck about your hairy pussy.”

Now there’s a counterexample if I’ve ever read one.

In a different letter written by Rammal (this one addressed to a woman who was talking about her menstruations on the bus), we discover the word graine.

Rammal tells the woman that he’s unsure if she’ll consider his opinion. He quotes a comedian from Québec:

J’ignore si tu prendras en considération mon opinion. Après tout, comme le dit si bien Sébastien Ravary : « Ton opinion, c’est comme ta graine; tu la gardes pour toi jusqu’à ce que quelqu’un te la demande. »

I don’t know if you’ll consider my opinion. After all, as Sébastien Ravary put it so well: “Your opinion is like your dick; keep it to yourself until someone asks for it.”

If you haven’t yet discovered Rabii Rammal, I highly recommend his writing as an entertaining way to discover, ahem, new ways of saying things in colloquial French. You can follow the links below to read the letters that inspired today’s post.

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French quotes by Rabii Rammal in:

«Cher gars qui aime La Voix», Urbania, Montréal, 13 février 2014.

«Chère fille qui m’a montré son tampon ensanglanté», Urbania, Montréal, 10 octobre 2013.