OffQc | Québécois French Guide

Here’s an adjective we haven’t seen yet on OffQc:

crinqué

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Maude Schiltz uses the adjective crinqué in her book Ah shit, j’ai pogné le cancer (tome 1). Interestingly, she gave two different meanings to this adjective in two different spots in her book.

In the first example, which we’ll see in a moment, she used the informal expression full crinqué in the negative sense of “totally cranky.”

In the second example, she used the expression full crinqué again, this time in the positive sense of “totally pumped.”

full crinqué, negative sense

When Maude used the adjective crinqué in the negative sense of “cranky” on page 341, she was talking about quitting smoking. She explained that she’d quit, but not until after her holiday with her chum.

She wanted to wait so that she wouldn’t ruin the holiday by being cranky due to nicotine withdrawl. Her trip with her chum was going to be a special moment and she didn’t want to spoil it:

[…] je ne veux pas le gâcher en étant full crinquée à cause d’un manque de nicotine.
I don’t want to spoil it by being totally cranky because of a lack of nicotine.

I’m sure you noticed the similarity between the way the words “cranky” and crinqué sound.

In other contexts, crinqué can mean less cranky and more all-out angry (you’ll see an example below), but I think “cranky” works well in this example. Cranky is the mood that comes to mind when thinking about quitting smoking.

full crinqué, positive sense

A few pages later, on page 344, Maude uses the adjective crinqué again, this time in the positive sense of “pumped,” when talking about photos of her trip.

She explains to her friends in an email that she’ll send her holiday photos immediately upon returning home if she’s got the energy for it:

On revient lundi (11 mars), probablement vers 21 h. Peut-être que je vais être full crinquée pis que je vais vouloir vous envoyer des photos tout de suite, mais ouf, j’en doute. Je pense plutôt que je vais être épuisée […].
We’ll be back on Monday (11 March), probably around 9 p.m. I might be all pumped and want to send photos right away, but sheesh, I doubt it. I think I’m going to be too exhausted.

Two meanings?

How’s it possible for crinqué to take on these two different meanings?

Crinqué comes from the verb crinquer, meaning “to crank” or “to wind up.” For example, crinquer un jouet means “to wind up a toy.”

If it’s a person who’s “wound up,” or crinqué, it doesn’t take much imagination to see how that might be applied to someone both in anger or raring to go.

Here are two more examples found through Google that demonstrate this double meaning.

A Facebook update written by Étienne Drapeau begins:

Je me suis levé positif et crinqué ben raide ce matin… Je respire la bonne humeur et je sens que je vais être en feu en répétition aujourd’hui!
I woke up feeling positive and totally pumped this morning… I’m in a fantastic mood and I think I’m gonna be on fire at my rehearsal today!

It’s very obvious from the wording whether we’re dealing with the positive or negative sense of crinqué.

Remember, ben raide is an informal usage meaning “totally.”

Another Facebook update demonstrates crinqué in its opposite sense, the negative one:

Le monde est crinqué ben raide. Ça commence à se bitcher sur Facebook pour des opinions.
Everybody’s totally angry. People are starting to bitch at each other on Facebook for having an opinion.

Context, it’s important!

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First two French quotes written by Maude Schiltz, Ah shit, j’ai pogné le cancer (tome 1), Éditions de Mortagne, Boucherville (Québec), 2013.