I saw this first image — an ad from the SAQ — when walking past a bus shelter. Click on the image to see the full size. The text in the ad reads:
Aspergez-vous de bruine en pouche-pouche ou passez à la SAQ Spray yourself with mist from a spray bottle or visit the SAQ
What on earth does this mean?
The SAQ is where you buy wine, spirits and liquors in Québec. It’s similar to the liquor corporations, commissions and control boards in other provinces, like Ontario’s LCBO. SAQ stands for la Société des alcools du Québec.
In this ad, the SAQ is telling us we can keep cool this summer by a) spraying mist on ourselves with a spray bottle or b) getting drunk by consuming refreshingly cold alcoholic drinks bought at the SAQ.
Do you remember the words feeling, chaudasse and chaud from entry #808 to describe two different states of drunkenness? The expressions être chaudasse and être feeling mean only partially drunk, like when you’re buzzed or tipsy, but être chaud is used to describe being completely drunk.
And what about the term un pouche-pouche, which refers to a spray bottle? We first saw an example of pouche-pouche in entry #800. In that example, a mother-to-be with a slightly detached placenta asked in an online forum if it’s okay to take a dip in the pool on hot days. Another woman provided her with this advice to keep cool:
Moi, j’ai toujours un pouche-pouche d’eau dans le réfrigérateur. Quand je me peux pus, je m’arrose de cette eau très froide et OH que ça fait du bien! I always keep a spray bottle filled with water in the refrigerator. When I can’t take it anymore, I spray myself with the cold water and OH does it ever feel good!
The mother-to-be referred to her slightly detached placenta as un léger décollement placentaire. I do try my best to find the most relevant French vocabulary for you to learn, you know!
Oh, and do you remember in entries #762 and #771 how we looked at the use of the word un selfie in French? And how the OQLF has endorsed the use of the words une autophoto and un égoportrait in an attempt to replace selfie?
In #762, I posted the image of an ad from Vidéotron where the word selfie appeared in French. But, just the other day, I noticed that Fido (another mobile phone company) had chosen to use the word autophoto instead at their kiosk in a shopping centre.
The text in the image reads:
Partagez une autophoto de votre chien sur les réseaux sociaux Share your dog’s selfie on social networks
This doesn’t mean the word selfie has already been replaced in regular language, of course. Despite the use of autophoto in this example, my guess is that selfie is here to stay.
Egoportrait is another term I spotted in Montréal.