On a wall in a shopping centre in Montréal, I came across these blocks of text providing reasons to go shopping there. Let’s look at two of them.
C’est la fête de ma blonde.
It’s my girlfriend’s birthday.
Sushi avec la gang du bureau.
Sushi with the office crew.
Fête can be used to refer to a birthday. C’est ma fête aujourd’hui, for example, means it’s my birthday today. C’est la fête de ma blonde means it’s my girlfriend’s birthday, where une blonde is a girlfriend. Un gâteau de fête is a birthday cake. Bonne fête! Happy birthday!
Une blonde is a girlfriend, and un chum is a boyfriend. Blonde and chum might also be used to refer to a spouse. On the Wikitionnaire page for blonde, we find this usage note:
Traditionnellement, au Québec, les mots chum et blonde servent à désigner l’ami et l’amie de cœur, par opposition à mari/femme, époux/épouse ou conjoint/conjointe pour les couples mariés. Toutefois, depuis les années 1990, il est fréquent d’entendre des couples mariés utiliser les mots chum et blonde pour désigner le conjoint. Ce phénomène est attribuable à une image «vieux jeu» du mariage et à une volonté de ne pas révéler clairement si le couple est officiellement marié ou non. Cet usage est assez fréquent mais critiqué par certains qui le voient comme une dévalorisation du mariage.
In short, it says that chum and blonde were traditionally used to refer to boyfriends and girlfriends; however, since the 1990s, some married couples may also use them to avoid revealing their marital status or because other terms, like mari and femme, strike them as sounding old-fashioned. Some people see this usage as a corrosion of values regarding marriage.
Gang here is a feminine noun pronounced like its English equivalent. It can be used to refer to a group of friends (e.g., sortir avec la gang). La gang du bureau is an informal way to refer to one’s office co-workers.
Also noteworthy in the gang picture is “une belle nappe de dimanche” (a beautiful Sunday tablecloth).
Interestingly, when nappe was borrowed from Old French into English, it morphed into napkin, rather than the tablecloth.
Coincidentally, we’ve borrowed another word from French, serviette, a second way of referring to a napkin.
This isn’t universal to English everywhere, but is heard in Canada and perhaps more so in English-speaking Quebec?
I may be wrong, but the Canadian use of ‘serviette’ in English strikes me more as generational than regional.
Having grown up in Ottawa, the use of serviette was quite common, which I thought might have something to do with the mixing there of English and French. But you’re right, I don’t think it’s a regionalism per se.
I came across this interesting post:
http://geekmom.com/2013/12/55-canadianisms/
The author surveyed 104 Americans, 52 Canadians, and 19 Commonwealth residents about their familiarity and usage of possible Canadianisms.
When it comes to ‘serviette’, pretty much all the Canadians were familiar with it, with about half using it. Interestingly, almost all the Commonwealth residents used it.
Hadn’t thought about the Canadian use of ‘serviette’ being generational, but seems like you’re right in thinking so. There’s no source given, but this Wikipedia posts suggests it was only prevalent until the early 1980’s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napkin#Terminology
I wonder what changed. Perhaps it was the growing impact of American TV as the number of channels available began to expand rapidly. Or maybe it has something to do with the waves of new immigrant sources from the 1960’s and the dilution of a more British dominant culture.
That’s a really interesting post! I’m not sure what caused ‘serviette’ to decrease in use. The reason it struck me as generational is because I don’t believe I’ve heard newcomers to Canada say ‘serviette’ when speaking English, which makes me wonder about its prevalence these days (although they might learn ‘napkin’ before coming, so it’s not a reliable indicator). Also interesting is that ‘napkin’ is heard in the French of Québec.
I noticed about a couple who are close friends of mine from the Saguenay who are in their late thirties and married: He calls her ma blonde. She refers to him mon chum or mon amoureux.