Be careful of swear words memequay, especially from another language. True and embarrassing story.
My wife and I are Anglos, and moved to Quebec to live for several years. While there we met and became good friends with a couple who introduced us to everything Quebecois, including the swear words. One day I overheard my friend Pierre use an expression I'd not heard before. Prendre une botte. (take a boot) Maybe your French Canadian wife can confirm this mem, or maybe this was just an expression from Pierre's village, I dunno. Anyway, I asked him "Take a boot? What's that mean Pierre?" He explained that it was a very informal slangy way of saying "take a walk". He insisted that it must be pronounced absolutely correctly, otherwise the results would be, well, he used the word "catastrophe". He made me practise the phrase several times before I left. I re-entered the world armed with a brand new slang. Excellent!! Soon afterwards on a Sunday morning I returned to our apartment building from a walk. I saw an elderly gentleman standing in the building foyer.I knew him as a dapper straight-laced neighbour, a very old school and proper gentleman. I thought "Great! A chance to try out my new slang!!" So I did.
(translated to English)
Me: Hello!
He: Hm. Hello.
Me: I just returned from a walk. I like to take a walk. It is a fine day for a walk!
He: Heh!?
Me: Will you take a walk? Will you and your wife take a walk? It is a fine day for you two to walk!!
He: Pffftt!!! (He was getting red in the face now. Is he warm in that suit?)
Me: My wife and I take walks everyday, sometimes we take a walk twice a day!!
He: Pffffftttt!!! (He was getting much redder now. Is he warm, or...angry?)
Me: Maybe you and your wife can join me and my wife and we can take a walk together?!
He: FFffffffff...(Yup. He was really red now. Looks ready to take a swing at me. Was it something I said?)
I said my good bye, but he just stood there fuming saying nothing. Hm. How rude of him. I bounced up the stairs and down the hall to our apartment to greet my wife. She was feeding the baby. Later I was feeling a little unsettled about the gentleman and his red face. I dropped in at my friend Pierre's apartment. I told him of my strange meeting in the foyer. He nervously asked me how I pronounced "my new slang". I ran through my entire "conversation", complete with verb tenses and everything! He grimaced, and there was that word again, "catastrophe". Pierre patiently explained that the reason one needed to pronounce the phrase properly was because if pronounced differently, as I had done, it had another more crude meaning. I was dying to know what I'd babbled to Monsieur in the suit. What can be so bad? Pierre said "It can also mean to "take a f***, you know, to have a f***. To have sex in a very informal way Brad. That's what you talked to the Monsieur about. Did you actually invite him and his wife to join you two?!!! And on a Sunday??!!" Oooh f***!
I begged Pierre and his lovely wife to make apologies to the kindly gentleman on my behalf. I never tried out that particular slang ever again. It was really hard to pass the Monsieur and his wife in the hall after that. Our wives would smile, I would stick to a safe "bonjour" and he would just quietly growl.
If Canot wins, I'm going to add two middle names to my name, initials will be TE standing for Tabarnak Esti!
