Toujours Sexy

Since I started teaching in Quebec, I feel like I've been in a constant state of shock. I was spoiled by the respectful, well behaved students I taught in Korea and I still have trouble adjusting to the differences. Fearless six year olds are a frightening thing. They know that there is absolutely nothing that you can do to them to make them work. I have witnessed temper tantrums involving ripping posters off walls, running around the classroom throwing things around, even spitting water all over the place. Each and every time I encounter one of these situations, I contemplate how happy I am that Fred and I agree on never having children. It is becoming harder and harder, I think, to point to the parents as the source of trouble. It's society as a whole.

Last year, I was shocked by the grade two class I was teaching when I noticed them giving each other the finger. That same class used the word sexy to describe everything under the sun- a word I know was never used in any of my classes... although I did go to Catholic school. Then the other day at Provigo, I passed by the deli section and saw the sign below;


It's an ad for tourtière, a traditional québécois pie, described as Always Sexy. What? Really? What is so sexy about tourtière, I wondered. Does it take a special person to make sexy tourtière? Is there a dress code? Does the beef and the pork have to be ground by sexy hands? What about the garlic? Is there garlic in a sexy tourtière? I wouldn't think so. I guess that's where these kids get it from. If a tourtière is sexy, why can't I call my classmates sexy? Why not my teacher? My eraser? The colour blue?

Embarrassing errors in Asia were understandable. English signs were everywhere, but they didn't have enough English speakers to correct and edit them before they went up. And they were too proud. In Canada, it's a completely different story. I would be interested in sitting down with the marketing team for this particular brand of tourtière, to help me understand what it is they were trying to say with this campaign. They definitely know what sexy means. So it isn't in the same category of errors as the sign I saw at La Ronde last week that said Dis is a Trill Trill Ride. To be fair, they were screwing up the French as well at La Ronde. Apparently the Office de la langue française hasn't been around in awhile. Or nobody knows how to write the French language. One or the other. Maybe a little of both.


It's unfortunate that we're getting to a point where so few people can write effectively. Can be understood. An Anglophone girl in one of my classes spelled dumb D-I-M-E. That's trouble. If she were francophone, I'd let it go. But for a girl of eleven not to be able to spell a simple four letter word, there's something that's not right.

In studying for this stupid French test that I still haven't taken, here's some French terms brought to you by the Office de la langue française. For those of you that speak French, it's hilarious. Ils sont pris de la section vocabulaire du livre de révision, qui cherche à adresser le problème d'anglicismes, barbarismes, paronymes et de synonymes dans les textes français.

• J'ai fait une demande d'emploi (au lieu d'application).
• N'oublie pas de verrouiller la porte (au lieu de barrer).
• Mets des agrafes dans l'agrafeuse (au lieu de brocheuse).
• Voilà un bel appareil photo (au lieu de caméra).
• J'ai apporté mon acte de naissance (au lieu de certificat de naissance).
• Nous avons l'air conditionné dans nos bureaux (au lieu d'air climatisé).
• Vous devez remplir un formulaire (au lieu de complèter).
  
• Je descendais de l'autobus au moment où tu montais (au lieu de débarquer et embarquer).
• Lisez bien le modes d'emploi (au lieu les instructions)

Il y a plusieurs des examples qui s'emploient jamais au Québec et semble être tellement ridicule- (comme le terme air conditioné), mais au moins ils ont des normes...