Tetes Carres (This is the plural form, I believe.)
My computer speaks English, so please insert accents at your pleasure.
However, the Kebeck Language Police have not yet removed my apostrophes, so I still enjoy using them at will. It makes me feel so sneaky.
Phyllis Carter
Building Camelot One Essay At A Time.
TETE CARRE
A French-language slur used against "Anglophones" in Quebec. It means "square head" and is often used against English speakers who know little French. I wonder if this relates to "Blockhead"? Oh, well. What's in a name?
An English speaker - so called "Anglo-phone" - who tries to order food at a restaurant or ask for help in a shop or in the Montreal subway system - called Le Metro - using English or stumbling French - may overhear the term Tete Carre or Tete Carree if you are a girl or a woman - used against them.
Tete Carre - for men and boys - French is sex specific, of course. Pourquoi pas? Used by Francophones - French speakers - against Anglophone bigots, and by Francophone bigots against Anglophones. Fair is fair when it comes to bigotry, n'est pas?
By the way, Anglo Montrealers, through the years, have been known to refer to French speakers - those Franco-phones - nothing to do with the dictator, Franco, I think - "Pepsi" and "Frog".
I don't know for sure, but a Greek friend of mine who, decades ago - ran a diner on Sherbrooke Street West - not "Ouest", back then - told me the pseudonyms came as a result of the tastes of French speaking truck drivers who started their day very early at the diner with Pepsi Cola instead of cafe. I don't know if they expected to have frogs for breakfast instead of eggs. I think not. They probably liked bacon and eggs in the morning like most non-vegetarian folks.
Doesn't this get crazy?
Those of us who have French-Quebec-Canadian family members and friends - Christians and Jews - a variety of colours - are sick of all this garbage. Most people just want to live in peace and go about their business. But the bigots always get the press, the media attention, and thus, the media give power to lunatics and bigots.
So, folks, before the Montreal, Kebeck Police knock at my door again, and take me away again, for another thirty-day-mental-evaluation, I publish these observations for the world to see. Now with more than 137,000 readers worldwide.
JUSTICE QUEBEC STYLE:
THE PHYLLIS CARTER DETENTION and CONDEMNED IN ABSENTIA IN FOUR MINUTES/THE SUBURBAN WEEKLY NEWSPAPER/SEPTEMBER, 2007)
http://dawnmcsweeney.blogspot.com/2011/11/phyllis-carter-detention-condemned-in_6950.html
I would not be silent. I would not stop demanding justice. I would not stop talking about - writing about - the crimes committed by Dawn McSweeney and those she proudly called her "partners in crime" on her own blog. I had to be discredited, intimidated, punished, silenced.
1 comment:
ET LA TETE, ALOUETTE! OH! ALOUETTE....
My dear friend, Gerry, a Francophone completely at home in Anglais and whistling operatic arias, writes -
"Name calling is pertinent to kids I believe … or perhaps to people whose brains haven't grown to maturity yet! Tete caree is good for men and women; the extra "e" is not pertaining to the person, but to the person's head which is feminine in French. Some examples of the useless complexity: la main, le nez, la bouche, le front, and of course, la tete."
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