C'est Quétaine!

It seems that I am a terrible blogger, and only able to put one post up every few months. I'll never get any more readers that way. Ah well.

Anyway, this is a post about the distinctly Québequois word "quétaine" (also spelt "kétaine"). It's an odd sort of word, one that is not immediately translatable into English. It shares a lot of parallels with the BrE "twee", tho it doesn't quite mean the same thing.

"Quétaine" was apparently first attested in the hamlet of Saint-Hyacinthe in the forties. It was used to describe the jarring mishmash of clothing that was worn by the poor who dressed themselves out of the church poor-boxes. This post attributes it to the poor people who were "quêtant" from house to house (cognate for English "questing") i.e. begging. A (to me) slightly more dubious etymology is cited on the French Wikipedia page; that it referred to the surname of a local family - the Keatons or "Quétonnes".

At any rate, the meaning of the word has shifted over the years. It now means something like kitchy or tacky, cheesy, or countrified, or "chavvy", or even "twee". And is used throughout Québec, not only in St-Hyacinthe.

I do find it interesting that a word like "quétaine", which originally referred to the dress of beggars, has managed to intersect with a word like "twee", which also holds connotations of "overly prim and proper". But both could readily be used to describe the verses in some hallmark cards.

I should note that the research for this post was nothing but the most rudimentary Google search, so I've probably missed something important.

Image credit to Benoit.Paillé

Grotty to the max, dude!

I just discovered (whilst trying to figure out how to spell 'mould') that grotty and grody are considered to be variant spellings of the same word! I would personally disagree. I can see how they could have begun as such, I feel that by now the connotations of each have diverged sufficiently to make them two separate words. In other news, my (mediocre) ability to spell seems to have left me this evening, I keep on having to go back to correct silly typos. Thank goodness I live in the era that developed the backspace key.

I leave you with a picture of a Grody catfish, which I stole from Shannon's blog (hi Shannon!)

Cow Powers

This is a cheat, as it's not something I wrote myself: from the "Funny requests from patrons" thread on Library Thing -

I was working the desk one day when a little boy (not more than 3, if that) approached my co-worker and asked for pictures of "cow powers." Attempts to pry further information from him came to naught...as did catalog and google searches and a desperate "Do you have any idea what he's looking for?" to his mother. Trying to think like a toddler, my co-worker asked "Had he seen cow-powers on TV? Were they a cartoon?" "I want cow powers" was the only reply. Hoping she was on the right track and knowing my love of all-things-animated, she turned to me and asked did I know about the Cow Powers? Didn't ring a bell...but something clicked in my brain and I turned to the little boy and asked "Are you looking for books about caterpillars?" Apparently I'd correctly translated the Toddlerese for he gave the two of us a big grin and announced "Cow powers are BUGS!" So hand in hand we wandered over to the 595.789s where we found lots of "cow powers."

I'm just astonished that the mother didn't know what the kid was talking about

kyriarchy

I just learnt a great new word, and I wanted to share it:

kyriarchy (N)

kyriarchy - a neologism coined by Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza and derived from the Greek words for "lord" or "master" (kyrios) and "to rule or dominate" (archein) which seeks to redefine the analytic category of patriarchy in terms of multiplicative intersecting structures of domination...Kyriarchy is best theorized as a complex pyramidal system of intersecting multiplicative social structures of superordination and subordination, of ruling and oppression.

This is presented in contrast to the commonly used (and derided) term 'patriarchy' to describe the privileged and dominant class. In the same glossary, 'patriarchy' is defined as:

patriarchy - Literally means the rule of the father and is generally understood within feminist discourses in a dualistic sense as asserting the domination of all men over all women in equal terms. The theoretical adequacy of patriarchy has been challenged because, for instance, black men to not have control over white wo/men and some women (slave/mistresses) have power over subaltern women and men (slaves).

- Glossary, Wisdom Ways, Orbis Books New York 2001

Essentially, this is a word which is is far more useful than 'patriarchy' when discussing equality in this world where a complex hierarchical system of one's race, sex, sexual/gender orientation, faith (or lack thereof), cultural background, able-bodiedness, and social and/or educational class (amongst a myriad of other factors) interact to determine one's level of privilege and/or oppression.

To discuss the 'kyriarchy' is to discuss the institutionalised system which oppresses some whilst affording others a greater level of power and privilege. I would encourage anyone (who hasn't already) to read this article, as it was one of the many things which have caused me to recently re-examine my own experience of privilege.

I was prompted to write this after reading this post, along with many others, and was sparked by a comment on this site.

Farewell to the language of Bo

The BBC reports that the last speaker of Bo has died, taking her language to the grave with her. We can be thankful that Boa Sr was working with linguists in the last years of her life, so corpora of data on this Andaman tongue exist. In memoriam:

On the Coast of Coromandel
Where the early pumpkins blow,
In the middle of the woods
Lived the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò.
Two old chairs, and half a candle,--
One old jug without a handle,--
These were all his worldly goods:
In the middle of the woods,
These were all the worldly goods,
Of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò,
Of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò.