tête carrée
retrosorter
as a derogatory term for an anglophone?
Adrian Bailey
news:1107045315.9...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
Does anyone know the origin of the term "tete carrée" used in Quebec
as a derogatory term for an anglophone?
I'd say "tete rectangulaire" is more appropriate.
Adrian
Ken Berry
Possibly a swipe at the 'round heads' who governed England a few decades
after the foundation of Quebec; but also carrying the nice overtone of
'blockhead'???
--
Ken Berry
e-mail: kbe...@cyberone.com.au
sa...@allstream.net
"retrosorter" <hric...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:1107045315.9...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
as a derogatory term for an anglophone?
Square head. It's what Brits used to call Germans, isn't it? So, there's a
parallel.
Why do French Quebeckers call English-speakers "blokes"? To them it's
derogatory for some reason.
Cheers, Sage
Jean Dufresne
>
> Does anyone know the origin of the term "tete carrée" used in Quebec
> as a derogatory term for an anglophone?
I don't know, but here are a few guesses. It is probably a translation
of the English expression "squarehead". "Squarehead" had been used to
describe German soldiers (possibly originating from the shape of the old
german helmets) and, by extension, Germans in general. It has known
some popularity at some time in American slang to describe German and
Scandinavian immigrants to the United States. The German also returned
the compliment since, apparently, they themselves had a German slang
word for describing the English and which translates as "canister
head". How the expression "squarehead" made it into Quebec slang, I
don't know. It may have also been somewhat amalgamated with the other
English word "blockhead" (a dense person) [1]. In Quebec slang, the
basic meaning of "tête carrée" is more specific than what you mentioned
above. It describes in particular a bigot, the sort of obtuse and
arrogant person who is convinced of his innate superiority and is a
nostalgic of the times of the colonial rule over other peoples.
[1] A word often used, for example, in the "Peanuts" comics:
http://www.canterburybooks.com/si/4187.html
--
Jean
retrosorter
I found this item online which seems to imply that the term tête
carrée was first applied in Lorraine, France to Germans:
Un terme parfois utilisé en Lorraine est tête carrée. Cette
expression est aussi employée par les Québécois envers les Canadiens
anglais. Cela renvoie aux idées d'uniformité, de fermeture
d'esprit, d'absence de rondeur et donc de politesse ou de
civilisation.
Jacques Guy
> I don't know, but here are a few guesses. It is probably a translation
> of the English expression "squarehead". "Squarehead" had been used to
> describe German soldiers (possibly originating from the shape of the old
> german helmets) and, by extension, Germans in general.
My mother (born in 1904) used to tell me how surprised she
was when the Germans invaded in WWII, and "they were people
just like us, they didn't have square heads at all as we'd
been told they had". Much later I read somewhere (I wish
I remembered where) that--what's it called? skull-moulding
or something like that, anyway, the custom of binding babies'
heads in wooden boards in order to shape their skulls when
they are still malleable, was observed in parts of Germany
as late as in the 19th century, and that the heads of the
locals were indeed squarish. This custom of skull
deformation may well be a universal perversion, like
circumcision, lip-plugs and so on, which you find all
over the world. So if it happened in Mexico and in Peru
(deformation into conical heads), why not also in Germany
and perhaps even England (into square heads)?
Steven M (remove wax and invalid to reply)
<dufr...@globetrotter.net> skribis:
>retrosorter wrote:
>>
>> Does anyone know the origin of the term "tete carrée" used in Quebec
>> as a derogatory term for an anglophone?
>
>I don't know, but here are a few guesses. It is probably a translation
>of the English expression "squarehead". "Squarehead" had been used to
>describe German soldiers (possibly originating from the shape of the old
>german helmets) and, by extension, Germans in general.
That's interesting. While growing up in Venezuela I met a handful of
Germans who had immigrated to Venezuela, mostly in the 1940's-1960's.
Some of them kiddingly called themselves "cabezas cuadradas". A few
other Venezuelans called them that, too, usually with affection (but
not always).
--
Steven M - uns...@hal-pc.orgwax.invalid (remove wax and invalid to reply)
The Italian Catholic magazine Vita Pastorale, in its February 1995
issue, advised priests who own cellular phones to keep them out of
the confessional, or at least turn them off when administering the
sacraments to the faithful. "Has good sense escaped even men of God?"
John Atkinson
"Jacques Guy" <jg...@alphalink.com.au> wrote...
> Jean Dufresne wrote:
>
> > I don't know, but here are a few guesses. It is probably a translation
> > of the English expression "squarehead". "Squarehead" had been used to
> > describe German soldiers (possibly originating from the shape of the old
> > german helmets) and, by extension, Germans in general.
>
> My mother (born in 1904) used to tell me how surprised she
> was when the Germans invaded in WWII, and "they were people
> just like us, they didn't have square heads at all as we'd
> been told they had". Much later I read somewhere (I wish
> I remembered where) that--what's it called? skull-moulding
> or something like that, anyway, the custom of binding babies'
> heads in wooden boards in order to shape their skulls when
> they are still malleable, was observed in parts of Germany
> as late as in the 19th century, and that the heads of the
> locals were indeed squarish.
Actually, the custom of head-moulding was especially prevalent in Holland
and all over France (except for the Loire valley). Apparently, "the
distortions became so characteristic of certain districts that the various
forms served as marks of regional identity". It was done using a
constricting bandeau or a tight-fitting cap which caused the forehead to
slope back so that the skull became flattened, "like the segment of a cone."
Just the opposite of "square headed". Maybe the French called the Germans
that because most of them *didn't* wear their skulls lengthened in this
way...
Supposedly in the 1930s some German parents did reshape their babies' heads
(by hand-massaging, like the Torres Strait Islanders), to transform the
despised round head into the favoured long dolichocephalic style of the
master race.
More plausibly, the German soldiers were called "squareheads" for the same
reason as Cromwell's soldiers were "roundheads" and fifties hepcats were
"flattops" -- because they wore their hair cut short in characteristic
styles.
John.
Raymond S. Wise
Under the entry for "carré" in the "Trésor de la Langue Française
informatisé" at
there are two meanings given for "tête carrée." One is identified as
dated and means a person with clear, solid judgment. The other is a
pejorative term meaning, I take it, someone who is stubborn and
closed-minded. It's not identified as either an informal or a regional
usage. The change in meaning appears to have taken place between 1835
and 1935. See the relevant entries in the 6th edition and the 8th
edition of the *Dictionnaire de l'Académie française* at
<http://colet.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/dico1look.pl?strippedhw=tete&dicoid=ACAD1835>
and
<http://colet.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/dico1look.pl?strippedhw=tete&dicoid=ACAD1932>
The Quebec use of the term would appear to be a regional variation of
the "stubborn, closed-minded person" sense.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
Jacques Guy
> Actually, the custom of head-moulding was especially prevalent in Holland
> and all over France (except for the Loire valley). Apparently, "the
> distortions became so characteristic of certain districts that the various
> forms served as marks of regional identity".
Giving us a source wouldn't have hurt awfully, would it? Enfin...
> It was done using a
> constricting bandeau or a tight-fitting cap which caused the forehead to
> slope back so that the skull became flattened, "like the segment of a cone."
That describes the Mayan and Peruvian distortions.
> Supposedly in the 1930s some German parents did reshape their babies' heads
> (by hand-massaging, like the Torres Strait Islanders), to transform the
> despised round head into the favoured long dolichocephalic style of the
> master race.
> More plausibly, the German soldiers were called "squareheads" for the same
> reason as Cromwell's soldiers were "roundheads" and fifties hepcats were
> "flattops" -- because they wore their hair cut short in characteristic
> styles.
Or equally plausibly it was complete bullshit, like what Jacques
Frexinos
reports in his "Les ventres serrés--histoire naturelle et sociale de la
constipation et des constipés" (Editions Louis Pariente, ISBN 2-902474-
84-9), pp. 56ff
"La polychésie de la race allemande ! " :
où vont se placer le patriotisme et l'esprit revanchard ?
"Je fus logé," tells a certain Henri Leclerc in a book published
in 1924, "dans une des maisons les plus luxueuses de la ville, où
les officiers du Kaiser, surpris en pleine orgie, avaient laissé
de leur séjour les marques auxquelles se reconnaît la culture
germanique: meubles éventrés, tentures lacérées, glaces réduites
en miettes, futailles défoncées, le tout gisant au milieu d'un
indescriptible cloaque de vin et d'ordure; ce dont on ne peut se
faire une idée, c'est la quantité d'immondices qu'avaient
essaimée les auteurs de ce cataclysme: il y en avait partout,
sur les tapis, sur les rideaux, le long des murs: un acrobate
de la bande avait poussé l'habileté jusqu'à en répandre une
couche abondante sur les épaule d'une victoire de Samothrace;
d'autres s'étaient assigné la tâche d'en remplir, à force de
labeur et de patience, un vase de cristal à long col et d'étroite
embouchure... [and so on, and so on, for half a page]"
Donna Richoux
> Does anyone know the origin of the term "tete carrée" used in Quebec
> as a derogatory term for an anglophone?
There are historical French dictionaries at the ARTFL Project for
1600-1900.
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/efts/ARTFL/projects/dicos/
They show that "tete carrée" was a positive term in the 1700s and 1800s:
Fig. et fam., C'est une tête carrée, C'est un homme qui a beaucoup
de justesse et de solidité de jugement.
But it picked up negative overtones by the early 1900s:
Fig. et fam., C'est une tête carrée, C'est un homme résolu, entêté,
obstiné.
I don't find much of a clue as to why "carré" in the first place.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
John Dean
OED's earliest (1890) definition of "squarehead" is "an honest person".
One of their cites for misc. trans. and fig. uses is:
1958 'Castle' & 'Hailey' Flight into Danger i. 13 This plane is crammed
with squareheads who are going to Vancouver+to root like hell for their
boys.
So there's the Canadian connection again.
--
John Dean
Oxford
Evertjan.
> Does anyone know the origin of the term "tete carrée" used in Quebec
> as a derogatory term for an anglophone?
>
<http://www.e-paranoids.com/l/li/list_of_ethnic_slurs.html>
--
Evertjan.
The Netherlands.
(Replace all crosses with dots in my emailaddress)
josephus
retrosorter wrote:
anecqudotally, when I grew up in Texas, I had occaision to met some
second generations immigrants from Autstria/Czeckslovakia. They often
refered to each other as flatheadded polocs. These were Czeck and
German children. The area was a town North of Waco; it was called West.
I lived in Abbott and shopped in West.
Ken Berry
'four square' to indicate something solid or solidly based.
Kevin O'Donnell
twentieth century that has the sentence ... "For ther eis something there
that sounds so square, it's a grand old name." The "square" here is meant
to be complimentary. Kevin
"Ken Berry" <ken....@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:41fccedf$0$44275$c30e...@ken-reader.news.telstra.net...
Mike Lyle
[...]
> futailles défoncées, [...]
Qu'est-ce que c'est qu'une futaille? Sorte de fauteuil?
Et "polychésie"?
Mike.
Jess Askin
"Adrian Bailey" <da...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:5dWKd.17993$v8....@fe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
Sacrebleu! Shoorley yoo mean parallélépipèd?
Donna Richoux
> Qu'est-ce que c'est qu'une futaille? Sorte de fauteuil?
>
> Et "polychésie"?
>
> Mike.
Google Language Tools translates your question as:
What is it that a cask? Left armchair? And "polychesy"? Mike.
Mike Lyle
Well, they got the name right, which is something, I suppose.
Veuillez agréer, chère Madame, mes sentiments les plus distingués,
Michel.
Ken Berry
Can't help with 'polychésie', however. The nearest I can find is a
pharmacological term 'polychreste' (or polycreste) meaning a substance
which has more than one use.
--
Ken Berry
Tel/Fax: (61 2) 6258 0032
Mobile: 0429 99 88 67
Coast: (61 2) 4471 5782
e-mail: kbe...@cyberone.com.au
Ken Berry
defecations as in "défèque énormément (près de trois kilos par jour):
c’est la «polychésie», voire l’«hyperchésie», puisque toutes ces
spécificités germaniques sont, comme il se doit dans un ouvrage médical,
désignées par des mots savants".
(http://www.nouvelobs.com/articles/p1948/a12470.html )
rban...@shaw.ca
wrote:
What's a box but squared? And leave me alone Rey!
John Atkinson
"Jacques Guy" <jg...@alphalink.com.au> wrote...
> John Atkinson wrote:
>
> > Actually, the custom of head-moulding was especially prevalent in
Holland
> > and all over France (except for the Loire valley). Apparently, "the
> > distortions became so characteristic of certain districts that the
various
> > forms served as marks of regional identity".
>
> Giving us a source wouldn't have hurt awfully, would it?
Robert Brain, The Decorated Body pp 89-93 (Harper and Rowe, 1979) is the one
I have at hand. It's hardly the most reliable book around though. I've
seen many others of more academic credibility which say the same thing, but
can't remember the refs. Except the granddaddy of them all, Eric Dingwall,
Artificial Cranial Deformation (1931). Oh yes, there's also the Australian
Museum site, http://www.amonline.net.au/bodyart/shaping/headbinding.htm
> > It was done using a
> > constricting bandeau or a tight-fitting cap which caused the forehead to
> > slope back so that the skull became flattened, "like the segment of a
cone."
>
> That describes the Mayan and Peruvian distortions.
Also the melanesian and central african versions, as well as those of the
huns and other central asian nomads of a millenium or two ago.
John.
Jacques Guy
> Artificial Cranial Deformation (1931). Oh yes, there's also the Australian
> Museum site, http://www.amonline.net.au/bodyart/shaping/headbinding.htm
Voilà! C'est-y pas mieux comme ça! Fallait le faire savoir dès le début,
bordel!
(I like the girl there:
http://www.amonline.net.au/bodyart/images/shape/africa.jpg)
"In the Normandy region it was customary to bind a child's head with
at least two coiffures (headresses) and a piece of canvas to tightly
compress the skull."
Holy mackerel! (*fumbling at my skull*)... Do I... am I?????
y.eu...@inbox.ru
d'histoire
contemporaine sur la 1ère guerre, où on avait eu un texte de
propagande
anti-allemande dans lequel il était *scientifiquement* expliqué que
les
"Allemands urinent par les pieds" [texto la chute]. I had asked the
professor
to give me the exact reference of this text (as it was a simple
photocopy)
but he had lost it, unfortunately, so I never knew where this
literature came
from. It does not appear in the Nouvel Obs' paper quoted below (but
maybe
in the book criticized in this article ?).
Jacques Guy
Faut demander à M'sieur Google:
"http://www.orl75.com/journal/lettre1/1odorat.html"
" Un certain docteur Bérillon, expliquait ainsi l'odeur
particulièrement insupportable des pieds ennemis : l'urine
des Allemands est beaucoup plus toxique que celle des Français,
ne pouvant éliminer normalement tous les éléments uriques,
en raison de leur fonction rénale surmenée par leur boulimie,
les Allemands éliminent le surplus par la région plantaire.
On peut donc dire qu'ils urinent par les pieds."
Jacques Guy
A devilish idea came over me: how about asking
"Berillon allemands"? And I did. Wow!
"Ainsi Berillon prétend que les Allemands ont des intestins
plus longs que ceux des autres peuples (2,70 m en plus!),
ce qui les prédisposent (sic !)à la polychésie (défécation
excessive) et au bromidrosis (odeur corporelle)"
("http://www.francofil.se/nouvelle/leguide/Film/film1204.htm")
"Le docteur Edgar Berillon se faisait fort en 1870 de
reconnaître les espions allemands à la taille de leurs
intestins parce que les Allemands les ont plus longs
de 2,70 mètres que les autres peuples."
("http://www.nouvelobs.com/articles/p2044/a229270.html")
"BERILLON (Docteur). - La polychrésie de la race allemande.
Das übertriebene Darmleerungsbedürfnis der deutschen Rasse.
Superlienteria germanica. - Extrait des Bulletins et
Mémoires de la Société de Médecine de Paris, séance du
25 juin 1915.
P., Maloine & fils, 1915.
24 x 16 cm, 20 p. Broché.
'La polychrésie est la manifestation d'une suractivité
anormale de la fonction intestinale? Dans tous les cas,
la polychrésie est la démonstration formelle de l'infériorité
à la fois physiologique et psychologique de la race allemande'.
Cet ouvrage vous est proposé par la Librairie Solstices.
Euro 150.00"
("http://www.galaxidion.com/home/catalogues.php?LIB=solstices&CAT=2795&sortOrder=alpha")
mb
starting to feel used and empty.
Jacques Guy
>
> De mieux en mieux: de la polychésie ŕ la polychrésie, they must be
> starting to feel used and empty.
Yes, "polychrésie" is another mystery. Or has it
got to do with le Saint Chresme?
mb
>>mb wrote:
>> De mieux en mieux: de la polychésie à la polychrésie, they must
be
>> starting to feel used and empty.
>Yes, "polychrésie" is another mystery. Or has it
>got to do with le Saint Chresme?
That would be nice. At least, it would be more original than
polychrésie, aka frequent or excessive use from chrêsis. As in "La
pile Mazda ne s'use qu'en cas de polychrésie". That a longer gut can
cause polychésie is not evident, biologically speaking. Polychrésie,
however, is guaranteed. Ah, je les envie pas, ces pauv' Frisés.
rban...@shaw.ca
<jg...@alphalink.com.au> wrote:
>mb wrote:
>>
>> De mieux en mieux: de la polychésie à la polychrésie, they must be
>> starting to feel used and empty.
>
>Yes, "polychrésie" is another mystery. Or has it
>got to do with le Saint Chresme?
I think it's the Bretons, not Normans, who have all those wishing-well
Saints.
Mike Lyle
> On Tue, 01 Feb 2005 18:57:48 +1000, Jacques Guy
> <jg...@alphalink.com.au> wrote:
>> Yes, "polychrésie" is another mystery. Or has it
>> got to do with le Saint Chresme?
>
> I think it's the Bretons, not Normans, who have all those
wishing-well
> Saints.
Why we chuck coins in water, I often wonder. Do humans have a deep
instinct about the spirits of place? The sacredness of running water?
At Chedworth Roman Villa before Christmas I noticed that there were
coins in the spring. Horace sacrificed a kid to the Bandusian Fount,
of course; but money sacrifices are given to the most un-nymph-like
and monstrous chlorinated modern city-centre fountains.
On that subject, if any connoisseur of aboriginal sacred places
happens upon a little estuary-side place in SW Wales called
Llansteffan (not a bad pub), they should walk round the cliffs to St
Antony's Well. One's always alone there. It's most beautifully
maintained by the owners of the land, but tiny and low-key; I took an
Australian Aboriginal friend to see it, and he was very moved. There
are coins in that, too.
Mike.
Charles Riggs
<mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>rban...@shaw.ca wrote:
>> On Tue, 01 Feb 2005 18:57:48 +1000, Jacques Guy
>> <jg...@alphalink.com.au> wrote:
>[...]
>>> Yes, "polychrésie" is another mystery. Or has it
>>> got to do with le Saint Chresme?
>>
>> I think it's the Bretons, not Normans, who have all those
>wishing-well
>> Saints.
>
>Why we chuck coins in water, I often wonder. Do humans have a deep
>instinct about the spirits of place? The sacredness of running water?
Not the sacredness so much, as the sexuality of water. Water is a
turn-on for many of us.
--
Charles Riggs
There are no accented letters in my email address
Robin Bignall
wrote:
>On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 20:20:26 -0000, "Mike Lyle"
><mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>rban...@shaw.ca wrote:
>>> On Tue, 01 Feb 2005 18:57:48 +1000, Jacques Guy
>>> <jg...@alphalink.com.au> wrote:
>>[...]
>>>> Yes, "polychrésie" is another mystery. Or has it
>>>> got to do with le Saint Chresme?
>>>
>>> I think it's the Bretons, not Normans, who have all those
>>wishing-well
>>> Saints.
>>
>>Why we chuck coins in water, I often wonder. Do humans have a deep
>>instinct about the spirits of place? The sacredness of running water?
>
>Not the sacredness so much, as the sexuality of water. Water is a
>turn-on for many of us.
Some people are turned on easily, Charles. One of my local DIY
emporiums has a mock well, about two feet deep, to advertise the fact
that they sell pumps for ponds. That has coins in it, too.
--
wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall
Hertfordshire
England
Peter Moylan
Whatever you think of Google Language Tools, you'll have to agree
that "left armchair" displays the sort of lateral thinking that
would never occur to a human translator.
Strangely enough, Google did a much better job on your formule de
politesse.
--
Peter Moylan peter at ee dot newcastle dot edu dot au
http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au (OS/2 and eCS information and software)
Jim Ward
<mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>Why we chuck coins in water, I often wonder. Do humans have a deep
>instinct about the spirits of place?
I can't remember reading about the Romans chucking coins into
fountains. Must be a modern tradition.
Mike Lyle
They did sacrifice to springs, though (I mentioned Horace earlier).
And I think healing springs were given representations of the part of
the body which appeared to have been healed: these weren't coins, but
they were often of metal.
Mike.
jerry_f...@yahoo.com
> On Tue, 01 Feb 2005 13:21:23 -0800, Charles Riggs
<chriggs@éircom.net>
> wrote:
>
> >On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 20:20:26 -0000, "Mike Lyle"
> ><mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> >>Why we chuck coins in water, I often wonder. Do humans have a deep
> >>instinct about the spirits of place? The sacredness of running
water?
> >
> >Not the sacredness so much, as the sexuality of water. Water is a
> >turn-on for many of us.
>
> Some people are turned on easily, Charles. One of my local DIY
> emporiums has a mock well, about two feet deep, to advertise the fact
> that they sell pumps for ponds. That has coins in it, too.
For some people, size doesn't matter.
--
Jerry Friedman
Edward Hennessey
"Ken Berry" <ken....@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:41fccedf$0$44275$c30e...@ken-reader.news.telstra.net...
K.B.:
I agree with that but think a more fundamental dynamic is the suggestive use
of rectilinear and the curvilinear as representing related moral
distinctions like rectitude and the opposing concept of crookedness or
snakiness which involves deviation, danger, unpredictability,
unfaithfulness, evil
and so on.
Regards,
Edward Hennessey
Maria Conlon
> Robin Bignall wrote:
>> Charles Riggs wrote:
>>> Mike Lyle wrote:
> ...
>>>> Why we chuck coins in water, I often wonder. Do humans have a deep
>>>> instinct about the spirits of place? The sacredness of running
>>>> water?
>>>
>>> Not the sacredness so much, as the sexuality of water. Water is a
>>> turn-on for many of us.
>>
>> Some people are turned on easily, Charles. One of my local DIY
>> emporiums has a mock well, about two feet deep, to advertise the fact
>> that they sell pumps for ponds. That has coins in it, too.
> For some people, size doesn't matter.
Good one, Jerry. <laugh>
Maria Conlon
sa...@allstream.net
"Jim Ward" <tomca...@NyOaShPoAoM.com> wrote in message
news:r31201t8uigjvkvjt...@4ax.com...
"Three coins in a fountain" was sung in Rome, wasn't it?
Cheers, Sage
Mike Lyle
Mike.
abse...@gmail.com
> Does anyone know the origin of the term "tete carrée" used in Quebec
> as a derogatory term for an anglophone?
Peter Moylan
--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW
Ross Clark
And exactly what sort of hat? One of these?
https://www.google.com/search?q=four-cornered+hat&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b
None of them looks like anything I'd associate with "English colonists".
On the other hand, Scandinavians and Germans have been called
"squareheads" in English -- apparently something to do with typical
hair styles. It's also been used to mean "stupid person".
This comes from Green's Slang Dictionary. It also has one citation
of "squarehead" with reference to Anglophones in Quebec -- a 1978
issue of _Maledicta_. I'll see if I can get hold of that.