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The round of the swearwords
Here’s the round
of the swearwords
that used to sing out clearly and dance rondo-style,
when the Gauls
in best of taste
followed the rule of speaking plainly,
swearing there,
swearing here,
swearing rather vigorously,
the gleesome swearwords rolling out
like beads on a rosary:
[Chorus:]
All the morbleus1 , all the ventrebleus,
the sacrebleus and the cornegidouilles,
as well, parbleu, as the jarnibleus
and the palsambleus,
all the cristis, the ventres saint gris,
the “by my beard”s and the noms d'une pipe,
as well, by gad, as the sapristis
and the sacristis,
not forgeting the jarnicotons,
the scrogneugneus et les bigres and the bougres,
the saperlottes, the cré nom de noms,
the plague, and pouah, fichtre and foutre,
all the Good Gods,
all the vertudieus
tonerre de Brest and saperlipopette,
as well, by God, as the jarnidieus
and the pasquedieus.
What a pity!
The lorry drivers
have a cleaned up language!
The fishwives
and the shrews
no longer speak carelessly!
The old bad language handbook2
is now hardly used at all by the hussars...
They’ve had their day, and we mourn them,
the gleesome swearwords of times gone by.
[Chorus]
- 1. For this and other French swearwords see the Author's Comments section below – having a separate footnote for each instead of putting them all together would use too much space on the page
- 2. Le “Catéchisme poissard”, published by Vadé in 1758, was a collection of words and phrases used as insults or swearwords by people at the Les Halles market in Parish, mainly language used by fisheives; and the phrase now mans any collection of bad (indecent, obscene, or blasphemous) words and phrases.
Sciera✕
Comments
michealt
Thu, 01/02/2018 - 20:33
Thanks Pierre.
That meaning of raccourci is new to me.
I don't think it would be right to translate "charretier" as "trooper" here. In context it means someone who transported goods to Les Halles (I think).
The fishwives' reputation was already well-established in teh 18th century - as evidenced by Vadé's choice of them as his main source.
PaotrLaouen
Wed, 18/03/2020 - 10:23
"Pasquedieu" is rather "(Par la) Pâque (Pasque in ancient French) Dieu", by God's Easter.
"Cornegidouille" was coined on the pattern of "Corne-Dieu", with "gidouille", a word invented by Jarry and used elsewhere ("Par ma sainte gidouille!"), meaning properly Ubu's belly. There is no sex there (nor anywhere in Jarry's works). As for "Corne-Dieu", it is clearly derived from "Corps de Dieu".
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