Plus Ça Change – August 13, 2026
I need a good (expletive deleted). Christophe is righteously outraged.
So of course “son of a bitch” comes to mind. But I’ve been here before, looking for period-correct curses from the enlightenment. Etymologically, I could use this. But there are other considerations.
For one, I want something with more punch. For another, his birth language is French, and when someone is that pissed off, they tend to revert to the mother tongue.
Québecois French is lush with wonderful profanity based on liturgical words. Ostie de calisse de tabernak… That would get me thrown off the public airwaves forever. Think George Carlin’s seven dirty words. These liturgical curses are unique to Québecois French—host, chalice, tabernacle. Except, my character is not French Canadian, his heritage is French French.
So I need something that amounts to “fightin’ words” in 19th century metropolitan French. I have a curse that was already in my head, son of a whore. I found a neat list of offensive slang from the period, categorized as mild, severe, and fightin’ words. The latter category includes… fils de pute, fils de putain. son of a whore. He shoots, he scores.
BUT… one more step. Christophe knows “proper” French, but his day-to-day conversation is the local Creole, Kouri-Vini. Can I find it in that language?
Fi d’ pitin.
That makes perfect sense to me, as a French speaker. It’s elision and compression and eliminating silent letters, I can hear the French roots. But it’s not likely to make sense to you. So the s.o.b. is gonna get called out in Creole and English, because he doesn’t understand a word of French
Christophe wants to make sure he’s understood. Strangely, so do I.
