Cowing Around in the Morning, Québec-Style

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Louis Provenche, and I’m calling from Reno, Nevada.

Hi, Louis. Welcome. What’s up?

Well, thanks for taking my call.

So I’m a French-Canadian. I’m actually from Montreal.

My first language is French, my second language, or I should say Quebecois French, and my second language is obviously English.

An expression my father said that we thought was comical, but I’m going to say it in French, and then I’m going to translate to English.

And he would say, j’aime vacher le matin, puis je parle mon temps.

Which means, I like to vacher, and I’ll explain that.

I like to vacher and take my time in the morning after I get up, basically.

And we looked at him, and we said, vacher.

And he said, yeah.

I said, that’s not a verb.

And he says, well, it is for me.

So Vacher comes from Vache, and Vache in French is a cow.

And what he meant was that after he wakes up in the morning, he likes to be lazy in bed and just fall in and out of sleep, take his time, not come up.

But he’s taking his sweet time getting up.

And, you know, the sun is shining through the room or something like that.

And so this is up there in Quebec and near Montreal.

And we always wondered if there was an expression.

First, he explained to us vacher, but then we want to know, is there an expression that’s similar in English?

Louis, I got to say that there’s so many different ways to go with this.

First, yes, vacher, V-A-C-H-E-R, does come from the French word for cow.

And it has to do with this idea of cows being seen as lazy or idle most of the time.

There’s another expression in French.

I don’t know if it’s in Quebecois French, but it’s in hexagonal French, as they say, European French.

To look like a cow staring at a passing train.

So the cow is just standing there, like chewing its cud, looking very idle otherwise.

Yes, it’s a little bit like bovine bliss.

Bovine bliss, yeah.

That’s great.

Chewing their cud in a field and all that, yes.

Yeah, and so the thing about Vacher, V-A-C-H-E-R, is that it is a Quebecoisism.

It’s something in Quebecois French that is not in other dialects of French.

And so you have to go to the dictionaries of Quebecois language in order to find it.

So there’s a really good one called Dictionnaire Quebecois d’aujourd’hui, the Dictionary of Today’s Quebecois French, by Jean-Claude Boulanger and Alain Ray from 1992.

If you can find it, buy it.

It’s very good.

Even though it’s several decades old, it’s still going to be very good.

And I just love this idea that we use the cow to represent.

The English equivalent is to loaf, L-O-A-F, or to loaf around.

Oh.

Yeah.

Because loaf has that same kind of slangy, informal tone to it, I think Vaché does in Québécois French.

Oh, that’s good.

Well, we will be happy. My wife and I will be happy to know that and be able to use it.

Yeah. There’s another one in Québécois French, which is chiennet, which means to dog it, to be lazy like a dog.

C-H-I-E-N-N-E-R. But I don’t know if that’s as current as Vaché.

It’s probably not that Vaché. It’s very current because I have not known many people using it.

There’s a lot of expressions in Quebec who are also about maritime life because it was all centered.

The commerce was centered on the St. Lawrence Seaway.

And so the travel was all done by boat and all that.

So a lot of our expressions are related to marine equipment or activities or things like that.

That makes so much sense to me.

And let’s not even get into Quebecois swearing, which we can’t talk about on the show, which is its own wonderful thing.

Oh, that was my life when I was young.

Louis, thank you so much for bringing this to our attention.

And I’m glad that we were able to offer you some reassurance that it’s a real thing.

And your dad knows what he’s talking about, and you should never challenge him.

Good.

Good.

Spoken like a real dad, Grant.

Yes, exactly.

Louis, thanks for calling.

Oh, you’re very welcome.

You’re very welcome.

This is a pleasure to know this.

And we listen always to your show.

Thank you.

Be well.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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