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tongue trooper
DCHP-2 (Oct 2016)
Spelling variants:tongue-trooper
n. — French relations, especially Quebec, informal, derogatory
language police; a nickname for the officials enforcing Quebec's provincial language laws.
Type: 1. Origin — The officials of the Office québécois de la langue française, known in Quebec English informally as tongue troopers and more often as language police, enforce the Quebec language laws, e.g. Bill 178, which requires bilingual signs to have larger lettering for the French version (see Canadian Encyclopedia reference). Boberg (2012: 496) remarks that there are no official English equivalents for French governmental terms in Quebec; e.g. even in the English media the provincial government can only be referred to as the "Gouvernement du Québec", for instance, and not as the "Government of Quebec". Tongue trooper is most prevalent in Canada according to internet domain searches (see Chart 1), especially in Quebec (see Chart 2).
See also COD-2, s.v. "tongue trooper", which is marked "Cdn".
See also COD-2, s.v. "tongue trooper", which is marked "Cdn".
Quotations
1988
People living in Toronto may think that because the law states signs must be in French, that Quebec's language police will move quickly to put anyone using the forbidden tongue behind bars. [...] There are only 20 tongue-troopers for the whole province to enforce the language law and the government has no intention hiring any more. That's the reality of Quebec's "oppressive" language law.
1996
Beaudoin announced immediate corrective measures against the invasion of English. The Office de la Langue Francaise will add 15 new inspectors (known as "tongue troopers") to police violations of the language law.
2001
Lucien Bouchard may be headed toward the lucrative world of business, but his language police continue to harrass enterprises in Quebec.
For the first time, Quebec's tongue troopers are taking on the Internet. Their latest target is a couple from rural Quebec who are selling maple syrup to Americans. Their crime? Advertising their syrup on an English-only Web site.
2013
Mamma mia! The mangiacakes in Quebec have got their voyageur sashes all in a knot over a little Italian on the dinner menu. After targeting the language of Shakespeare, the province's language police - a.k.a. "tongue troopers" - decided to set their sights on Dante, of all people.
They wanted to come down hard on Buonanotte, the trendy Italian ristorante in Montreal frequented by the likes of Céline Dion and Leonardo DiCaprio. It features a menu that prominently advertises such classic dishes as pasta, pesce, antipasti, calamari and insalata caprese, with explanations in French underneath. "My menu is fully French," says owner Massimo Lecas. "It's not even bilingual." Even so, the prominent Italian offerings proved to be a little too piccante for the tongue troopers' taste.
2015
I think most non-francophone Quebecers would find it exceptionally polite if they were not subjected on a daily basis to language discrimination.
I think it would be polite if our public schools were allowed a chance at survival by allowing the children of English-speaking immigrants to enroll.
I think it would be polite if tongue troopers laid off small businesses and newspapers that tried to serve their communities.
References
- Boberg (2012)
- COD-2
- Canadian Encyclopedia • "Bill 178"
Images
Chart 1: Internet Domain Search, 12 Oct. 2012
