Mixing English and French with artistic abandon “irks some purists.” The irking of purists is always and never a good sign for those who straddle irkdom.

FouKi, a popular Quebec rapper whose real name is Léo Fougères, observed that Franglais rapping didn’t just irritate those determined to preserve French.

“My father will hear my raps and say to me, ‘Isn’t there a word for that in French?’” he said. “But other older people say to me, I don’t understand anything you say.”

(Dan Filefsky, ‘What Rhymes With Purell?’ Franglais Rappers Push Language Boundaries in Quebec,” NYTimes, 4-7-20)

I can almost identify with older people, although at a venue near me where youth gather the Saxonized Anglo locution “motherfucker” makes itself persistently heard on Pocho-inflected, hip-hop breezes, so not all gets by me.

Mathieu Bock-Côté, a sociologist and influential columnist, has pointed out the ghastly consequences of young Québécois “turning to English as a default to show emotion and express themselves”:

“Without French, Montreal would be Pittsburgh.”

(c) 2020 JMN