# Quebec French question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quebec-french-question/726207>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 26, 2015, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quebec-french-question/726207 "2015-07-26T02:44:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quebec-french-question/726207/1 "2015-07-26T02:44:36Z")

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I’m an anglo living in Montreal, probably with a 40 - 50% capability in French, which I try to use as much as possible. There’s a word, however, for which I can’t find a translation which I suspect is local and possibly slang-ish.

I was looking at the twitter feed for the Canadian women’s diving team (“Fab IV”) and there’s a photo of Roseline Filion making a sign in support of Pam Ware which says “Awaille Pam”. In the tweet itself it actually says “Aweille les filles, vous etes capables!”

Can anyone tell me what “awaille” or “aweille” means? Is it a francization of the English “away” by any chance, in a supportive context like “go!” or “kick ass” or something like that?

Thank you very much

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**Author:** ![zombywoof](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/9e8a1a/32.png) [@zombywoof](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zombywoof)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quebec-french-question/726207/2 "2015-07-26T03:02:31Z")

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First google result for “awaille”:

> [@](#):
>
> aweille \a.wɛj\
> 
> (Québec) (Familier) Variante de enweille.

Following along

> [@](#):
>
> enweille \ɑ̃.wɛj\
> 
> (Québec) (Familier) Vas-y.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quebec-french-question/726207/3 "2015-07-26T03:30:44Z")

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I should have tried that. I did try Google translate, to no avail.

Thanks for that.

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**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quebec-french-question/726207/4 "2015-07-26T12:21:33Z")

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Yes, in this context it’s a word of encouragement. The progression (as far as I can tell) was :

_Envoie_ — Imperative of the verb _envoyer_, “to send”, second person singular; but the second person plural is _envoyez_.

\*Envouèille \*or _Enwouèille_ — Which for all my life has meant both “let’s go” and “hurry up”. I’m spelling it phonetically here, but the way we used to write it was _envoye_, which wasn’t in the dictionary but at least looked a bit like the original verb and reflected that weird thing we do with the final vowel.

After social networks came along, people started spelling the word weirdly but fun / effect. So now we have _anwaille_, _awaille_, _awaye_, etc.

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**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quebec-french-question/726207/5 "2015-07-26T12:44:28Z")

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> [@Heracles](#):
>
> (…) people started spelling the word weirdly but fun / effect.

I meant to write: “(…) people started spelling the word weirdly **for** fun / effect”.