1) When you bring one of your Anglo-non-Québécois friends to a “Casse-Croûte” called “Chez Ti-Cu”, you try to share the humour, but you can’t quite find a translation that gives the name justice. You don’t even bother mentioning the part about “Cu” not being spelled correctly.

2) When you speak French, you have a slight English accent and it takes people a few minutes to catch on and say “eh, t’es un(e) p’tit(e) anglais(e) toé”. You can also understand and imitate Joual and you might have a family member on one side of your family that speaks “avac une viaille p-h-atate chaude dans bouche”.

3) In elementary school, there were at least 3 kids in your grade by the last name Chevrier and half the kids at school or in your neighbourhood couldn’t quite pronounce your name properly.

4) At least your parents made a conscious effort to give you a first name that was bilingual. If you didn’t end up with one, they did consider the impact it would have and left it up to you to figure out a default pronunciation that would satisfy the non-bilingual friends you would eventually encounter.

5) You follow the unwritten rules of hugging your Anglo people, giving deux becs to the Franco friends and family members, and you encounter situations on a regular basis where you accidentally kiss someone on the nose, lips, or eyes because you are both confused about the appropriate greeting.

6) Comfort foods may include: brown beans, hot dog steamé (not to be confused with hot dog classic), split pea soup with ham chunks, pudding chômeur, hot-chicken, mashed potatoes with powder gravy, and St-Hubert. All of the above were also occasionally on your high school cafeteria menu.

7) When you were 13 and one of your peers was sent to the principal’s office for calling your mean teacher “une plot salle”, you went along with the classroom’s gasping and chuckling, pretending to know what that meant so that you wouldn’t be the butt of the next joke.

8) You know the words to Eric Lapointe’s N’importe Quoi.

9) Around your Anglo people, your French comes out unexpectedly when you use the language of the Church to curse, tabarnaque-de-colisse osti.

10) You use erroneous expressions in both languages that are direct translations of the correct expression in the language you learned it in. Ex: Instead of saying you are “off-in-space”, you say “in the moon”.

11) You aren’t actually Anglo or Franco. You belong to a particular category and your own sense of humour can be a confusing experience for you, as it is crass, straight-shooting, dry, and sarcastic… sometimes all at the same time. Anglo people think you’re being a jerk and the Franco people don’t know how to tell if you’re joking or not. Other times, you are right on point.

12) If you have lived outside Québec, there is or was a part of your life there that you know you could never quite call home in the same way.

Please note: these are in no particular order, they have nothing to do with yoga on or off the mat, and they may or may not be associated with growing up in the 80s and 90s. Please comment if you have any to add.