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A fellow Francophile sends in this weird, funny, cussy (you have been warned) story about how they swear in Québec. Excerpt (which I have sanitized for your protection™:
The sacres is the group of Catholic swears unique to Québec. There are many of them; the most popular are probably tabarnak (tabernacle), osti or hostie or estie (host, the bread used during communion), câlisse (chalice), ciboire (the container that holds the host), and sacrament (sacrament). These usually have some milder forms as well, slightly modified versions that lessen their blow. “For example, tabarnouche and tabarouette are non-vulgar versions of tabarnak, similar to ‘shoot’ and ‘darn’ in English,” says Polesello.
The sacres typically are interchangeable, rarely having any particular meaning by themselves. Most often you’ll hear them used as all-purpose exclamations. If a Québecois stubs his or her toe, the resulting swears might be “tabarnak, tabarnak!” instead of “f–k f–k f–k.” They can be inserted into regular sentences the way English swears can to vulgarly emphasize your statement. “For example, un cave means ‘an idiot,’ but un estie de cave means ‘a f–king idiot,'” says Polesello.
Because the words are largely just meaningless statements of rage, there is an interesting ability in Québec French to create fantastic new strings of profanity that are, basically, untranslatable. Essentially you can just list sacres, connecting them with de, forever. Crisse de câlisse de sacrament de tabarnak d’osti de ciboire!, you might say after the Canadiens fail to make the NHL playoffs. The closest English translation would be something like “F–king f–k sh-t m——–ker c–kface a–hole!” Or thereabouts. But strings of profanity like that in American English, though not unheard of, are certainly not common. In Québec, letting loose with a string of angrily shouted Catholic terminology is something you’re fairly likely to hear at some point.
Read the whole thing to learn why the Québecois cuss like this. It’s twisted, diabolical, and fascinating, especially the part about how the Québecois exorcised Catholicism so thoroughly from their culture that young generations there don’t understand why these peculiar words are dirty.
Note well: If you are averse to reading filthy language, even when presented neutrally, as a linguistic curiosity, you will want to skip this.