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Xfinity

Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, doing business as Xfinity, is an American telecommunications business segment and division of Comcast Corporation. It is used to market consumer cable television, internet, telephone, and wireless services provided by the company. The brand was first introduced in 2010; prior to that, these services were marketed primarily under the Comcast name.

its CEO is Dave Watson, its chairman is Brian L. Roberts, and its CFO is Catherine Avgiris. Xfinity went from US$23.7 billion in revenue in 2007 to $50.04 billion in 2016.

Branding
In February 2010, Comcast began to re-brand its consumer triple play service offerings under the name Xfinity; Comcast Digital Cable was renamed "Xfinity TV", Comcast Digital Voice became "Xfinity Voice", and Comcast High-Speed Internet became "Xfinity Internet". The re-branding and an associated promotional campaign were scheduled to coincide with the 2010 Winter Olympics.

The rebranding was characterized by the media as an effort to sidestep the negativity of the Comcast brand. Time considered Xfinity to be among the worst corporate renamings of all time, asking "Will the name change work? Probably not, but at least it'll sound a bit edgier when you're put on hold...with Xfinity."

Comcast Internet availability by state

Comcast is the largest provider of cable internet access in the United States, servicing 40% of the market in 2011. As of July 26, 2018, Comcast has 26.5 million high-speed internet customers.

Comcast began offering internet services in late 1996, when it helped found the @Home Network, which sold internet service through Comcast's cable lines. The agreement continued after @Home's merger with Excite. When the combined company Excite@Home filed for bankruptcy in 2002, Comcast moved their roughly 950,000 internet customers completely onto their own network.

Along with the price of internet subscriptions, Comcast charges users an additional $14.00/month to rent a cable modem. This fee has been seen by some as unfair, but is waived for customers who buy their own modems. Comcast charges $20 for internet installation, but the fee is waived for customers who opt to install themselves.

In 2011, Comcast launched its "Internet Essentials" program, which offers low-cost internet service to families with children who qualify for free or reduced price school lunches. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) required this budget service as a condition for allowing Comcast's acquisition of NBCUniversal in January 2011. Of an estimated 2.60 million households eligible for the program, about 220,000 households participate in the program as of June 2013. A similar program is available from other internet providers through the non-profit Connect2compete.org. Comcast has stated that the program will accept new customers for a total of three years. In March 2014, as he met with FCC concerning the Time Warner Cable merger, Comcast vice president David Cohen told reporters that the internet essentials program will be extended indefinitely.

At the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show, Comcast unveiled a new software platform for its Arris 1682G and Cisco 3941T/3939 modems, which would offer a redesigned configuration interface, support for remote setup and management via an Xfinity mobile app, and enabling integration of supported smart home devices with other Xfinity platforms such as Xfinity TV. The new platform launched under the brand xFi in May 2017. Comcast also unveiled the xFi Advanced Gateway, a new router designed to facilitate faster Wi-Fi speeds, including support for 802.11ac Wave 2, as well as internal support for Bluetooth Low Energy, Thread, and Zigbee for finer integration with Internet of things devices, and support for an accompanying line of Wi-Fi extenders (manufactured by Plume).

Xfinity WiFi
Comcast operates a network of public Wi-Fi hotspots for Xfinity internet subscribers known as Xfinity WiFi, which consists of a mixture of hotspots installed in public locations and businesses, and those generated by supported Xfinity home gateways on an opt-out basis. Users on the "Performance" tier or higher receive unlimited usage of these hotspots after signing in with their Xfinity Account. By default, all dual-band Xfinity home gateways operate both a private network, and a public network with the SSID "xfinitywifi". To conserve bandwidth, these hotspots are capped at 5 simultaneous users. Customers can opt out of providing Xfinity WiFi through either the Comcast website, or by installing a third-party router.

Comcast has received criticism for this practice, with critics arguing that the company was abusing customer resources (including bandwidth and electricity) to provide services for other customers, as well as concerns regarding security, and liability for actions performed by users while connected to these home hotspots; in 2014, a proposed class action lawsuit was filed in California, citing violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and similar state laws for these reasons. Comcast defended the service by stating that the public Wi-Fi is firewalled from devices connected to the in-home network, was designed to have minimal bandwidth impact to "support robust usage", and that customers would not be liable for the actions of other users, as abusers can be traced by means of the Xfinity account they used to sign into the network. The lawsuit was taken to arbitration.

In the wake of Hurricane Irma, all Xfinity WiFi hotspots in Florida were opened to non-Comcast subscribers.

Data cap
Initially, Comcast had a policy of terminating broadband customers who use "excessive bandwidth", a term the company refused to define in its terms of service, which once said only that a customer's use should not "represent (in the sole judgment of Comcast) an overly large burden on the network". Company responses to press inquiries suggested a limit of several hundred gigabytes per month. In September 2007, Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas said the company defined "excessive use" as the equivalent of 30,000 songs, 250,000 pictures or 13 million emails in a month.

Comcast introduced a 250 GB monthly bandwidth cap to its broadband service on October 1, 2008, combining both upload and download towards the monthly limit. If a user exceeded the cap three times within six months, the customer's residential services may have been terminated for one year. A spokesperson stated that this policy had been in place for some time, but was the first time Comcast has announced a specific usage limit.

As the cap provoked a strongly negative reaction from some, Comcast decided to modify its policy in 2012. Under the new system, the cap was replaced with a data threshold and increased to 300GB in some markets, and consumers who exceed this threshold are charged $10 for every 50 GB above the limit. Customers could purchase a $30 add-on for "unlimited" data. In a leaked memo, Comcast employees were instructed to state that the policy is for "Fairness and providing a more flexible policy to our customers", and not for controlling network congestion.

On April 27, 2016, Comcast announced that it would raise its data threshold in trial markets to 1 TB by June 2016; the company stated that "more than 99 percent of our customers do not come close to using a terabyte." The decision to raise the cap came following implication of increased scrutiny surrounding them by the FCC: in its approval of Charter Communications' purchase of Time Warner Cable, the Commission stipulated that Charter must not implement caps. As previously, a $10 overage fee is charged for every 50 GB above the limit, and customers can purchase an add-on for "unlimited" data, but its price was increased to $50. In October 2016, Comcast announced that bandwidth thresholds would be implemented in the majority of its markets (outside of New York and the northeast) beginning November 1, 2016. The data usage plan does not currently apply to the Gigabit Pro tier of service, Business Internet customers, customers on Bulk Internet agreements, and customers with Prepaid Internet.

On November 23, 2020, Comcast announced a new 1.2TB data cap will be implemented for all of the remaining areas in the northeast by March 2021. However, it was postponed due to pressure from the Pennsylvanian attorney general due to concerns on how it would impact customers, especially for those working at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Network management and peering
In September 2007, a rumor emerged among tech blogs that Comcast was throttling or even blocking internet traffic transmitted via the BitTorrent protocol. Comcast vehemently denied the accusations of blocking traffic, stating that "Comcast does not, has not, and will not block any Web sites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services", and that "We engage in reasonable network management". After more widespread confirmation that Comcast was throttling BitTorrent traffic, Comcast said it occasionally delayed BitTorrent traffic in order to speed up other kinds of data, but declined to go into specifics. Following the announcement of an official investigation by the FCC, Comcast voluntarily ended the traffic discrimination. The FCC investigation concluded that Comcast's throttling policies were illegal. However, after filing a lawsuit in September 2008, Comcast overturned the illegality of its network management in 2010, as the court ruled that the FCC lacked the authority to enforce net neutrality under the FCC's then current regulatory policy. The court suggested instead of its current framework, the FCC move to a common carrier structure to justify its enforcement. As of February 2014, the FCC has announced a new justification, but avoided the more extensive regulation required by the common carrier framework.

In 2010, Netflix signed an agreement with Level 3 Communications to carry its data. Shortly after, Level 3 entered a heated dispute concerning whether Level 3 would have to pay Comcast to bridge their respective networks, in an agreement known as peering. The disagreement continued as Netflix's current carrier, Cogent Communications, explicitly placed blame for Netflix bottlenecks on Comcast and several other ISPs. In February 2014, after rumors surfaced that Comcast and Netflix had reached an unspecified agreement, the companies confirmed that Netflix was paying Comcast to connect to its network. The details of the agreement are not public, and speculation disagrees about whether the agreement is a precedent against net neutrality, or a continuation of normal peering agreements.

Cable telephony
Xfinity Voice (formerly Comcast Digital Voice) is a Voice Over IP cable telephony service that was launched in 2005 in some markets, and to all of Comcast's markets in 2006. Comcast's older service, Comcast Digital Phone, continued to offer service for a brief period, until Comcast shut it down around in late 2007. In 2009, after completing transition from their old service, Comcast had 7.6 million voice customers. As of the end of 2013, Comcast Digital Voice had reached 10.7 million subscribers.

At the start of 2012, Comcast stood as the United States' third-largest residential line provider, supplying 9.34 million residential lines.

Xfinity Voice allows communication over the internet using VoIP, but uses a private network instead of a public IP address, which allows Comcast to prioritize voice data during heavy traffic. In technical terms, on Comcast's Hybrid Fiber Coaxial network, calls are placed into individual Unsolicited Grant Service flows, based on DOCSIS 1.1 Quality of service standards. For the customer, this has the benefit of preventing network congestion from interfering with call quality. Other, non-Comcast VoIP services on Comcast's network must use the lower priority public IP addresses. This separation of traffic into separate flows, or Smart pipe, has been criticised as a violation of net neutrality, whereby all data traffic should be treated equally—dumb pipe. The practice was questioned by the FCC in 2009. In their response, Comcast stated that services that use telecommunications are not necessarily telecommunications services, and said that the FCC's designation of Comcast Digital Voice as an information service exempted it from telecommunications service regulations on traditional landline. Comcast also said that because Comcast Voice was a separate service, it was unfair to directly compare the data for Comcast Voice with the data for other VoIP services.

Because telephone services over VoIP are not automatically tied to a physical address, Xfinity Voice utilizes E911 to help 911 emergency service operators to automatically locate the source of the 911 call. Voice calls are delivered as a digital stream over the Comcast network, signal is converted to analog plain old telephone service lines at the cable modem, which outputs on standard physical analog style RJ-11 ports.

This is separate from their former offering of "Comcast Digital Phone" which is not VoIP. The Digital Voice terms of service is still up which clearly defined this service as Circuit Switched.

Cable television
Comcast's cable television customers peaked in 2007, with about 24.8 million customers. Comcast had lost customers every year since. However, the first quarterly gain in customers since their peak occurred in the fourth quarter of 2013. As of the end of 2013, Comcast had a total of 21.7 million cable customers. The average cost of Comcast's Digital Basic cable subscription had increased 72% from 2003 to 2012. In the fourth quarter of 2015, Comcast got 89,000 new video subscribers. This was their highest gain since 2007.

Comcast also charges a Regulatory Recovery Fee of varying size(s) with their Digital Basic cable subscription in order to "recover additional costs associated with governmental programs". Since January 2014, Comcast has also charged a Broadcast TV Fee to "defray the rising costs of retransmitting broadcast television signals(sic)."

In May 2012, Comcast softlaunched X1 (codenamed "Xcalibur"), a new hardware and software platform for its television services in Boston. It features wider support for internet content and video streaming apps, and a remote control with voice recognition input. X1 was scheduled for nationwide availability by the end of 2013. Comcast has licensed the X1 platform as middleware to other providers, including Cox Cable (as "Cox Contour"), and Canadian providers Shaw (as "Shaw BlueCurve TV"), Rogers (as "Rogers Ignite TV") and Vidéotron (as Helix TV).

Retransmission fees
Beginning in the mid-2000s, the prices of retransmission fees, requirements for cable companies to retransmit television broadcasters content, have become more expensive. These fees (and the arguments over them between broadcasters and distributors) caused blackouts of certain (influential) television programming. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission then reviewed its rules for broadcasters and distributors to make any possible changes to them in response to the high-profile blackouts. Comcast has had ten year agreements with CBS Disney, and Fox Broadcasting Company for distributing and reproducing content. The financial details of the deals are not known.

Due to retransmission fees becoming more expensive every year, broadcasters pay more expensive substantial fees for retransmitting broadcast television. Comcast instated Broadcast TV Fee (as a part of the Digital Basic cable subscription) to gain lost profit from paying more expensive fees to retransmit programming content. Comcast's subsidiary, NBCUniversal, was one of several broadcasters party to American Broadcasting Cos. v. Aereo, Inc., over the question of whether Aereo is a retransmitter (which would require it to pay retransmission fees). The case was decided on June 25, 2014, in favor of the broadcasters in a 6–3 decision.

Home security and automation
Comcast has a home security and home automation service known as Xfinity Home in some of its service areas. The service has a burglar and fire alarm, surveillance cameras, and wireless motion sensors put on doorways and windows to detect when said doorway or window was opened, and to detect when someone was in a house when it was vacant, However, Xfinity Home had a vulnerability that when exploited, falsely reported that all was well. The wireless motion sensors Xfinity Home used could also be easily jammed, and thus disabled, by radio frequencies.

Xfinity Mobile
On April 6, 2017, Comcast launched Xfinity Mobile, a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) on the Verizon mobile network.

Xfinity Mobile provides prepaid (with users able to purchase data in 1 GB bundles) and monthly unlimited plans, with the latter throttled after 20 GB of use. The service is sold exclusively to Comcast internet subscribers. Access to Xfinity WiFi hotspots is also included, which is promoted as a means to help conserve bandwidth caps.

Analysts perceived Xfinity Mobile as being a response to AT&T's acquisition of DirecTV, which added the national satellite provider alongside its existing wireline and wireless services, and an increased push towards mobile television. In the third quarter of 2018, Xfinity Mobile surpassed 1 million subscribers. On May 18, 2020, Xfinity Mobile announced plans with 5G data.

Xfinity 3D
Comcast ran a 3DTV channel known as Xfinity 3D from February 20, 2011 until December 16, 2014, on Xfinity cable systems. The channel mainly featured NBC Sports and Universal Pictures content in the format, along with content from other studios and demonstration films in the 3D format.

Comcast Business
In addition to residential consumers, Comcast also serves businesses as customers, targeting small businesses with fewer than 20 employees and mid-sized businesses of 20–500 employees. In 2009, Minneapolis–Saint Paul became the first city in which Comcast Business Class offered 100 Mbit/s Internet service, which includes Microsoft Communication Services. Comcast Business Class Internet service does not have a bandwidth usage cap.

Comcast Business services used to be sold exclusively through direct sales employees. In March 2011, Comcast created an indirect sales channel called the Solution Provider Program, a comprehensive indirect channel program that enables telecommunications consultants and system integrators to sell Comcast's services such as Business Class Internet, Voice, and high-capacity Ethernet services to small and mid-market businesses. The program offers recurring commissions for sales partners based on monthly revenue, and Comcast will provide, install, manage and bill for these services. For the initial launch of the Solutions Provider Program, Comcast enlisted three national master representatives—Telarus, based in Salt Lake City, Utah; Intelisys, based in Petaluma, California; and Telecom Brokerage Inc (TBI), based in Chicago. Sub-agent sales partners must work with one of these three partners in the early stages of the program.

NASCAR sponsorship
Xfinity currently sponsors the NASCAR Xfinity Series and is a premier sponsor of the NASCAR Cup Series. They sponsored NASCAR Cup Series driver Carl Edwards in 2016 at Richmond Raceway. Edwards won the race with a bump and run on teammate Kyle Busch. They also have sponsored both NASCAR Cup Series drivers Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace on 23XI Racing promoting Xfinity Mobile and Xfinity 10G, and since 2020, has sponsored the Xfinity 500.

Controversies
Xfinity and its parent company, Comcast, were sued in August 2016 in King County Superior Court by the State of Washington (AG Ferguson, Washington's Attorney General) for 100 million dollars over claims that Comcast violated the state's Consumer Protection Act 445,000 times over its Service Protection Plan by overly charging for call service fees, knowingly using improper credit screening practices, and by lying about the costs of its Service Protection Plan to 49,660 customers on support calls. The amount that the customers unknowingly paid for the plan from 2011 to 2015 was 71 million dollars. However, when asked for recorded customer service calls discussing the Service Protection Plan, Comcast said that it was "too burdensome". Eventually it gave 4,500 samples of the requested calls, but was accused of deleting many other calls by Washington. In response, Comcast said that it was "not under any obligation to preserve them" and that it deleted customer service calls routinely. It accused Washington of only "listening to 150 calls when we gave 4,500 of them", and said that "customers receive an email confirmation when they sign up for the protection plan". The lawsuit lasted until June 2019, when a King County court judge, Judge Timothy Bradshaw, ruled in favor of Washington State and against Comcast, ordering Comcast to pay 9.1 million dollars in penalties in addition to providing restitution to customers within 60 days.

Xfinity and its parent company Comcast were sued through putative class action on June 19, 2018, by Illinois customer Elizabeth O' Neill, over accusations of opening Xfinity Mobile accounts for customers without their consent, and failing to notify customers when the same accounts were infiltrated without their authorization to buy new cell phones from Comcast's website. They had done this by using information from the customer's already established internet and cable accounts. The case was ruled to be solved in arbitration in accordance with the subscriber agreement she had agreed to.

In 2023, the National Advertising Division of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) ruled that Comcast's marketing of its broadband service as the "Xfinity 10G Network" was misleading, as "10G" could be insinuated as referring to 10 gigabit service. This service is not available to all households as it requires installation of a fiber optic local loop, as DOCSIS isn't capable of 10 gigabit end-user speeds. In January 2024, Comcast agreed to stop using the "Xfinity 10G Network" branding in this manner.

Data breach
On December 20, 2023 it was revealed that an Xfinity data breach had exposed the personal data of 35.8 million people, including usernames, passwords, and answers to security questions, due to a vulnerability in the Citrix software used.

title: Xfinity


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Talk:Joual

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 14 January 2019 and 7 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Gd6505a, Janiegoheen. Peer reviewers: Ylils, Otkri, Kh3522a.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 01:27, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Old discussion
As a speaker of French, I wonder about this classification, because much of what's listed as examples are exactly what I've heard on the streets of East-Central French cities, like Besançon, Dijon, Clermont-Ferrand, Lyon, Saint-Etienne. I'm sure there's more depth to this, however some of it can just be argued to be l'argot.

 * For one thing, argot is a form of slang which is defined as:

a type of sociolect aimed at excluding certain people from the conversation. Slang initially functions as encryption, so that the non-initiate cannot understand the conversation, or as a further way to communicate with those who understand it. Slang functions as a way to recognize members of the same group, and to differentiate that group from the society at large.

 * joual on the other hand was never purposefully made up to exclude external groups. Rather, it was a "natural" evolution of french as spoken in working-class montreal. In that sense (and due to its high content of english words), it is closer to some pidgins.

 * some of the english words in question were simply borrowing from english for words that didn't exist (at least at the time in quebec) in french: truck, whipper, windshield, etc... Other were adaptation of english word as french words or verbs: breaker (to break), pitcher (to throw a ball), chum (boyfriend), lift (in the sense of "to give a lift in one's car"), etc...

 * --Marc pasquin 01:23, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

 * I excuse my misuse of the word argot. I took it to mean slang in the american sense, meaning non-standard speech.  My argument of the list of items here is not (now) that Joual is not indeed it's own sociolect, and that the list need exist, but rather that some of the words listed are not unique to Joual, and don't merit a listing as exclusive to the sociolect.  par exemple:

 * chu -- je suis (I'm)
 * Written in France as ch'uis but said chuis and meaning the same.
 * ché -- je sais (I know)
 * Written in France as ch'ais but said and meaning the same.
 * pis -- puis (then)
 * said '/pi/',
 * ouais / ouin -- oui (yes)
 * Written ouai in France, an affirmative, like english "Yeah"
 * y'a -- il y a (there is, there are)
 * same
 * ben -- bien (well)
 * said /ba~/ in France, for ex: Hé ben

 * I would move to strike the words that are known to exist across the francophone world, which, in my experience are those listed above. That, or put in a note that these words are common in the more relaxed everyday speech of the francophones. Bo-Lingua 04:31, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

 * The note would probably be a good idea although the big difference is that it wouldn`t have been considered "relaxed" by many people who spoke joual and pronouncing it the other way would have been considered by some as "speaking like a frenchmen from france". Of course, one of the problem you meet here is the grey area between standard dialectal form and non standard pan-dialectic form.

 * As for the "bien", it is use here as an imphatic word: "fas bin frette" (its very cold), "Té donc bin cute!" (you are so cute)--Marc pasquin 17:37, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I had to check something out about Joual and stumbled upon a lot of 'words' that are, indeed, not Joual at all but ubiquitous in the French speaking world. I noticed there was 8/9 years ago (!) a little discussion about it, but nothing really seems to have changed. Seriously: the examples given by Bo-Lingua should be removed, as they are but phonetic representations and nothing exclusive to Joual at all. YellowOnline (talk) 16:55, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Poutine, pitoune, bonhomme sept-heures...
Those are Québec French expressions, and are not particularly joual (which is Montreal specific), so I think that paragraph should be moved to the more appropriate article. Plus I doubt that pitoune in the log sense has the same etymology as the cute girl sense...--24.203.216.242 02:50, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

 * I have no idea where you get that Joual is Montreal specific this is totally not true, the whole province, specially the southern part of it can and will speak and understand it. And as weird as it might sound to you both meaning of the word "pitoune" indeed share the same etymology, i have given a explanation of why it is so a bit lower on this page too.66.254.34.246 (talk) 12:27, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

 * one of the problem is that the distinction between joual and quebec french is sometime a bit hazy. The reason why they should, in my opinion, be here is that anglicism are "accepted" (so to speak) part of joual whereas quebec french tend to be normaly use to describe either preserved old french words or local neologism. For this reason, I thought this was a better place to explain them. I guess at one point we are going to need to define the distinction between the 2. In addition, the term joual has been used to designate *any* type of "lower class" canadian french so to limit it to montreal is probably a tad exclusive.

 * Incidently, I do realise this seem to contradict what I said a bit higher up but since then, I have been reading up a bit and "joual" seem to be use much more widely then I first thought, see for example this:

 * http://www.yorku.ca/paull/articles/2004b.html

 * Where Dr Paul Laurendeau use a franco-ontarien's quote as example of joual and make the distinction between joual and quebec french using a strictly class related distinction (not a geographical one). On the same line, Paul Desbiens (le frère Untel) refer to joual as a french-canadian and/or a quebec phenomena, again, without specifying Montreal.

 * Just blame my initial comment on being too Hochelega-Maisonneuvien to know any better.--Marc pasquin 20:00, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

 * As for the use of pitoune in regard to logs, the explanation I remember being given by a teacher was of woodcutter slang (something longer then wide that lays down). "Planter" (to plant) was sometime use by some as a vulgar term for having sex so the association between tree and women is present in other expression also.--Marc pasquin 17:23, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

[...] the word "pitchoune" exists in auvergnat that means "cute girl".

About "pitoune": if the word does come from France, which I cannot verify, its etymology would be "pichona", pronounced pi'tchouno or pi'tsouno, in Occitan. Mistralians spell it "pitchouna". The word "pitchoune" (masc. "pitchoun"), which is widely used in Southern France, retains the original meaning of "little one". It may describe any girl ranging from a child to a late teenager and is quite affectionate. We also say "pitchounette" (masc. "pitchounet"), from Occitan "pichoneta", but in this case we will almost invariably refer to a very young girl. The word in itself, even as used in today's French, doesn't involve someone is cute. AnPrionsaBeag 20:13, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

As for "chu", "té", "ché", "pis", "y", "a", "ouais", "y'a", "ben", "su'l" and "tsé", these are commonly heard in spoken French, though they're more often spelt as follows: "chu" is "j'suis" (in most cases) or simply "chuis" (more aptly), but most French will write "je suis" and still speak it as "chuis"; "té" is "t'es" (very frequently heard and written): similar to "t'as" for "tu as"; "ché" is "j'sais" or "chais", same as "chuis" for use; "pis" is "pis" too, but is becoming rare; "y" is "y" (in nearly all cases) or "i": as words like "gentil" or "fusil" show, not saying the l after a final i-syllable is common in French; note that "il" is pronounced "i" only before a consonant; "a" can also be noted "a": "elle" may also be shortened to "è" in spoken French but "elle" is still the preferred option in writing; "ouais" is "ouais" as well, and not "ouai" as Marc asserted; "y'a" is "y'a" (mistakenly) or "y a": Southerners have the excuse of Occitan "i a" for leaving out the "il"; "ben" is "ben", most famously in stereotypical Norman French wisdom: "Ptêt ben qu'oui, ptêt ben qu'non"; "su'l" is also heard but still spelt "sur le": maybe from Occitan "sul" for "sus lo"; "tsé" is "t'sais" and is very frequent in young people's French. AnPrionsaBeag 20:49, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Joual vocabulary and joual grammar
See the works of Claude Duneton. The fact that a Quebec word is similar in meaning and form to a word in some regional dialect in France does not make it any less dialectal, and thus joual (depending on taste).

 * I never said it was but no language (or dialect) lives in a vacuum and it would make sense that many northern-france patois words were carried over by our ancestors. Mentioning them simply help understand the etymology of joual words.--Marc pasquin 18:18, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

And then there are coincidences. For instance, "mon pitou" and "ma pitoune" were common endearments a generation ago. Once the masculine is re-inserted into the discussion (pitou means puppy), the Auvergnat form is an obvious red herring.

 * I have to disagree with you. For one thing, the term "pitoune" as it relate to a woman is much older then that: La Bolduc had a song called "Hourrah pour la pitoune" with the meaning I described:

 * http://partitions101.speakfreely.ca/partitions/B/Bolduc%20(La)/pitoune-bolduc.htm

 * It was never the feminine of pitou but rather, the similarity between the way they sounded was what made them being use together.--Marc pasquin 18:18, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

(By the way, in today's Montreal "pitoune" doesn't mean cute and does not especially mean loose, it means "hot looking". A girl can turn herself into a pitoune and back for the pleasure of "bummer" (to go bumming).

 * I`m sure its also rarely use to mean log too. I put the 3 meaning as various intepretation, not a single definition. Feel free to add. --Marc pasquin 18:18, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

On the other hand, it has always struck me that joual also has its own grammar. One special point is the future tense. At the obvious level, "j'aimerai, tu aimeras, il aimera" are replaced with "m'a aimer, tu vas aimer, y va aimer".

 * I am not contradicting your basic point (different useage in term of verbs) but this is not an alternate form of the Simple Future tense, it is preference for a different one.--Marc pasquin 18:18, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

 * None of you are right the etymology of "pitoune" come from the english "happy town", place where tree feller used to go to meet women and have some fun, it with time transformed to "pitoune" when spoken in french. "pitoune" is not exclusively used to talk about girl either, it can also be employed to speak about a measurement of log that used to be transported by floating them (La Ronde anyone?).66.254.34.246 (talk) 12:19, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

More important is what is less obvious. In contrast to standard French, which is very definite (une porte doit être ouverte ou fermée), Québécois speech is minimal, prudent and tentative. Vigneau has some monologues that illustrate this well. Since the future is in any case a modality, joual multiplies the modalities indefinitely, so as not to take too definite a position on what is not yet a given. "Y va aimer" may be felt to be too assertive. So, you can have "y s'en va pour aimer", "y'é-t-à veille d'aimer", "y'é parti pour aimer", "y'é-t-en train pour aimer", "y'é-t-après aimer"... (The last form seems a variant of the present tense, but its persistence, I think, is due to the ambiguity, is he loving, right now, or is he on the way to it? The actual expression in Quebec speech of what the French call "le futur" takes a range of colorations which (again, in my opinion) wrecks the simplicity of French book grammar.

Another example, also related to modality, is the use of the infinitive to express a condition (with the consequence put in the conditional mood, as usual): "Être à Montréal, j'aurais été aux vues." (Had I been in Montreal, I would've gone to a movie.) Standard French would of course be: "Si j'avais été à Montréal, je serais allé au cinéma." Phranger 00:46, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Etymology of "poutine"
"Poutine" is the normal joual pronunciation for "pudding". But the meaning is, or rather was, much broader -- it covered the same extension as "chow" in US English (applied to human food). When a brilliant journalist asked some lady in Victoriaville or Drummondville what it was she served him, she said "chow", that is, "poutine". Being a journalist and therefore quite ignorant, he reported this as the name for a specific dish, and the rest unfortunately is history.

Until that idiot scribe got on the case, there was no standard "poutine", on the contrary, the word meant that the dish conformed to no special standard.

By the way, "pudding" itself, in English, comes from the French, "boudin" [OED].

The moral of the story is, don't talk to journalists. Phranger 00:23, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

 * As I wrote, I doubt that poutine is the french pronunciation of "pudding". It was (and is) use both with french-canadian and acadian but in neither case those it represent what is refered to by the english meaning of the word (a congealed mass or a dessert). there is also the fact that pudding (with the english meaning) as been in use since the 19th century, it would be odd then that the people would have spontenously frenchified it some cases but not others.

 * As to its use, while its true, like you said, that it was not historicaly specific to one dish, it not however generic to the point of "food". It was use, in the past, for any dish that was made by mixing various items (usualy scraps or leftovers).--Marc pasquin 18:18, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Origin of the word, "joual"
As noted in the article, "joual" is attested before WW2, in the deprecatory sense of corrupt, uneducated Quebec French. The word itself refers to a pronunciation so foreign to what was believed to be standard French, that the link to the spelling was half lost (joual --> ? cheval). The spoken or unspoken implication was that this was the speech of illiterates.

Around the time Desbiens got on his horse, however, the context changed. People were literate, but they still spoke joual. The automatic deprecatory intent was put into question when, soon after, Michel Tremblay came out with Les Belles-Soeurs. Phranger 00:29, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Removal of Pantry
Unless it was verrrrry recently adopted by either the académie of the OLF (as in the last 5 years I`ve been away from Montréal), pantry is *not* french. I looked online at various dictionaries and can`t find it. What did you based your removal on ? --Marc pasquin 18:18, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
 * The OLF has nothing to do with joual as it is not formally codified.--Shawa666 (talk) 01:42, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Similar mixed/creolized sociolect in New Brunswick?
If have heard that there is also a form of French similar to Joual that is used mainly by younger people and is full of slang and anglicisms. Can anyone confirm or explain this? Thanks! B-] //Big Adamsky 21:27, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

 * Shiac is how many New Brunswickers refer to the hybrid French/English spoken mostly by younger people. Link goes to a blog post that links to another article.

 * Excellent! I have now created an article stub called Shiac. =J //Big Adamsky 19:48, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Italian influence?
I know there is a sizeable Italian community in Montréal, so I'm wondering if it had any influence on the development of Joual. Tchine-tchine for "cheers" sounds identical to the common Italian toast, cin-cin. Bécosse brought a smile to my face, because in Italiese, the hybrid language that sprouted up among Italian immigrants in English-speaking Canada (especially in the Toronto area), baccàus is the word used for washroom :) Though I suppose that could simply be the result of two linguistic groups responding to the same English word. :: Salvo (talk) 03:11, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

 * One word that do come to mind is "tchow" [ciao] often heard among francophone montrealers. So is the "sauce a spagatte" (bolognese sauce) which is called that even without being used with noodles (on a poutine for example). It would probably be interesting to look for others, bagosse wouldn't sound like the italian for "booze" would it ?

 * Your explanation of tchine-tchine to me make more sense they the english "cheers" all things considered, both for the repetition and the ending. --Marc pasquin 19:38, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Interesting observations about possible Italian influence. I'm convinced, however, that we should not be talking about Joual, though. "Ciaò" and "cin-cin" are used in exactly the same ways in New York City by non-italophones, and likely by many Italians and Italian immigrants/descendants in other world cities. So, forget the Joual. Note, "ciaò" only means "good-bye" and not English "hello" or true Joual "allô". As for "spaghetti sauce", hundreds of millions of English-speaking North Americans say the same thing. There's nothing Joual or Québec about "sauce à spaghetti" except that it's in French; nothing unusual there. Also, who's to say that francophones in Quebec were initiated into pasta-eating directly by Italians? For all we know, it could have been through restaurants serving Québécois meals or via the supermarket. Think: Steinberg's or Dominion - English. ;-) Oh, and to the bane of my existence, spaghetti sauce was always meant to include meat; nowadays, this is less and less, but remember when meatless sauces came out on the market, they had to be labeled so. For the past 15-20 years, we take meatless for granted now.

 * As for "baccaùs", I'd be surprised if it indeed developed separately in the Toronto area. First, the majority of anglophones in the Toronto area have not commonly used the term "backhouse" since WW2, and I'm being conservative about the latest date. Second, before all the language-law ruckus in Québec, Italian speakers (regardless of regional language) were francotrope, i.e. tended to learn French and not English. There was a sizeable Italian community in Mtl before there was one in Toronto. Plus, there must have been some italophones who left Mtl for Toronto. It's only natural then that "bécosse" was adopted via French and not English. The "g" that might be heard in the Italian borrowing is just the natural voicing in between consonants as in "casa". Oh, also, had italophones directly picked up "baccaùs" from English, it probably would have a different stress pattern today. In English, "backhouse" is stressed on the first syllable; Italian-speakers would have picked that up. French speakers always put the stress on the last syllable of a borrowing, regardless of where the stress was in English. Think "hotdog": En. = HOTdog; Fr. = hotDOG. Also, compare how all French-speakers in the world say "McDonald's" with the stress on the end; I'd bet that italophones in Italy and CH (btw, IS there a Mickey D's in Lugano??!!) place the stress in the same place where it is in English. Just listen to all the discourse about Slow Food, they must bring up McDonald's at least every five minutes. ;-)

 * So, what's the possible solution? Well, I sincerely don't think we should be worrying about Italian in Joual, the latter having developped only with the contact of English way before massive Italian immigration to Mtl. Why not a truly informative page on Italian influences period? After English, Italian is the language that most influenced French, particularly in the Renaissance. In fact, it's because people tried to immitate Italian that French grammar requires the agreement of past participles after "avoir" when we write. And how about Italianisms in English? Or English mutations of Italian? (ravioliS /a ravioli, a piece of spaghetti, music terms, etc.) Sounds like "Influence of Italian on other languages" or "Language Contact - Italian" could be descriptive titles. -- CJ Withers 21:30, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

 * I really enjoyed reading your response! I really know little about the linguistic history of Montréal, and was glad to read your take on things.  I love tracing the journey of words like baccàus through the movements of immigrant groups, and I find the possibility that it travelled from English to French to Italiese quite fascinating.  As for Italian pronunciation of borrowed English words, though, the rules are not quite so clean-cut.  Hot dog, for example, is stressed on the second syllable by Italians (od DOG), as are weekend (ui KEND) and hamburger (am BUR gher), which if I'm not mistaken, is stressed on the first syllable in French, just like in English.  As for McDonald's, you're right: Italians stress it as anglophones do (mec DO nald).  Oh, and for all the hype around Slow Food in Italy, it always amuses me that with the exception of those near blatant tourist traps, most McDonald's restaurants in Italy are full of Italians, not tourists.  Slow food indeed. *grin*

 * PS: I'm from the New York area as well, and I must admit that the only people I've ever heard use cin-cin are those who emigrated from Italy, or who have travelled there and are trying to sound like hip Italians. Perhaps as Italian Americans continue to be absorbed into the melting pot, culturally distinct phrases such as cin-cin are falling by the wayside?  Or maybe I didn't know the right people growing up? :)   :: Salvo (talk) 07:48, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

 * My point regarding "sauce à spagatte" was mostly that the word spagetthi has been thoroughly "assimilated" (standard french and most region simply use the italian word).

 * Regarding the anglophones using cin-cin, I can't say I have ever heard them use it. Even here in australia (where I now live) the aussies who use something "foreign" when toasting say "salud", not cin-cin.

 * Finaly, Joual is a working class sociolect (not a creole). It would have absorbed words predominently from english ("factory words" so to speak) but also from other people that were absorbed into the french-canadian culture (like irish probably). We use after all "chnaye" for go away which seem to come from the german "schnell" for some reason. --Marc pasquin 00:06, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Clearly, Joual is not a creole. Nonetheless, people tend to lump the use of any anglicism and any non-standard French language practice under the name "Joual". Also, despite the reality that Joual is repeatedly termed a working-class sociolect, it is a huge misnomer mainly because of the upward mobility of francophones in the past 30 years and due to shared linguistic features with general Québécois French and rural varieties. For these reasons, I'm not fond of the Joual article in its current incarnation. What's more, I wouldn't limit language contact with English (be it Joual or Québécois standard French) to "factory words"; contact with English was both extensive and in all fields and aspects of life. Just read up on Miron, who said that he had been alienated from his own language (French) because whenever he wrote, it was English structure, vocabulary, etc. "disguised" as French. Clearly this English intrusion was not due to factory work of his own or anyone else's. I think the Joual article should eventually be merged into Québec French (and of course leaving behind a redirect from Joual). I'm currently working on the social aspects of the varieties in Québec French. By going to my user page, you can scroll down and check out some of the pages/parts that are in the works.

 * As a part of linguistic research training, I and some classmates had to listen to a something akin to the matched-guise technique for dialects of French (sociolects, regional dialects, etc.) and were asked to identify them. Everyone identified the head of a major bank as a "Joual" speaker. Clearly, he is not the exception and Joual is no longer just working-class. If anything has remained true, it's the common name for what is perceived to belong to the peuple and their québécité. Think Michel Tremblay's plays, Éric Lapointe's songs, etc., etc. -- CJ Withers 05:57, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

 * If ever you want to give an even better example, mention Peladeau. Filthy rich, spoke like an habitant.

 * In general though, joual is still something of a working sociolect which is why I think its important to distinguish it from Quebec French. Someone from say, Outremont (just to go with stereotype) might speak with an accent and range of vocabulary that is different from Standard French but it surely is not the same as your stereotypical person from hochelaga-maisonneuve (not an insult, me and my family all come from the east-end). What has been de-stygmatised is Quebec French (radio-canada newsreader sort) but joual is still considered (even from within) as "bad french". I think people simply got over the difference in accent when compared with europe (mostly thanks to greater cultural exchange to have reduced the number of time one is asked to repeat....). Still sad realy, even my grandma used to say I should try and speak better (due to me being "educated"). --Marc pasquin 23:53, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
 * My theory is that joual is merely the informal language spoken by the french speaking population in Quebec.--Shawa666 (talk) 01:49, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

It seems you missed what I wrote above: anything stigmatised is lumped into Joual. Plus, Joual is Quebec French, not all of Quebec French but part of it.

There's finally a book/study on the Quebec French norm (by M.-E. de Villers and published in 2005) and it only focuses on comparisons between Le Devoir and Le Monde. The reality, however, is that human beings are not newpapers and, as individuals, mix levels/registers in their own speech all the time (yeah, think Péladeau). I'll give an example: "la chose dont j'ai besoin" vs. "l'affaire que j'ai besoin"; most people in Quebec either don't know that the relative clause starting with "que" is substandard yet a very defining feature of Quebec French, regardless of socio-economic class. Often heard from television and radio reporters, relative or subordinate clauses with "que" are so common on all levels and among all socio-economic groups, yet everyone will call it Joual. Joual's more a perception than an actual sociolect; if you ask people on the street what they speak, they do not say "Joual" they say "French" or, worse, "bad French". "Joual" was a poster child of some sorts. Remember, joe-blow came up with the term and idea of "Joual", not linguists.

Oh, btw, the article as it is now is somewhat incorrect by starting with "toé", etc. The pronunciations in "oé" are also found outside of Mtl and not just in those words; it's a phonological phenomenon, not a lexical one. The Joual perception focuses more on lexical items than anything else, not major language practices and who and when they are used.

Also, I am not against the idea of the Joual article focusing more on its perception and its force as catalyst for identity affirmation. It would also be interesting to show how the transcription of Joual is eye dialect and that it became legitimate in the eyes of the public once plays were in it. Here's a riddle...in your opinion, is Virginie written in Joual? hehehe -- CJ Withers 06:29, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I re-read this article and am surprised at how so much is called "Joual" when the item in question is just an anglicism or casual French. "Ouin" is not Joual; it can be heard in Joual, but it is not Joual. "Truck" is not Joual; it's an anglicism as are "la hose", "bienvenue" instead of "de rien", etc. Also, sacres are an integral part of Joual but there's nothing on them... More misinformation than information, this article doesn't need sources, it needs to be purged 'n' merged. -- CJ Withers 06:41, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Personnaly, I think the article might need some work but should *not* be integrated in the Quebec French article. I think the main reason why we might see this differently is due to who we are: I am a native speaker/non-linguist while you are a non-native speaker/linguist (not meant in any way as an attack by the way). Your view is probably based on seeing joual and Quebec french as part of a same continuum based on its similitude and history while to me they are distinct based solely on personnal experience.

 * To explain a bit, I have spent most of my adult life working in the service/hospitality industry dealing largely with tourists. Early on, I developed the habit (as I have noticed, many other have) of speaking joual with my co-workers but switching to Quebec french when talking to client (especialy non-local francophones). The "switch" is not just one of accent (lessening the difference between "a" and "â" for exemple) but of register and sentence construction (no interogation using "-tsu"). The effect on tourists was quite startling: most could understand me when I spoke directly to them but not to my coworkers. This to me is the true difference between Quebec french and joual: the first is basicaly standard ("international") french with a bit of a local accent and some different words (I can't bring myself to say "congere") while the second has a relation to standard french similar to the one obeserved with most french regional patois.

 * What I do agree could be taken out are those elements that are not the result of a different register but simply accent (toé, tsu [the affricative], etc... ) but for the rest, I think what realy need to be done is first define what is meant by "Quebec french": is it all the phenomenons encounter within the french speaking population of Quebec ? If yes, that would make it a sort of "meta-category" since it would include not only the french of the Devoir but also regional quirks from the Beauce, the saguenay-lac-st-jean and gaspesie. It would, to me, just make it more confusing to outsiders if we were to write that for example the verb "haler" [to pull] is part of Quebec French when it is only used nowaday in a few regions (and neither should it be considered joual).

 * So this is the distinction I draw between Quebec french and joual. I fully admit it might not be the same (if any) made by all other quebecois but I think it is one which is at least *perceived* by most.

I hope you don't think I'm weird by saying this, but we agree and disagree yet in different ways. First, your perceptions of what constitutes Joual is the problem. We can discuss that point by point somewhere else. I find that wikipedia is not a good place to discuss linguistic minutia between linguists and non-linguists. Second, I totally agree with you that the Quebec French article needs much work; I want to include a Joual section, but it needs to be put in context. The probleme with native-speaker notions is just that, whether it's in English, French or Swahili: people's idea of something is often not the reality when it comes to language. It's been proved over and over again that our everyday notions of language are skewed by social values and identity politics. The upshot it that Joual = stigma aux yeux des vielles outremontaises and Joual = la langue du peuple pour ce que ne vois d'un oeil. The internal debate revolves around this polarization; that's what I'm working on showing. Please check my sandbox on Québec French...scroll down and look where I jotted down stuff about Joual, les Belles Soeurs, Tout le monde en parle, Denise Bombardier (dont j'ai fait la connaissance il y a un mois!!), etc. Also, please don't take this personally, but I don't an encyclopedia has great value if it's written by anyone who feels like writing about something that seems important to them. On the other hand, I do feel that experts can get out of hand and can also obscure the realities behind something important. That's why I find Wikipedia interesting; not only is there a team that can enhance articles, it also combines the knowledgeable folk with the uninitiated. By dialoguing with the uninitiated, the articles can acheive quality status because they are supposed to be informative. The real danger is writing about a topic which is taken for granted as reality when in fact it's just the notion that's taken root. Joual is that example is the article for Buffalo English. Joual is a (pre-conceived) notion of what a sociolect should be; the proof is that it is stigmatized. Anyway, I'm starting to repeat myself.

If we remove the phonological aspects and then the syntactic elements and then the anglicisms, what would be left? Nothing or close to it. I invite you discuss, for example, pronouns in Quebec French (they're the same in Joual and in standard spoken French in Quebec, btw). For example, "nous autres" is not Joual; in fact, it's just Quebec. "Nous" is virtually non-existent in spoken French in the world; "on" is the multi-purpose word. The same goes for "elles"; it doesn't exist in spoken French in Québec. Women and even the most ardent of feminists don't use it at all. This fact is startling. You can even hear Mme Bombardier use "ils" for "elles" in her commentary on International Women's Day. Enough for now. Later. -- CJ Withers 23:27, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

can someone please include words UNIQUE to joual, as the author of this article has used many continental french words? merci.

trademarks
I'm hesitant about «ski-doo» being listed as an English word that's found its way into Québec's argot if the trademark originated in Québec, is based on a word «ski» that (like the name of most sports) is the same in both languages, and Armand Bombardier is not an anglo name. There may be other trademarks which do qualify as anglicisms, such as «le frigo/le frigidaire» (based on an American-language trademark, which in turn appears to be based on the English words "frigid air") or «le coke» (Coca-Cola, originally created in Atlanta and named for the coca plant). Automotive terminology would also be a source of beaucoup de franglais as most of the cars were from US-based manufacturers and the mécaniciens would have originally been working from American-language service manuals to maintain the vehicles. «Le clutch, il ne va pas» would likely be understood as a clutch that doesn't work in any garage in Québec, even if the proper French word is «débrayage». --carlb 15:08, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

 * I think words like ski-doo or frigidaire or coke are clearly not anglicismes--is lego considered a Dan word? ;-)

 * Just a note: clutch is/was feminine in Quebec French: "La clutch, a marche pas." --Valmi ✒ 21:43, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Joual is a language, not a slang
Joual is a living language, no just some poor people slang. It has many words in common with French, sure, but it's a distinct dialect.

Many words were invented in Joual and never appeared in the original french language. Take 'ferry boat' for example. Here in Quebec, we call it a 'traversier'. This word is unique, not just a popular culture derivation of some working class usual guy.

Calling joual a slang is pretty offensive, and I suggest that if you're to come and visit us, don't say this to the people : you won't be taken for a funny nor intelligent guy at all. This is simply ethnic purism.

 * You think calling Joual slang is offensive? Ummm, since they re speaking french (or, at least, they say they are), don't you think it would be more offensive to say they dont actually speak french? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bob bobato (talk • contribs) 22:21, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

 * You seem to be disciple of Michel Tremblay. Sorry to burst your bubble, but Quebec French is not joual (the latter being a subset of the former), and you should probably leave the definition of joual to the linguists.--132.206.150.33 15:25, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

 * No need to be disrespectful, I mean joual did develop without the help of aforementioned linguists, I'm sure it can do fine without them.Dan Carkner 21:27, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

 * "Traversier" is not joual. Traversier is Quebec French. In popular understanding, everything that is specific to Quebec French would be joual. That is not the case. Joual is a sociolect of the working class mostly in the Montreal area. Reducing Quebec French to joual alone would be like reducing the French of France to the argot of Paris, which does not make sense.

 * See this link : http://wwwens.uqac.ca/~flabelle/socio/normecajo.htm
 * Bonne lecture! -- Mathieugp 12:51, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Pitonner
To dial or push buttons. Is this Joual? I don't remember where or how I learned this word. Perhaps I made it up?

Another (from my mother, the interior designer): keten (or kéten, qéten - actual spelling is unclear) Pendragon39 06:26, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

 * You should remember that not all Quebec French is joual. I'm pretty sure both pitonner and quétaine are already in the Quebec French lexicon article.--Boffob 15:49, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

 * Yes, quétaine is there :) Pendragon39 17:42, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

verification of loan words
While the vast majority of this article is uncited, there is one assertion that deserves some confirmation. The list of English loan words has "Fucker le chien", which, to a non-speaker, looks like "to fuck the dog". While its definition looks like this phrase could be genuine, the phrase itself looks spurious. Could someone confirm the veracity of this phrase? ++Arx Fortis (talk) 01:20, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

 * as odd as its sound, its true.--Marc pasquin (talk) 20:26, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Perjoriative?
The article Quebec French claims this word is perjorative. Is it or not? NorthernThunder (talk) 09:44, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes it is, but this term is not used often nowadays. Kovlovsky (talk) 15 november 2009 —Preceding undated comment added 03:29, 16 November 2009 (UTC).

English loanwords -- add:     "blounde"
What about "blounde"? Slang of: 'blonde' or 'blond', as in: girlfriend. Example: "...i' s'en va'ncore avec sa blounde, tabernouche..." ( = "...he's going out again with his girlfriend, dammit...", like when you are hoping to watch hockey Saturday night with your buddies and one of your gang instead seems to prefer to go out with his new girlfriend -- again -- instead of hanging with his 'homies' to watch the game, thereby proving that she is starting to bust up the sacred circle of you and your 'guy-buddies' and ...... ah but I digress).

Anyway, what about 'blounde'? I don't know if I am spelling that correct, but any francophone guy knows that that means girlfriend. Because 'blondes' are kind of rare amongst Catholics (ie, French and Irish in Quebec and Northeastern Ontario and New Brunswick and St-Boniface), so the word 'blonde' -- where blonde girls are more likely to be Protestant -- really hits home as defining a 'girlfriend'.

Another way to think of it is that: "blounde"  ~=  "shiksa". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Atikokan (talk • contribs) 03:14, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I just want to point out that "blonde" for girlfriend was also used in France up to the 19th Century. "Auprès de ma blonde", a old an famous folklore song, refers to that. Writers like Flaubert used it also. It meant "mistress" as opposed to spouse. Many French words still in use in French Canada are obsolete now in French Europe. Sir John Falstaff (talk) 15:04, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

About that citation needed...
Today, many Québécois who were raised in Quebec during the last century (command of English notwithstanding) can understand and speak at least some joual.[citation needed]

Every Québécois raised in any part of Quebec can understand joual. It is in fact the causal language that most people speak even at work or at any other place. It ain't really perceived as uneducated anymore to speak joual. I think that citation needed sign should be removed. Joual is well-known in Québec and even communally spoken on national television on varieties show. For that reason, I'll remove the Citation needed mark. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.22.160.143 (talk) 07:45, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I very much dispute this. Many people in Quebec, myself included, understand very little joual. Both my parents, born in Quebec, understood almost none and my grandparents none whatsoever. Gentleman wiki (talk) 01:37, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Historical connection to Haitian Creole?
I noticed several pronunciations in Joual that are parallel in Haitian Creole. My thought is a general petrification of pronunciations that existed earlier in European standard French, but history of the French language is not my area. Just to note, 'isit', 'aswa-a', and 'fret~fwet' are all the standard ways to say 'icitte', 'asoere' and 'frete' in Creole. 2601:582:4401:477B:ED8C:8CAF:389D:2857 (talk) 16:47, 19 December 2016 (UTC) Tom in Florida

 * You are correct in your assumption. Though sources are hard to come by, I have found one recent. Perhaps further studies will come into light, now that Haitian Creole has been standardized for three decades and is gaining prestige.

 * In my personal study, the facts of similarity are evident by the dialect of the migrants who left France for the Americas. Many of them in which spoke langues d'oil as well as the aristocratic speech that have since been overtaken and somewhat replaced since the French Revolution (Rise against the aristocrats/monarchy) by what was once called common speech, Parisien French, which is now considered "Standard French". For example, "frette" which is now 'froid' for cold in Standard French, technically may not even be considered French anymore, simply Old French. I no longer see it in any French dictionary and Google is unable translate it. This is a great crime. Savvyjack23 (talk) 15:31, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Joual


text: User talk:69.122.27.170

title: User talk:69.122.27.170


text: Category:Loretta Lynn albums

title: Category:Loretta Lynn albums


text:
January 1981

The following events occurred in January 1981:

January 1, 1981 (Thursday)

 * Georgia defeated Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl, 17–10, to finish the 1980 NCAA Division I-A football season with a 12–0–0 record and the mythical national championship.
 * Greece joined the "Common Market" (European Economic Community), now the European Union.
 * The Republic of Palau was proclaimed in the Palau Islands of Micronesia. Under an agreement signed with the United States in 1980, the new nation would continue to be administered as a United States trust territory, with the U.S. handling Palau's foreign and military affairs.
 * The United States minimum wage increased from $3.10 to $3.35 per hour, where it would remain until 1990, when it went to $3.85.
 * Léopold Sédar Senghor, President of Senegal since the nation became independent in 1960, became the first African president to retire voluntarily, resigning in favor of his protégé, Vice-President Abdou Diouf.
 * Born:
 * Mladen Petrić, Croatian soccer player, in Brčko, Yugoslavia
 * Eden Riegel, American TV actress (All My Children), in Washington, D.C.
 * Died: Mauri Rose, 74, American racer and Indianapolis 500 winner in 1941, 1947 and 1948

January 2, 1981 (Friday)

 * The "Yorkshire Ripper", serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, was arrested by police in Sheffield, England after the largest manhunt in British history. Over a period of six years, Sutcliffe was believed to have murdered 13 women.
 * The Federal Reserve Board of Governors brought down the U.S. prime rate – the minimum interest rate for an American bank to loan money – from what remains its highest level in history. For 14 days, between December 19 and January 1, the rate had been at $21 1/2$% and it was lowered to $20 1/2$%; thirty-five years later, the prime rate would be 3.5%.  The "prime rate" is that which is reserved for borrowers with the highest credit, with higher interest rates than prime permitted for borrowers considered to be at risk for default.
 * Born: Maxi Rodríguez, Argentine soccer star, in Rosario, Santa Fe

January 3, 1981 (Saturday)

 * Salvadoran labor leader José Rodolfo Viera, and two American representatives from the AFL-CIO, Michael P. Hammer and Mark David Pearlman, were assassinated at the Sheraton Hotel in San Salvador, by two members of the El Salvador National Guard.  The gunmen, José Dimas Valle Acevedo and Santiago Gómez González, testified later that they had been ordered to carry out the murders after the victims had been recognized by businessman Hans Christ at the hotel's restaurant, and were sentenced to 30 years in prison in 1986. They were released after less than two years.
 * Born: Eli Manning, American NFL quarterback for the New York Giants, MVP in Super Bowl XLII (2008); in New Orleans
 * Died: Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, 97, the last survivor of the 42 grandchildren of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

January 4, 1981 (Sunday)

 * The most expensive non-musical Broadway production to that date, The Monster Revived: Frankenstein, Victor Gialanella's adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel, was shown for the first time, and the last. Premiering at the Palace Theatre (Broadway) after the expense of two million dollars, the play was poorly reviewed and closed after one performance.

January 5, 1981 (Monday)

 * For the first time since Iraq had invaded its territory in September, Iran launched a counterattack, concentrating its armies at Sousangerd. After 18 months, Iraqi forces had been driven out of Iran, which then began a drive toward capturing Iraqi territory. The war would continue until 1988.
 * Chuck Knox, who guided the Buffalo Bills to their first Division Title since 1966 American Football League season was named the Associated Press NFL Coach of the Year, narrowing edging Atlanta Falcons' Leeman Bennett.
 * The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the first TV adaptation of the Douglas Adams book, debuted on BBC Two.
 * Born: Deadmau5, Canadian DJ/Producer, as Joel Zimmerman in Niagara Falls, Ontario
 * Died:
 * Harold C. Urey, 87, American chemist who discovered the isotope deuterium, 1934 Nobel Prize laureate
 * Sir James Martin, 87, British engineer and inventor of ejection seat
 * Lanza del Vasto, 79, philosopher, poet, and activist

January 6, 1981 (Tuesday)

 * The merger of Libya and Chad was announced in Tripoli by Libya's President Muammar al-Gaddafi, and his guest, President Goukouni Oueddei of Chad, who had taken power in December with the help of 4,000 Libyan troops. At 1175112 sqmi, the proposed nation would have been the largest in Africa and 7th largest in the world. The prospect of Libya's annexation of its southern neighbor prompted the member nations of the Organisation of African Unity to intervene, with the assistance of France, in forcing the peaceful withdrawal of Libyan forces and an end to the merger plan.
 * The Brazilian ferry Novo Amapo sank in the Jari River after striking a sandbar. Although 211 survivors were rescued, at least 230 others drowned.
 * The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 1,000 points for the first time since September 27, 1976, reaching 1004.69.
 * Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush were officially certified as the winners of the U.S. presidential election, 1980, with outgoing U.S. Vice President Walter F. Mondale announcing that the Reagan-Bush ticket had received 489 electoral votes, as opposed to only 49 for Jimmy Carter and for Mondale.
 * In Aumühle, West Germany, a funeral service was held to mourn the death of Karl Doenitz, the Grand Admiral of the German Navy in World War II and the last President of Germany up to that time. Doenitz had taken over as successor to Adolf Hitler on April 30, 1945, and signed the instruments of surrender on May 7. Doenitz, who spent 10 years in prison after conviction of war crimes, died on December 24, 1980.
 * Born: Mike Jones, American rapper; in Houston
 * Died: A. J. Cronin, 84, Scottish physician and novelist

January 7, 1981 (Wednesday)

 * After investment analyst Joseph Granville sent an overnight telegram to his customers with two words – "Sell everything!" – the New York Stock Exchange had its biggest trading day up to that time, with 92,890,000 shares changing hands.
 * Earl Campbell of the Houston Oilers was named NFL Offensive Player of the Year by the Associated Press for the 3rd straight year.
 * Died: Clair L. Farrand, 85, American inventor with over 1,000 electronics patents, including the radio loudspeaker

January 8, 1981 (Thursday)

 * In what has been described as "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented UFO sighting of all time", retired contractor Renato Nicolai witnessed what he believed to be French military aircraft on a test flight. After police forwarded the report to GEPAN, an investigative unit of the France's space agency CNES, found traces of metal throughout the area where the UFO had been observed.
 * Billy Sims of the Detroit Lions was named the Associated Press National Football League Offensive Rookie of the Year. Sims, who rushed for 1,303 yards on 313 carries with 13 touchdowns received 53 of the 84 votes. The Buffalo Bills' Joe Cribbs was second and the Miami Dolphins' David Woodley was third.
 * Born: Xie Xingfang, Chinese badminton player, and women's singles champion in 2005 and 2006; in Guangzhou
 * Died: Matthew Beard, 56, African-American actor who portrayed "Stymie" in The Little Rascals.

January 9, 1981 (Friday)

 * U.S. Representative Raymond F. Lederer (D-Pa.), the only one of the six indicted Abscam Scandal defendants to have won re-election to Congress in spite of the scandal, was convicted on charges of bribery and conspiracy. A jury in New York returned the verdict after watching a videotape of Lederer accepting $50,000 in cash in an FBI sting. Despite conviction on a felony, Lederer served for three more months until resigning on April 29, after the House Ethics Committee recommended his expulsion from the U.S. House of Representatives.
 * A fire killed 31 elderly residents of the Beachview Rest Home in Keansburg, New Jersey. Another 78 patients and employees escaped the blaze.
 * Born: Ebi Smolarek, Polish footballer, in Łódź
 * Died: Cozy Cole, 71, American jazz drummer

January 10, 1981 (Saturday)

 * The FMLN launched a guerrilla war against the government of El Salvador which would last for eleven years. At 6:30 pm, after radio stations in San Salvador were seized and FMLN leader Cayetano Carpio announced "The hour... for the taking of power by the people... has arrived." and attacks were launched at multiple locations. One estimate is that 80,000 people, almost 2% of El Salvador's population of 4.5 million, were killed in the course of attacks and reprisals.
 * Born: Jared Kushner, American investor, real-estate developer, and Senior Advisor to the President of the United States, in Livingston, New Jersey
 * Died:
 * Richard Boone, 63, American TV actor; Paladin on Have Gun, Will Travel
 * Fawn M. Brodie, 65, American historian

January 11, 1981 (Sunday)

 * Iran dropped a demand that the United States deposit 24 billion dollars in gold into an Algerian bank as a condition of the release of 52 U.S. Embassy workers being held hostage in Tehran, settling instead for the release of the nearly 8 billion dollars of Iranian assets that had been frozen in American banks.
 * Born: Jamelia, British singer, as Jamelia Niela Davis in Smethwick, West Midlands
 * Died: Beulah Bondi, 92, American actress (Ma Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life)

January 12, 1981 (Monday)

 * At 1:30 am, the Macheteros, a separatist group in Puerto Rico, raided the Air National Guard's Muñiz Air Base and set explosives that destroyed nine jet fighters (8 A-7 Corsair IIs and an F-104 Starfighter).
 * The television series Dynasty began a nine-year run on the ABC network. The prime time soap opera, described by New York Times TV critic Tom Buckley as "An embarrassingly obvious knockoff of Dallas", starred Joan Collins as Alexis Carrington, who briefly brought back the popularity of women's wear with padded shoulders. Dynasty was the #1 rated TV program in the United States during the 1983–84 television season.

January 13, 1981 (Tuesday)

 * Donna Griffiths, a 12-year-old girl in Pershore, Worcestershire, in the United Kingdom, began sneezing, and continued to sneeze repeatedly, for 978 consecutive days. Initially sneezing twice every minute, her rate would eventually slow to once every five minutes. Donna would have her first day without sneezing on September 16, 1983.
 * Died: Dr. Owen H. Wangensteen, 82, American surgeon and inventor who created the suction procedure used in gastrointestinal surgery.

January 14, 1981 (Wednesday)

 * The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of the first extended wear contact lenses, which could be left in the eyes for up to two weeks. The Hydrocurve II lenses were manufactured by a subsidiary of Revlon.

January 15, 1981 (Thursday)

 * Hill Street Blues, described as "one of the most innovative and critically acclaimed television shows in recent television history" and a program that "set an entirely new standard for television drama" made its debut on NBC at 10:00 pm EST.
 * Born: El Hadji Diouf, Senegalese footballer, in Saint-Louis
 * Died:
 * Emanuel Celler, 92, U.S. Congressman (D-N.Y.), 1923–73
 * David E. Lilienthal, 81, former TVA and AEC chairman

January 16, 1981 (Friday)

 * Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, who had served as a British MP and an advocate for the rights of Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland, was shot multiple times, along with her husband, by Protestant gunmen of the paramilitary group Ulster Freedom Fighters who had invaded their home. Five days later, Protestant leader Norman Stronge, who had been the last leader of the Northern Ireland parliament, was shot and killed, along with his son, by an eleven-member Irish Republican Army unit, at their home, Tynan Abbey.
 * Died: Bernard Lee, 73, English actor who portrayed "M" in multiple James Bond films

January 17, 1981 (Saturday)

 * After eight years, by Proclamation No. 2034, martial law was lifted in the Philippines by President Ferdinand Marcos, who had declared a state of emergency on September 22, 1972. Marcos announced that emergency rule would continue for three more years.
 * Born:
 * Scott Mechlowicz, American film actor (EuroTrip), in New York City
 * Ray J, American rapper and singer, as William R. Norwood, Jr., in McComb, Mississippi
 * Died: Marguerite Oswald, 73, conspiracy theorist and mother of Lee Harvey Oswald.

January 18, 1981 (Sunday)

 * BASE jumping was founded by Phil Smith and Phil Mayfield as they jumped off of the 72nd floor of the Texas Commerce Tower in Houston and parachuted to the ground. The pair had previously leapt from an antenna, a bridge and a cliff.
 * At Deptford, a mostly black neighborhood in London, thirteen young black British people died in the "New Cross Fire" during a 16th birthday party for one of the victims, Yvonne Ruddock. The fire, believed by many in the black community to have been set by racists, was cited as a factor in the 1981 Brixton riot three months later.
 * Serial killer Joseph G. Christopher, later implicated in the deaths of 12 African-American men over the previous four months, was arrested at Fort Benning in Georgia after trying to stab a black soldier in his training unit. Private Christopher received a 60-year prison sentence in 1982 after being convicted of three of the September shootings. He would told The Buffalo News in 1983 that he killed 13 people, all black men, because "that was the directive" from "a collection of people".  Christopher would die of cancer in 1993 while in prison.

January 19, 1981 (Monday)

 * Mohammed Seddik Benyahia, the Foreign Minister of Algeria, successfully brokered the Algiers Accordan agreement to end the Iran hostage crisis between the United States and Iran, which was signed on behalf of the U.S. by Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher in Algiers at 10:30 am, after having been signed earlier by Iranian officials in Tehran.
 * Born: Lucho González, Argentine footballer with 45 caps for the national team; in Buenos Aires

January 20, 1981 (Tuesday)

 * The Iran hostage crisis ended after 444 days, only 25 minutes after Jimmy Carter's term as the 39th President of the United States had ended. Carter had hoped that the 52 American hostages in Iran would be allowed to leave while he was still in office, and at 6:18 am Washington time, the escrow papers were completed to transfer $7,970,000,000 in Iranian assets from U.S. banks to the Bank of England. At 8:04 am EST, the Algerian intermediaries notified both the U.S. and Iran that the transfer was complete. The Boeing 727 carrying the hostages, Air Algérie Flight 133, was boarded at 8:20 pm Tehran time (11:50 am EST) but was not cleared for takeoff.
 * At noon, Ronald Reagan was sworn into office as the 40th president of the United States, and the Air Algérie jet departed at 12:25 pm; it left Iranian airspace within an hour, landing in Athens for refueling, then arriving at Algiers at 2:10 am local time the next day, where the former hostages were transferred to two Medevac planes and flown to Wiesbaden Army Airfield in West Germany.
 * Born:
 * Brendan Fevola, Australian rules footballer, winner 2006 and 2009 of the Australian Football League Coleman Medal for most goals kicked in a season;
 * Owen Hargreaves, Canadian-born English footballer with 42 caps for the England national team; in Calgary
 * Jason Richardson, American NBA player who led the league in 3-point goals in the 2007-08 NBA season, and was slam-dunk champion in 2002 and 2003; in Saginaw, Michigan
 * David J. Peterson, American linguist, in Long Beach, California

January 21, 1981 (Wednesday)

 * The first production DeLorean automobile was produced in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland. The sports car was stainless steel and had gull-wing doors, and was immortalized in Back to the Future.
 * In his first full day at the White House as National Security Advisor to President Reagan, Richard V. Allen accepted at least $1,000 and watches from the Japanese women's magazine Shufo no tomo in return for arranging an interview with First Lady Nancy Reagan.  After the matter came to light, Allen was forced to resign on January 4, 1982.
 * Feodor Fedorenko, who had come to the U.S. in 1949 after earlier having been a supervisor of the Treblinka extermination camp, lost his citizenship when the United States Supreme Court affirmed prior rulings by a 7–2 vote. Fedorenko was deported to the Soviet Union in 1984, where he was executed for treason in 1987.
 * Two commercial divers, Philip Robinson and Jim Tucker, were rescued from a crippled diving bell in the East Shetland Basin by an underwater transfer to another diving bell. This was the first through-water transfer in the history of diving.
 * Born:
 * Dany Heatley, German-born player with 42 games for the Canadian national ice hockey team, 2000 Olympic gold medalist for Team Canada; in Freiburg im Breisgau, West Germany
 * Gillian Chung (stage name for Chung Tik-shan), Chinese singer for the duo Twins, in Hong Kong

January 22, 1981 (Thursday)

 * East German soccer football stars Gerd Weber, Matthias Müller and Peter Kotte were arrested by the Stasi at the Dresden airport, just as they were preparing to travel with the national team to a match in Argentina, and charged with plotting to defect to West Germany. All three were banned from the game, and Weber, himself a Stasi employee, was jailed until 1989.
 * Annie Leibovitz's iconic photograph of a nude John Lennon kissing a fully clothed Yoko Ono was first published. The photo appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine's tribute issue to Lennon.
 * Born:
 * Willa Ford, American singer and actor; in Ruskin, Florida
 * Beverley Mitchell, American singer and actor; in Arcadia, California
 * Ben Moody, American singer and actor (formerly of Evanescence); in Little Rock, Arkansas

January 23, 1981 (Friday)

 * South Korea's President Chun Doo-hwan commuted the 1980 death sentence that had been given to Kim Dae-jung, who had run for president in 1971, and then was kidnapped from Japan in 1973. The next day, President Chun announced the end of the state of martial law that had been in effect since 1979. Kim would be released in 1983, and in 1997 would be elected President of South Korea.
 * Seven construction workers in Fresno County, California, were killed when an elevator platform at PG&E's Helms Creek plant collapsed at 10:25 pm, ninety minutes before their workweek was to end. The men fell 300 ft to their deaths.
 * The city of Huber Heights, Ohio, was incorporated.
 * Died: Samuel Barber, 70, American classical composer

January 24, 1981 (Saturday)

 * François Mitterrand was nominated by France's Socialist Party as its candidate for president in the 1981 elections.
 * The British Labour Party special conference at Wembley decided that leadership elections should be by an electoral college limited to only 30 percent of members of parliament.
 * A 6.8 magnitude earthquake in Sichuan, China, killed 150 people and injured 300. The quake struck at 5:13 am local time (2113 GMT on January 23).
 * Died:  Captain Joseph Mokoa, General Josephat Mayomokola, Joseph Baissa, Dr. Jean-Bruno Dédéavodé, Robert Boukendé and Pierre Koba. All were executed by a firing squad for crimes committed during the reign of terror by Bokassa I of the Central African Empire. Bokassa himself, who had been sentenced to death in absentia, remained free in Côte d'Ivoire.

January 25, 1981 (Sunday)

 * The Limehouse Declaration was made by four former Labour cabinet ministers (Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, Bill Rodgers and David Owen) to announce the formation of the new Social Democratic Party, bringing with them 29 Labour MPs.
 * Super Bowl XV was won by the Oakland Raiders, who defeated the Philadelphia Eagles, 27–10. Jim Plunkett, the game's MVP, had been a "has-been" until becoming the starting quarterback after an early season injury to Dan Pastorini. Rod Martin shut down the Eagles' drives with three interceptions.
 * The fifty-two Americans, who had been held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Iran, returned to United States soil at 2:54 pm, as the plane carrying them landed at Stewart Air National Guard Base in New York. The group, who had been freed five days earlier, had flown from West Germany and were greeted by a crowd of 300,000 well-wishers.
 * Following her conviction at the Gang of Four trial, Jiang Qing, the widow of Mao Zedong, was sentenced to death, with a two-year suspension during which she could repent. "Madame Mao" wasn't executed, but would stay in custody until her suicide in 1991. Zhang Chunqiao were sentenced to death; Wang Hongwen was sentenced to life imprisonment, and Yao Wenyuan to 25 years.
 * Born:
 * Alicia Keys (stage name for Alicia Augello Cook), American pop singer; in New York City
 * Tose Proeski, Macedonian pop singer; in Prilep, Yugoslavia (killed in car crash, 2007)
 * Died:
 * Adele Astaire, 84, American dancer and actress
 * Joseph Francel, 85, New York executioner of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

January 26, 1981 (Monday)

 * In Chandler v. Florida, the United States Supreme Court ruled in an 8–0 decision that it was not a denial of due process to allow live television coverage of court proceedings, overruling its 1965 decision in Estes v. Texas.

January 27, 1981 (Tuesday)

 * An estimated 471 passengers on a ferry drowned when the Indonesian ship KMP Tampomas II sank in the Java Sea during a storm. Of the 1,136 passengers and crew, 566 were rescued, including 152 who were found in lifeboats days afterward. Operated by the Pelni line, the ship was a roll-on/roll-off (ro-ro) ferryboat that had caught fire midway through its voyage from Jakarta to Makassar. The fire was extinguished, but the engines failed and the ship was adrift and awaiting a rescue when a storm arose. Before the ship could be fully evacuated, it capsized, going completely beneath the waters at 1:42 in the afternoon Central Indonesian time (0542 GMT).

January 28, 1981 (Wednesday)

 * President Reagan signed Executive Order 12287, immediately ending all United States federal price and allocation controls on gasoline and fuel oil. Price controls had been in effect since 1971. Although the short-term effect was a rise in gas prices, American oil companies increased their production and created an oil glut by summer.
 * The "Paquisha War" began as Ecuador and Peru clashed when Ecuadorian forces had established an outpost 40 mi into territory that had been lost to Peru in 1942. Despite initial reports by Peru of hundreds of deaths on both sides, Ecuador acknowledged that two of its soldiers were killed, and Peru had one killed and three wounded.
 * Born: Elijah Wood, American actor known for The Lord of the Rings film series; in Cedar Rapids, Iowa

January 29, 1981 (Thursday)

 * Adolfo Suárez, the Prime Minister of Spain since 1976, surprised the nation by announcing his resignation and his departure from the political party he had helped found, the UCD.
 * Born: Jonny Lang, American musician; in Fargo, North Dakota

January 30, 1981 (Friday)

 * Commandos from the South African Defence Force crossed over into Mozambique and attacked the town of Matola in a raid against three houses occupied by African National Congress members. "Operation Beanbag" killed 15 ANC members and a Portuguese technician. The SADF lost three members in their first cross-border raid.
 * Born:
 * Dimitar Berbatov, Bulgarian footballer and all time Bulgarian National Team goalscorer; in Blagoevgrad
 * Afonso Alves, Brazilian footballer and Dutch Footballer of the Year winner in 2006–07; in Belo Horizonte

January 31, 1981 (Saturday)

 * Thought by scientists to have been extinct since 1895, the golden-fronted bowerbird (Amblyornis flavifrons) was discovered to have survived. American ornithologist Jared Diamond of UCLA discovered the home ground of the golden-fronted bowerbird at the Foja Mountains. Diamond photographed several of the birds, then lost his film when his boat capsized and had to make a second expedition. The rediscovery was confirmed at a November 10, 1981, press conference at the National Geographic Society in Washington, which, with the World Wildlife Fund, had co-sponsored Diamond's research.
 * The first parade to honor veterans of the Vietnam War was organized by the veterans themselves, in Indianapolis, eight years after the conflict ended. Hundreds of vets, wrote a New York Times reporter, "marched Saturday in counterpoint to the heroic reception of the former American hostages... offering themselves the parade they said nobody gave them when they came home from war."
 * CCM Robert K. Jones, the last of the American "NAP"s, retired from the U.S. Navy. The "Naval Aviation Pilots" were enlisted men rather than Navy, Marine or Coast Guard officers.
 * Born:
 * Gemma Collins, English media personality and businesswoman; in Romford, East London
 * Justin Timberlake, American musician; in Memphis, Tennessee

title: January 1981