Humorous Aspersions : The Verbal Traditions of Difference in the Eastern Townships

The author explains that in 1978, he "attempted a folkloristic survey of the anglophones of Brome and Missisquoi Counties," one of the first such surveys of English-speakers in the Eastern Townships. He found that people in these two counties "were particularly comfortable and skilled in the performance of humorous or descriptive anecdotes, usually told within the context of casual conversation." Most of the twenty-four people interviewed by the author were descendants of American settlers who came to the EasternTownships more than two hundred years earlier. In addition, these people were mostly of the older generation, their birth years ranging from 1884 to 1931, with most born before 1910. The author found that the anecdotal repertoire of those interviewed was extensive, and taken as a whole, revealed much about their perceptions of their own history, their values, their sense of place, and their perceived relationships to other groups in the Eastern Townships. The author found that through their storytelling, they expressed much about the ethnic, social and geographical divisions in their community. He noted that their sense of difference from one another created groups within groups — not only the “two solitudes” of Francophone and Anglophone — but also layers of social strata, based largely on attachments to the community, as well as on economic differences.

Journal of Eastern Townships Studies / Revue d'études des Cantons-de-l'Est

No. 1

55-65

Fall 1992

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