Quell'

[Laurence Horn]

At 2:13 PM -0400 8/31/02, Douglas Bigham wrote:
>This has been around for quite a while.  And I'm sure it's directly French,
>as the same people who say "quelle", like Buffy did, often say "Quoi?"
>For example, "Oh that was quelle retarded."
>I've been using and hearing it for the last five years at least, but it must
>be older.  Douglas Coupland, in "Generation X" puts it in his marginalia
>(p.120) as an abbreviation:
>
>QFD: Quelle Fucking Drag.  "Jamie got stuck at Rome airport for thirty-six
>hours and it was, like, totally QFD."
>
>QFM:  Quelle Fashion Mistake.  "It was really QFM, I mean painter pants?
>That's 1979 beyond belief."
>
Just curious--why the feminine?  How can we tell whether "(fucking)
drag", "(fashion) mistake", or the noun "retarded" is modifying are
feminine or masculine above?  Not that "quel" would be pronounced any
differently, but...

larry