Francisco Goya
"Tataille"
"The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters"
When I was little, my mom, dad and I lived on a farm in New Iberia, Louisiana with lots of things that could kill you: wild boars, cottonmouth snakes, and a monster in my closet. Every night, while my parents slept, I—along with my team of Trolls with jewels for belly buttons and dolls that could crawl, cry, and crap so long as they had Duracells—stayed vigilant. There were bumps and scratches from behind my door, I was sure of it. And just before that monster busted out to devour me, I’d run to my dad who’d tell me to wake up my mom, who’d tuck me back into my bed and say sweetly: “Come on now baby, I know ya not scared of a tataille.”
I didn’t know the word “tataille” was French. I didn’t even really know it was a word so much as a sound associated with something bothering you that you didn’t get a good look at, like a bite from something in the grass while you were looking for roly polies or a thing that brushed the back of your neck on the porch while you were sucking down a Capri Sun. It was a faceless antagonist, scary because of its anonymity. Elusive yet everywhere. Gone in a flash.
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When I grew up and moved away from Louisiana for work (surprise: I became a true crime and paranormal TV producer), the word “tataille” became its own little terror. It would creep up into my vocabulary when I’d least expect it and startle people who came from rectangle-shaped states and cities famous for pizza. I learned to keep that word to myself, and so the “tataille” from my childhood was banished to the back porch of my mind where it slept, dormant, only to awaken when at thirty-seven-years-old I decided to finally, once and for all, learn the French my grandparents once spoke.
I’d tried off and on for years while in New York City, clinging to the pieces of home I missed. I had my mom mail me my old French textbooks and I even signed up for in-person French classes in Soho, but nothing stuck. It wasn’t until I got to go through French immersion to put those skills into daily, mandatory practice at the Université Sainte-Anne in Nova Scotia that I made real progress, the kind that shakes up the cells in your brain like the ball in a shake-paint marker, the kind that nudges a snoozin’ backporch tataille wide awake.
And just before that monster busted out to devour me, I’d run to my dad who’d tell me to wake up my mom, who’d tuck me back into my bed and say sweetly: “Come on now baby, I know ya not scared of a tataille.”
It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done, upping and leaving the comforts of daily routine—a new fiancé even—and living five-weeks in a dorm room babbling like a baby.
At lunch during my first week, I sat with four other women from Louisiana. It was surreal, to sit and eat tacos and tater tots in the very spot from which our ancestors were separated and deported. Some of these women, my new friends, had kids graduating from college and some of them were bright-eyed college kids themselves. We came from places all around the sole of the boot—Breaux Bridge, Lafayette, Thibodeaux, and Houma. Two of us were in the same class, Intermediaire 1; the others ranged from advanced to beginners in Débutant 1. We sat comparing the Standard French and Canadian French words we’d learn in class with the Louisiana French ones we’d grown up hearing. Tataille was one, a word that we all described differently—which was tough enough since we weren't allowed to speak English.
Flipping and fumbling through pocket French-English dictionaries to communicate, some said a tataille was mid-size and fuzzy, others said it was tiny with a tail. We all bickered about it having claws and teeth, bulging eyes vs. beady ones and whether or not it had wings. The tatailles in our minds were all the same in spirit, but different in appearance. How could that be?
After immersion, when I could speak English again, I was curious. What did la tataille actually mean? Where did the word come from? Why are we the only ones in the Francophone world that seem to use it? So I asked an expert, Erin Segura, Director of Louisiana French Studies at LSU, to enlighten me.
“The word tataille seems to come from the verb ‘tâter,’ which means ‘to paw’ at something or someone or ‘to grope,’” Segura said. “In French, there's something called a ‘productive diminutive suffix. Examples of this in Standard French are the suffixes ‘ot’ and ‘ouill.’ In Louisiana French, we have ‘aill.’ So an example is the verb ‘tâter’ with the diminutive suffix ‘aille’.” It literally means ‘to paw at a little bit.’”
Another spelling offered in the Dictionary of Louisiana French is "Ta-Taille.” Segura explained, “This capitalization makes it a proper noun, the way the name of a monster would be referred to, or a witch of sorts, but it's often used to mean a little thing that bothers you, like a bug. All that to say, tataille is flexible in meaning.”
I think this says a lot about the way we, as a people—the ones with Louisiana-French ancestry—view and overcome fear.
When I made true crime and paranormal TV, I learned that the thing humans are most scared of is the unknown. To truly frighten someone is to let their imagination run around in a dark room. Once you give a monster a name, it loses its power. Once you unmask it, you can see its weaknesses and overcome it.
The words “ta” and “taille” in French literally mean “your” and “size” respectively, something I learned while trying to find a hoodie that fit me at the Sainte-Anne’s campus bookstore. We all have different things that scare us more than others, certain phobias and anxieties. But Louisiana French gives us a word we can use to fight back.
The next time you run into a monster—something that scares you in life—what if you gave it a different name? What if then, in the light, it was suddenly your size?
Come on now baby, I know ya not scared of a tataille.
