Pierre Gendreau-Hétu

Vide-Poche, toponyme générique d’Amérique française?

Introduction

Vide-poche, toponyme générique d’amérique française? . Découvrez l'énigmatique toponyme "Vide-Poche" en Amérique française, de Québec au Midwest. Explorez ses origines, sens et son lien avec la culture.

Abstract

The distribution of Vide-Poche hints at its function as a former generic place name. Located in nine different places from Québec to the American Midwest, this toponym has shown resilience in Missouri, in stark contrast with its vanishing twins in the St. Lawrence Valley. Motivation for this place name has perplexed observers, yielding mostly unsatisfactory explanations for the pejorative meanings that have been rooted in several areas since the early 1800’s at least. The study of abundant sources from the last centuries documents and questions the negative load steadily attached to ‘vide-poche’ as a noun as well as a name. A former nickname for the mill provides a possible solution. Yet Vide-Poche also penetrated the fur trade to the extent that this phrase ended up referring to the mixed-blood culture in the St. Louis area. This French-language era enclave in Upper Louisiana left clues that can be used in return to analyze the Laurentian Vide-Poche’s. Far-fetched etymologies, such as the literary one imagined by Québec writer Jacques Ferron, are thus put in perspective and reveal a quest for motivation dating back centuries.

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