Lucas wrote to me asking if the word gang is masculine or feminine in the French of Québec.
In spontaneous speech, it’s feminine: une gang. The pronunciation of gang in Québec sounds like its English equivalent “gang.” (In France, it sounds like “gong” and is masculine.) In the plural gangs, the s is silent.
If you come across the masculine form in Québec, it will probably be in writing rather than everyday speech.
If you’re interested in checking out an online dictionary of French produced in Québec, take a look at the dictionnaire Usito. You can sign up for a free 30-day trial version.
In this dictionary, we find lots of examples of how gang is used in the French of Québec, for example:
gangs de rue, street gangs
gang de motards, biker gang
… informally in the sense of “bunch”:
une gang de jeunes, a bunch of young people
une gang de touristes, a bunch of tourists
quelle gang de cochons!, what a bunch of pigs!
… in the sense of a group of friends:
il sort avec sa gang tous les soirs, he goes out with his friends every night
We also find the expressions en gang and toute la gang. For example, you can say things like une sortie en gang (an outing with friends) and une photo de toute la gang (a photo of the whole gang).
