French versus English Volume 46

Star Académie -Too much English

"The popular reality-talent show was steaming along, with all the right heartstrings being pulled, and then the candidates starting singing, with many of them doing it in the language of Shakespeare...

Actually, out of the eight songs sung by the 'contestants in danger' (contestants who were vying for a spot on the opening roster of the show), four were in English and one was bilingual.

Later on in the show - after a soaring tribute to Gilles Vigneault - René Angélil, Céline Dion's manager/husband and the director of the Académie, picked up on the trend.

"They can sing in English if they want, but if they want to make it until the end, we think,  from prior experience, it's not the best option to sing in English. ... I think we should hear more French here," Angélil said. Read the rest of the article  Alternate Link

Read the story en Française

I must take exception to Celine Dion's hubby/manager, René Angélil who advised candidates to do as he says, not as he does.

It was Mr. Angélil who transformed Céline Dion from a local francophone singer with a unibrow, into an Anglophone artist who captured the world singing IN ENGLISH, doing her best imitation of an Anglophone.
It was Mr. Angélil who advised Céline to remove the accent from her name in order to become CEE-leen from SAY-lin.
Talk about two-faced.....

Then there is the Pierre-Karl Peledaeau's better half, Julie Snyder who I can't stand because she scores her gigs the old-fashioned way, via nepotism.
She couldn't resist throwing a zinger at Quebec Anglophones, by intimating that they cannot speak, a gratuitous lie.

“Congratulating one Ontario-born contestant on the live show for speaking French well, showbiz veteran Snyder added, with mock incredulity:
“How can that be? Us, we have Anglophones in Montreal who don’t speak a word of French, and they were raised in Quebec! They were born here!”

 Read more: Montreal Gazette  Alternate Link

By the way, STAR ACADEMIE is modeled after a television show from France which is named rather ironically STAR ACADEMY (note the spelling)


Is this What Language Militants Want?

Flipping channels, I came across this, the logo for the locally produced French version of TPIR.
It's interesting because it's got that famous 'descriptor' that the OQLF demands, so it's 100% Kosher, but.....
Does it really help?

Huntington mayor continues to run hot?

Stéphane Gendron, the mayor of Huntington and host of a morning television newsmagazine, is not averse to ruffling feathers.
He went a bit too far when he ranted that Israel didn't have the right to exist and the fallout that ensued was so intense, that even he had to come off his high horse and apologize
You can view the apology here  LINK{Fr}

Readers will recall that the good mayor publicly announced that his town would remain bilingual, even if it didn't qualify under the strict interpretation of Bill 101 and therefore not authorized to offer English services to townsfolk.
Of course somebody complained and now the OQLF has announced that it is launching an investigation.
In reaction, the defiant mayor told the 'Ofeece' that he wouldn't knuckle under. In a stinging rebuke he told them that;

"Despite the laws, we have an ethical obligation and moral duty to serve a significant portion of our population in English. It's a question of history - the English founded this city - and of the dignity for our people and our seniors..."
"Leave us in peace, I have no use for the insecure and culturally impoverished who are tightly intertwined with the French language, who live their lives waiting for their disappearance in North America," he said. "To focus on this linguistic insecurity, Quebec has been diminished - Ontairio which said yes to immigration has passed us by. 

(Thanks for the story, Kevin)

Accent on Stupidity

You might remember Yves Michaud, the victim of a National Assembly unanimous condemnation back in 2000, for disparaging remarks he made about Jews not being good citizens because they all voted NO in the referendum.
Michaud was highly traumatized by the condemnation which essentially branded him as an antisemite and ever since, he and other militant sovereigntists have been laboring  to overturn that resolution, asking members who voted for the motion to recant.
In the meantime, Michaud remains an activist defender of shareholder rights, buying a few shares in public companies and then attending annual shareholder meetings to air his grievances.

This week he used the shareholders meeting for the giant Quebec food chain METRO, to complain, believe it or not, about the fact that an accent doesn't appear over the 'E' in 'Metro."
Again readers, I'm not making this up.
"Michaud says he's filed a complaint with the Office québécois de la langue française (OLF) saying the grocery chain is violating the French language charter because the word 'Metro' without the accent aigu on the 'e' doesn't exist in the French language. He says it's unacceptable to twist the name of a company that has its roots in Quebec, which serves a majority-francophone clientele and whose shareholders are mostly Quebeckers."  CJAD    CTV

By the way it seems that Quebecor, the pride of Quebec's Pierre-Karl Péladeau, is hearing Mr. Michaud's footsteps behind him.
The company announced that they are seriously looking at putting two accents on its corporate name, at least in Quebec.

How big a deal is an accent?
Well it doesn't seem to bother Parisians who omit the accent in question, on their stylish subway signs!

In another flight of incredible language stupidity, another French language supremacist,  Pierre Gauthier,  is furious that a Chicoutimi theatre is showing English movies one day a week.
It seems that the nearby Canadian Forces airbase at Bagotville has lost it's on-base theatre and has asked the local theater to fill in. The base, of course, is home to many English servicemen and their families.

Mr Gauthier has called the screening of English movies in public an 'accommodation' that should never have been allowed.
After all, the advertising of the movie will be in English and regular patrons, other than air force people are free to attend as well, a dreadful and dangerous situation that will surely lead the hitherto ever-pure Saguenéens down the evil path of Anglicization. Link{Fr}

I'm not really sure what this blowhard wants, can he be actually suggesting a public prohibition of movies in English?

In a letter to Le Devoir a reader complained bitterly that a lounge act in the Mont Tremblant casino was singing in English and talking to each other in English as well. Link{Fr} 

By the way, rumors flying around Quebec City has it that Madonna will perform at the famous summer music festival. The festival has always featured a lot of English acts, much to the chagrin of French language supremacists.
In the past they've even complained about Paul McCartney performing on the Plains of Abraham, so it's likely we'll hear from the usual suspects again.
If the Madonna concert is a go, it will likely play before largest concert audience ever assembled in Quebec. Oh my!

 Students go nuts
A student organization form UQAM is doing back flips to disavow itself from a pamphlet put out under its name .

"We have to hit very hard, harder than the student movement ever has: kidnapping, sabotage, destruction of property- and we haven't got many tries to succeed"

YIKES!
The author is lucky he doesn't live in the United States where Homeland security would have swept down faster than you can say the word 'terrorist.' Think I'm kidding.. Read this
In Quebec it's Ho Hum! Link{Fr}

Shafia case was affected by English-French snafu: officials

"When the Shafia girls went looking for help from youth-protection officials three years ago, their case was hampered by a uniquely Canadian bureaucratic snafu.

Some of their pleas were lost in translation. Or, more precisely, their different complaints were handled by separate English- and French-language agencies that failed to share case information.

Youth protection is divided by language in Montreal, with one agency handling English complaints and the other handling ones in French and other languages." Read More at CTV

Picture of the week

Nothing to do with F versus E, but I couldn't resist posting this photo.
There is a bit of controversy raging over the issue of 'smart' electric meters that Hydro-Quebec has started installing, over issues of electromagnetic emanations.
I've no idea whether this is a legitimate concern or another case of fear over reason, like Montreal's refusal to fluoridate water.

At any rate, this Boucherville resident took matters into his own hands and wrapped his meter in three layers of aluminum foil! Link{Fr}
 Perhaps Mr. Jean-Pierre Grauby, pictured above, should consider other 'suspect' emanations and protect himself whenever he goes out, like this guy pictured on the right!
(Thanks for the story, Sam.)

Suicide is Painless
Next week is Suicide Prevention Week, as good a reason as any to report on a story about the controversy between a couple of Quebec journalists and a talented blogger, in relation to Quebec's relatively high suicide rate, or relatively normal suicide rate, depending on who you believe.

Readers are familiar with Jean-François Lisée, who takes it upon himself to debunk federalist and right-wing 'myths' every now and then in his column.
Mr. Lisée is an expert at picking and choosing statistics to distort reality. According to Mr. Lisée, Quebec is financially secure, with no debt problem, outperforming almost every other economy and whose residents are much richer than Americans... I kid you not.

This week however his claim that Quebec's suicide rate is not that bad got the goat of fellow journalist Richard Martineau who wrote a stinging rebuttal. Since then, much ink has been spilled between the fellow Journal de Montreal columnists.

The polemic revolves around Mr. Lisée's claim that Quebec's suicide rate is not that bad.
In his article entitled Québec : only 26th in world suicide ranking he says:

"Quebec ranks 26th, behind countries like Finland, Belgium, Switzerland, France and Austria."

I suppose that's true, but what Mr. Lisée omits to tell us is that there are 80 countries with lower suicide rates and that Canada ranks 40th on that list.
If one were to remove the Quebec component of that Canadian statistic and counted only the RoC, the ranking would certainly be much lower, because the Quebec suicide rate is almost double that of the RoC.

BUT IT IS NOT A PROBLEM according to Mr. Lisée.

By the way, in a wonderful rebuttal piece written by the very talented DAVID,  Mr. Lisée is soundly thrashed for his blatant disregard for reality.
In that piece, we are told that the suicide rate for adult males in Quebec is actually higher than that of US servicemen, active or retired!

Mr.  Lisée has published a book supposedly demolishing other anti-Quebec myths. This very same blogger has undertaken to counter these arguments and I'll report on that effort periodically.

Happy Birthday Judy!

Have a good weekend!