Originally posted by ursus arctos
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I liked Pivot’s cultural programmes (mostly on books), Apostrophes and then Bouillon de culture in the 1990s, they were often very interesting (I love book programmes on TV - more than on the radio- sadly very few left, if any), it wasn’t just dry high-brow stuff, it could be very lively too, especially when a pissed Bukowski (tautological, I know) was around, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_Fm...youtu.be&t=55s (at 1'10, he says "suck my cock" in a mock French accent...).
Way before Pivot’s dictées, there was the dictée de Mérimée, a bastard of a dictée that most French teenagers of my generation would have had to do at some point in their education (usually at lycée level, so aged 15-18, but it didn't count towards anything, it was just "for a laugh"). Even the high-flyers would have done well to make fewer than 15 mistakes, incl. accents. It’s very short (175 words) but fiendishly tricky, especially for high school kids. Mérimée wrote it "to entertain the Imperial Court of Napoléon III" - they sure knew how to have fun in those days.
One particularly sadistic feature in the dictée de Mérimée is this ridiculous "thigh" business going on between the two animals mentioned, the veal thigh (cuisseau) being spelt differently from the venison thigh/haunch (cuissot)... Devious or what?
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