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    #76
    Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
    Genuine LOL

    I tried Pivot's dictée a few times. It was a humbling experience.
    Bravo for trying anyway. I’ve never subjected myself to them, I’d left France before Bernard Pivot started his dictées.

    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?
    Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 13-12-2017, 19:33.

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      #77
      Originally posted by Kev7 View Post
      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?
      Het Groot Dictee Der Nederlandse Taal used to be a national pastime here, with all the exceptions and foreign loan words that the Dutch language has on offer. Some mates and I once designed an exact-sciences variant. It featured the Lorentz-Lorenz equation, so people would have to know that both Loren(t)zes were spelled differently, and which one was supposed to go first.

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        #78
        Pivot’s literary programmes were indeed great, and we were lucky enough to get them only a week or so after they aired in France on the City University of New York’s television station.

        Now that our sadistic scientist from the Low Countries mentions it, I think that there was/is a German version of the dictée as well.
        Last edited by ursus arctos; 13-12-2017, 20:17.

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          #79
          Originally posted by Wouter D View Post
          Het Groot Dictee Der Nederlandse Taal used to be a national pastime here, with all the exceptions and foreign loan words that the Dutch language has on offer
          I think you can thank Bernard Pivot for that... (he seems to have spawned a rash of imitations across the world).

          "Een dictee op tv - dat leek vooral anti-tv", schrijft Freriks in het vorig jaar verschenen boekje Tien jaar Groot Dictee. Hij had het concept afgekeken van de Franse televisie, waar Bernard Pivot in 1985 een hype creëerde met zijn programma 'Franse Spellingkampioenschappen'

          Originally posted by Wouter D View Post
          Some mates and I once designed an exact-sciences variant. It featured the Lorentz-Lorenz equation, so people would have to know that both Loren(t)zes were spelled differently, and which one was supposed to go first.
          Nice one. I take it that Lorentz and Lorenz are homophones then. Tricky indeed.

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            #80
            German and Austrian names have tripped me up, e.g. Schmid and Schmidt; Liebrant and Leibbrandt; Weber and Webern.

            Robbie Earle and Earl Barrett

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              #81
              Barret and Barrett

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                #82
                Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                Pivot’s literary programmes were indeed great, and we were lucky enough to get them only a week or so after they aired in France on the City University of New York’s television station.
                And very popular they were too, especially Apostrophes. THE WORLD'S MOST POPULAR BOOK SHOW: FIVE MILLION VIEWERS IN PRIME TIME

                It sounds crazy that nobody really filled that gap on French TV after Pivot's programmes stopped a decade or so ago now. Ce soir (ou jamais !) tried and did reasonably well for a decade (despite being shunted into the dreaded "graveyard slot" after a while) but was eventually sacrificed on the altar of ratings last year.

                A very disappointing move from France Télévisions IMO, Ce soir (ou jamais !) wasn't always riveting but at least it existed, it got writers together around a table discussing books, arguing etc. it was polemical, political, or sometimes just plain boring, the host (Frédéric Taddeï) could be irritating but it was a thought-provoking programme that really helped people connect with literature and books in general. Sadly, they’re slowly doing away with culture and particularly book programmes on French TV, this agony really is tragic to witness.
                Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 13-12-2017, 21:22.

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                  #83
                  I was totally certain it was "thing". But now I know it's "think".

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                    #84
                    Ah, dictation...I used to be good at it as a student but we used to inflict it on 1st years when I taught French at the Poly. Slightly civilised version where they got the tape to work with as many times as they liked. Great absurdities such as 'Je répondrais en disant...’ (I would say) becoming ‘Je répondrai en dix ans’ (I will reply in 10 years).

                    More memorable student errors came in orals, which used to wind up/amuse the native speaker colleagues especially:

                    "Thérèse (Desqueyroux) est dans un forêt, entourée de pines" (surrounded by cocks)

                    "Voulez vous repéter la question? (could you fart the question again?)"

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                      #85
                      "I hope your doing well" is the first sentence of many emails I receive from students, even the top flyers.

                      "Your welcome" is another.

                      Puts me in a shit mood.

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                        #86
                        Originally posted by TonTon View Post
                        I was totally certain it was "thing". But now I know it's "think".
                        Of all the people I would never have imagined cheerily announcing their own utter wrongness.

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                          #87
                          Eek!

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                            #88
                            Originally posted by Felicity, I guess so View Post
                            Ah, dictation...I used to be good at it as a student but we used to inflict it on 1st years when I taught French at the Poly. Slightly civilised version where they got the tape to work with as many times as they liked. Great absurdities such as 'Je répondrais en disant...’ (I would say) becoming ‘Je répondrai en dix ans’ (I will reply in 10 years).

                            More memorable student errors came in orals, which used to wind up/amuse the native speaker colleagues especially:

                            "Thérèse (Desqueyroux) est dans un forêt, entourée de pines" (surrounded by cocks)

                            "Voulez vous repéter la question? (could you fart the question again?)"
                            Ah, translation... such an endless source of great fun (especially automatic/machine translation, particularly if the source text has been mangled through several languages before reaching the target text/language, it's like Chinese whispers), eg the "Traductions de merde" Facebook page (also https://www.traductionsdemerde.fr/publications)




                            The travel set with bits of men in it.






                            For the fans of the French scandi noir "Les Témoins 2/Witnesses 2".




                            And then, of course, there are the rude ones. And the Chinese ones. And the rude Chinese ones.

                            A suivre/To be continued.
                            Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 14-12-2017, 10:34.

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                              #89
                              Originally posted by Kev7 View Post
                              Sadly, they’re slowly doing away with culture and particularly book programmes on French TV
                              Not just on French telly.

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                                #90
                                In the "rude mistranslation" category, I like this "Vide Couilles Pen avec 4 têtes d’aspiration" for sale on amazon.fr, i.e a 4-head vacuum gizmo that will suck your balls dry. Sounds bloody painful when you look at the pic but eh, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it as they say.



                                The fun bit is always to try to work out what the source text was… drum rolls… (I’ve just looked up the answer on the "traductions de merde" facebook page)... it was "HANDI-VAC Vacuum Sucking Pen with 4 suction headers" (a tool to pick up small electronic components).

                                Now, how on earth did they end up with "couilles" (balls) then? The mind boggles... Probably, as I wrote in my previous post, through a series of mangled translations with a Chinese source text, somewhere along the way it picked up its rude meaning in French, possibly via the word "vacuum". I'd love to know the exact linguistic journey the source text has taken to arrive at that.

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                                  #91
                                  Originally posted by Wouter D View Post
                                  Het Groot Dictee Der Nederlandse Taal used to be a national pastime here, with all the exceptions and foreign loan words that the Dutch language has on offer.
                                  I used to share an office with the woman who was runner-up last year. She is German.

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                                    #92
                                    This is good too.



                                    From http://shanghaiist.com/2017/06/22/no-more-chinglish.php, China to introduce national standard for English translations in attempt to rid country of Chinglish (some explanations related to these strange translations are provided in the comments section of the link).



















                                    Etc. (more here)
                                    Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 14-12-2017, 12:35.

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                                      #93

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                                        #94
                                        Originally posted by Aitch View Post
                                        I used to share an office with the woman who was runner-up last year. She is German.
                                        Amazing.

                                        The 2015 Francophone Scrabble world champion is Nigel Richards, a New-Zealander who doesn’t speak a word of French, he "simply" memorised the 390,000 entries contained in the French Scrabble player's dictionary -in only 9 weeks!- and took an online crash course in the complex area of French grammar, verb endings/declensions etc. really not something for the faint-hearted -the Grevisse, the reference book for French grammar, is 1,600 pages thick - although I'm sure he thought the whole thing was a fucking piece of piss.

                                        He’d already won the English-language Scrabble world championships 3 times, in 2007, 2011 and 2013. Fucking mind-boggling.

                                        http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/...ectid=11485116

                                        http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-10404448.html

                                        “He is not a French speaker. I swear it,” said Yves Brenez, vice president of the Belgian Scrabble Federation. “If you speak to him he can only say ‘bonjour’, with an accent. He can give the scores in French, because the rules demand it, but that’s it.”
                                        Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 14-12-2017, 12:43.

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                                          #95
                                          That is fantastic.

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                                            #96
                                            Originally posted by Jah Womble View Post
                                            I recall my mother dictating a card message to a very young Saturday girl working at Interflora: she'd wished for the message to her cousin - apparently suffering from something a tad embarrassing - to read 'Hope that your discomfort will soon be alleviated!', or similar. The message that arrived with her cousin instead read 'elevated'.

                                            I had tried to explain to Mrs Womble Sr that, with all due respect to the hard-working Interflora staff, expecting them to know a word like 'alleviated' was probably a little unrealistic. To no avail.
                                            While you tried to sound respectful, it's still quite offensive. That job, for one of Interflora's rivals, is basically my job. And I know "alleviated" and what it means and everything. Just because we work in a call centre and everyone talks to us like we're stupid, it doesn't necessarily follow that we are.

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                                              #97
                                              Originally posted by ad hoc View Post
                                              Of all the people I would never have imagined cheerily announcing their own utter wrongness.
                                              I wish I were wrong. Sadly, I'm not. It's "think".

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                                                #98
                                                Originally posted by TonTon View Post
                                                I wish I were wrong. Sadly, I'm not. It's "think".
                                                Ok, having now done some research, it does indeed seem like it was originally think. Though most places do say that the corrupted version of thing is actually more widely used than think these days, which by the measure of usage actually makes it right too. But, yeah, alright.

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                                                  #99
                                                  The 2015 Francophone Scrabble world champion is Nigel Richards, a New-Zealander who doesn’t speak a word of French, he "simply" memorised the 390,000 entries contained in the French Scrabble player's dictionary -in only 9 weeks!- and took an online crash course in the complex area of French grammar, verb endings/declensions etc. really not something for the faint-hearted
                                                  Not sure that counts as not speaking a word of French.

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                                                    Originally posted by pebblethefish View Post
                                                    While you tried to sound respectful, it's still quite offensive. That job, for one of Interflora's rivals, is basically my job. And I know "alleviated" and what it means and everything. Just because we work in a call centre and everyone talks to us like we're stupid, it doesn't necessarily follow that we are.
                                                    Yep, my apologies - that didn't come across well at all. It was purely 'this instance': the staff member in question was a very young Saturday girl, probably sixteen at most (which, again, doesn't mean, etc, etc), but clearly didn't know the word.

                                                    It'll sound like back-pedalling now, but I don't think you or anyone who works at a call centre is 'stupid' at all: anybody that can hold down any kind of job has my respect.

                                                    And 'stupidity', as we know, can be found in all walks of life.

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