French Debate Notes

[c9]

1. Reading the macleans.ca liveblog of the debate is awesome and hilarious.
2. The seated arrangement around a table actually really appeals to me. I think it's forcing them to be more polite on average, they aren't six feet from each other. They're also talking TO each other, (and pointing, and interrupting, etc) rather than playing to the cameras.
3. One hilarious question was "say something nice about the leader to your left". The Maclean's gang hated it, but I really liked it, it's a nice "everybody be nicer" statement. It won't last, but still.
4. I quake with fear about tomorrow's English debate -- because I'm sure it will disappoint me after the civility of the French debate, and I sigh with resignation about tomorrow's English debate -- because I'll be on a plane and I'll miss most of it. :-)
5. Maclean's says Elizabeth May's French is awful, but since I'm watching the English translation on Newsworld I can't tell. My French is far worse, I'm sure. Seems like everybody's getting in some nice points though.

If anything exciting happens, I'll add to this post.

Comments

[mightycodking.livejournal.com]

My favorite bit on the live blog was Wells' comment "Now say something libelous about the person on your right."

[iambic-cub.livejournal.com]

My French is not good, especially my oral/aural French, but still, I can tell that Elizabeth May's French is extremely awkward. (Though it's probably better than my French.) Just listening to how it sounds, you can detect how stilted it is. It sounds like robotic French, and lacks that human warmth that only comes when a person is a bit more comfortable with a language.

[nihilicious.livejournal.com]

I don't know how this came across in translation, but my favourite (non-policy) moment was Elizabeth May saying "I'm sorry, I don't have the word in French, but the Harper policy is a 'fraud'." And the moderator comes back with, "The word you're looking for is 'fraud' [with rolled r.]"

[c9.livejournal.com]

Ahh, that explains something. Later on, May said something like "I have the word now, it's franche (or whatever, I just have what I think I heard).