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Robert Fisk, Face Covered with Poutine

 

A piffling controversy arose this week about the spelling of a Québec fast food word in a British newspaper. The World's Leading Expert on Pretty Well Everything, Robert Fisk, columnist for the Independent, a British newspaper, wrote a snooty, sneer-filled snoborama detailing his intimate knowledge of Québec — after Fisk had spent more than 12 minutes in the province.

This is the opening sentence of his column: “A poutaine [sic] is a chip, cheese and gravy mash much loved by the Québecois [sic].”

Brilliant, Fisk! What a multilingual phenomenon you are! What a debonair and intrepid world traveler, actually venturing into darkest Canada!

Poutine is misspelled and you mangled the very name of the people of the province. They are Québécois. Two acute accents, old boy. If you are going to try to show off your French, get the accents correct. Two local terms misspelled in the opening sentence? Every heard of a copy edit, Fisky-Wisky? It is clear that correspondent Fisk speaks French like a Spanish cow.

The Fisklet is the Independent’s award-winning pointman on Middle Eastern conflicts. Can readers depend on his Middle-East reports being as accurate as his Canadian musings?

 

This is Poutine !

Do you have any arteries that are not stoppered with glop, fatally occluded, once open passageways now walled with stalactites of plaque, their lumina never to be patent again? Well, poutine should finish the lipoid blockage nicely.

 

Poutine = Poutaine NEVER!

Why could the famous Quebec fast food never be spelled poutaine?

Because, my wee Britlet, it is never pronounced that way.

In Québec, it is actually said as “poo-TSIN.”

As frequently happens in joual and Québécois slang, intervocalic /t/ changes to a slight /ts/ sound.

Poutine is only pronounced poo-teen in English. And it is NEVER said as poo-tain!

As is his wont, Robert Fisk’s reportage was slipshod and slapdash. He has a careless ear for language. Like many mucus-nosed Brits of the scribbling class, he prides himself on being casual to the point of sloppiness about foreign languages. “I mean, really, mate, careful is infra dig!”

Robert Fisk. Quelle quéquette! What a dickhead! Does Fisk file when he is half-bagged on hootch? Have we here another alcoholic British reporter, traipsing the world in a tipsy dither, too hammered even to click on his spell-check? Maybe I should nickname him Fisky-Whiskey?

By the way, there have been so many clicks and attempted links to his scruffy column that the big, brave Independent newspaper has disabled the links! You can’t get to the column anymore. What a bunch of effete, ass-saving suck-holes!

Like bad Englishmen of the “Empire” days, Fisk is careless about other languages. You’ve probably met the twitching Limeys and sclerotic Brits who still think this way. They hear a new French word. They would not dream of attempting to pronounce it correctly, would never attempt to get it right, to hear it correctly. After all, it is just twaddle from “a bunch of bloody wogs.” Remember the old London saying: “The wogs begin at Calais.”

 

Here’s a comment in French dans un blogue personnel d'Olivier Niquet:

“De la bonne poutaine?"

 Robert Fisk, du quotidien The Independant de Londres tente d’expliquer à ses concitoyens le multiculturalisme canadien. Au passage, il évoque notre fameuse poutine, en l’orthographiant “poutaine” à trois reprises.

Ça m’intrigue toujours ce genre d’erreur. Le type s’est pointé au Québec, a lu des articles, s’est informé sur la controverse de Champlain avec une poutine à la main, mais n’a pas été en mesure de faire un copié-collé comme il faut ?”

 

 

Read my fascinating real history of the word poutine.

 

 

 

copyright © 2008 William Gordon Casselman

 

 

 

 

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