once again, French is massacred in Ottawa

The place of French in Canada will always be talked about.

Recently, my colleague Maxime Truman realized that the Ottawa Senators were not the team to go to to take a French test. We'll say it like that.

A French-language advertisement for the team wasn't exactly reviewed by Dany Laferrière.

But now the eagle eye of colleague Truman has found another element which will ensure that even if it is December 24, we have reason to complain a little.

And it concerns the World Junior Championship, which takes place in… Ottawa this year.

Basically, in a video related to the tournament, it is possible to observe that displaying in French is not appropriate. It says “starting formations” instead of “leaving formations” on the scoreboard.

Come on, as the English say.

Here's what probably happened. In English, we say “starting lineup” and it is very logical to think that a word for word translation was made instead of translating the expression in its entirety.

Here's how it probably went.

Hey, we need to translate «starting lineup» in french. Let’s ask a frenchie what «starting» and what «lineup» is in french.

It may seem trivial, but in a bilingual country (in Canada, we speak English… and simultaneous translation) and in a place like the capital region, to see such a sentence is ridiculous. And this is not an isolated incident.

But hey: at least Samuel Montembeault was chosen to make the Canadian team in February. It's a joke, obviously.