November 03, 2007
Pave: Save Miquelon.org!
Le jour 172 de Sarko
Miquelon.org is a site that sporadically and superficially documents French bashing in both halting misspelt English and a French of undetermined quality. The site considers French bashing any opinion or remark that does not sufficiently compliment France or the French. Anti-Americanism is all right though because it "stems from a long and complex relationship between the Sister Republics [?]".
The site takes its name from the teeny tiny island of Miquelon off the eastern Canadian coast, 25 km from the southern Newfoundland coast and 4,500 km from Paris. The site claims Miquelon is a "symbol of French Resistance", in which case it is a very poor symbol or French resistance is feeble indeed. As often a British possession as French, despite numerous attacks against the island, there was never any notable resistance.
The site makes much of the island's liberation by the Free French in WWII. The Free French were compelled to act to forestall a similar Canadian project. Of course, the island had to be liberated because it was integral and loyal to Vichy France, the fabled "other" France, the France that did everything bad. Although starving, the inhabitants held out for Vichy. [Pause.] This must be the resistance to which the site refers.*
Now this brave little whinging site is considering ending itself!
THE FUTURE OF MIQUELON.ORG -
THE END OF OFFICIAL FRENCH BASHING?
September 30, 2007 (miquelon.org) - When solicited by journalists, former French Bashing politicians don’t return their calls. Candidates for the Republican ticket now spin the politics of President Nicolas Sarkozy in their favor and the talking heads seem to have new marching orders. It is now safe to say, French Bashing has come and gone.French Bashing
2003 – 2007
Resquiate in pacem [sic**]The future of Miquelon.org is in question. Should the website be abandoned, left as an archive for research? Should the website be shut down and put away, or should it be revamped, retooled and given a new mandate?
Miquelon.org has awarded Pave France a listing (but not a link) as an anti-French site. Technically Pave France has not been a French-bashing site since we took over the editorial duties. Technically, nous nous moquons de la France, which is to say, we are a mocking site. But all the same, we thank Miquelon.org for the nod.
Miquelon.org, poorly written, poorly edited, riddled with errors, whiney and pouty -- what a loss were this exemplar of French resistance to surrender to its own mistaken notion of having prevailed.
Quick! Drop them a line here and exhort eternal vigilance. Inform them, Pave mocks yet!
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* N.B.: Once invaded, the island immediately surrendered.
** Requiescat in pace or perhaps Quiescat in pace is meant.
PFFT (What is this?): Save Miquelon.org ¾ | Rayonnement français ½
Posted by Damian at November 3, 2007 07:00 AM"Nous nous moquons de la France" has two meanings "we mock France" yes, but more commonly "we don't give a tinker's damn about France." Same with "nous nous foutons..." which is both "we ridicule" and "we don't give a shit about"
Posted by: Rapetout at November 4, 2007 10:13 PMWhinny ?
Posted by: dude at November 7, 2007 04:27 PMMr. Dude,
"Whiney" was meant, since corrected. Thank you for the catch.
DGB
Posted by: Damian at November 8, 2007 12:05 AMNumber 1 rule of correcting others : make sure you don't make mistakes. An implausible possibility.
Therefore mocking the spelling or writing of others exposes one self to ridicule.
quod erat demonstrandum
Ah, Mr. Dude,
What could be your point?
We make no claims to infallibility. When errors are discovered, we acknowledge them and correct them.
However, we would assert the severity and frequency of errors of Miquelon.org are more than the occasional typo.
We thank you for alerting us to your "Number 1 rule" and then taking the trouble to illustrate it yourself:
1) You write in English, but use the French convention of a space before bipartite puncuation (:).
2) You write "one self" where the correct English forms are either "one's self" or "oneself".
As you say: "make sure you don't make mistakes. ...mocking the spelling or writing of others exposes one self [sic] to ridicule"
QED
Regards,
DGB
