Hapless Hanglish Harranguing

Whooee! Ever since the Grits made Dion their bossman, I been sayin’ he’s gotta do two things to whip Harper. He’s gotta talk tough and he’s gotta talk English.

Over at Stageleft, the Stage Coach Driver's got a post sayin' Dion ain't cuttin' the mustard. A commenter by the name of "o" pointed out that King Steve's French weren't so good at first but it's a lot better now. O's a francophone, by the way. Most o' this here boog story is a recycled version of of my comment at Stageleft.

With all due respect to the Story of O, Dion needs English more than Harper needs French. That’s just arithmetic. Harper could conceivably win without a single francophone riding but Dion couldn’t come close to winnin’ without a single anglo riding. The French Fact is that francophones are a sizable — 20%, I think — minority.

I reckon a Canajun PM oughta be fluidly conversant in both languages. From what I seen of Dion in the press over the summer, it looked like he was doin’ a lot better with the English. Then I seen him on the TV yesterday an’ I had to turn up the volume an’ light up all my francosense to try makin’ head or tail o’ what he was yammerin’ on about.

I did get the gist of it but, like SL sez, he really didn’t pull it off.

I know Dion’s been takin’ Hanglish lessons an’ he’s made some progress. Looks like he’s also tryin’ to be more pitbull an’ less perfesser in the House of Comments. The troublem is that he ain’t good at either an’ he’s tryin’ to do both at the same time.

Lotsa non-EFL (English as a first language) speakers slip into a heavy accent when they get their dander up. Fer most people, in most dander-up situations, that ain’t much of a real problem. Fer the leader of the official opposition in televised parliamentary proceedings, it ain’t good enough.

Dion’s the team captain. He oughta do like Harpoon done. Sit back an’ let yer light brigade lead the charge. While he’s sittin’ back, he can privately practice up on some Impassioned English for Francophones lessons.

JimBobby