And the prize for "Best Unintentional Irony of 2008, Journalist Division" goes to...
...Peter Allen of The Telegraph, for his article "Bad French prolongs Russia-Georgia conflict".
Nicholas Sarkozy, the President of France, has taken time out of his busy schedule of provoking immigrants and showing off his taste in fashion to assist in the Russia-Georgia crisis. But there's a hitch: since the documents were drafted by French people, and none of the countries involved in the crisis actually speak French, there have been some translation problems. (They apparently hinge on whether they're guaranteeing security "in" Abkhazia and South Ossetia or the security "of" those regions. You can read more about it in the article.)
That's kind of funny in and of itself. But that's not the best part. This is:
The farce is a huge blow to the French belief that theirs is a lingua franca, spoken and understood the world over.
If that's intentional deadpan humor, it could have been done better. If not, it's a lesson in the importance of understanding what sophisticated-sounding foreign phrases actually mean before using them in newspaper articles.
Nicholas Sarkozy, the President of France, has taken time out of his busy schedule of provoking immigrants and showing off his taste in fashion to assist in the Russia-Georgia crisis. But there's a hitch: since the documents were drafted by French people, and none of the countries involved in the crisis actually speak French, there have been some translation problems. (They apparently hinge on whether they're guaranteeing security "in" Abkhazia and South Ossetia or the security "of" those regions. You can read more about it in the article.)
That's kind of funny in and of itself. But that's not the best part. This is:
The farce is a huge blow to the French belief that theirs is a lingua franca, spoken and understood the world over.
If that's intentional deadpan humor, it could have been done better. If not, it's a lesson in the importance of understanding what sophisticated-sounding foreign phrases actually mean before using them in newspaper articles.