06 October 2008

Cats, frogs and something really lost in translation

Cute piece about Stephen Harper in Yarmouth Nova Scotia, a tickle in his throat and the side story about the different idiomatic expressions in English and French for the condition.  Frog in the throat in English;  cat in the throat in French.  A cough, a chuckle and a gaggle of confuddled Francophone reporters who missed the almost gaffe

All that from an English language Canadian Press story carried by the Star online.

Mais, the readers of copy from La Presse Canadienne got an autre histoire.

Seems Harper was coughing.

He was also pretty clear that while he thought Acadians were lovely people he had no intention of introducing a motion in the Commons recognizing the Acadians as comprising a nation within Canada:

"Je n'ai pas l'intention de faire une motion à la Chambre des communes", a déclaré, hier, le chef Stephen Harper, lors d'un point de presse à Yarmouth, en Nouvelle-Écosse.

Harper couldn't have had a cat in his throat.  The feline was too busy being set among the pigeons.

-srbp-