“French please” festival.

It's almost summer, almost festival season.

Have you noticed that in Quebec, it's Festival du Feste? ABC-Fest is here, XYZ-Fest is there. Everyone and their neighbors have adopted this English (and quite colonial) way of naming festivals.

I was very happy to learn that part of the Zoofest team (which disappeared in the great Just for Laughs Group tsunami) was going to be presenting another offbeat comedy festival in July.

I laughed less when I learned it would be called Longueuil Comique Fest. seriously? Can't find anything else? Putting imagination into power, finding a French formula, didn't that tempt you?

Nick Festival

The other day, on my show on QUB, political analyst Nick Payne had fun making a (non-exhaustive) list of Quebec festivals in recent years. We howled with laughter at this series of English-sounding names.

His list is reproduced here, with his permission.

There is an Electric Unity Festival. Zovist fire. SAT (Society for Technological Arts) Festival. Fermentation Festival. Eglofest. Anatha (Music and Wellbeing) Festival. Atmos Festival. Pizza Festival and Pizza Festival Challenge. Music Festival (from Rivière-du-Loup) and Music Festival (from Quebec). Lo Poza Festival: Punk Festival (Comes From: Poutine and Pizza). Great Putin Festival. Comedy! festival. Tribal Festival. Barbecue Festival. Sunset Carnival, Pointe Calumet, July 14.

In 2017, in pages NewspaperShe wrote this: “Bravo Heroes! Comedians going their separate ways and creating their own festival for 2018 have come up with a terrible name for their event, or should I say “getting together”: The Greater Montreal Comedy Festival. It's pathetic. Shaky wording, French words in English form. Hurts your eyes. It hurts your ears. He pronounced it wrong.

Dear comedians, do you speak French? Will you tell us? Hello Hello When will you welcome us to your festival?”

Then, in 2018, it's still in the pages NewspaperShe wrote this: “The Guiblot Festival, which could not be more traditional, is now called… the Guiblot Festival.”

English sentence structure. The diminutive appears in English to the typical Sorel-Tracy specialty.

Organizers justify this change by talking about the importance of reaching young people. “We wanted to come up with something new Brand “This means that young people are adhering to it,” explained President Jean-Pierre Groulx.

I wrote to the festival organizers in 2023, and this is what they responded to: “The beauty of the French language lies in its complexity!” The gib is large and is symmetrical, our favorite form of speech!

And then, there's Dolbeau's now-famous Dol-Boat River Fest (Dolbeau/Dol-boat, you know?), which I also denounced in my columns by concluding: “I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that FÉQ isn't like that.” It's called “QuebSummerFest”.

Watch your tongue

For all these reasons I regret the name Longueuil Comique Fest. It's not as if I and others (thank you, Gilles Proulx) haven't sounded the alarm several times.

We must believe that the advertisement for the peregrine falcon “is true.” sick This is completely acknowledged ColdBecause it's great fast “In Flight” wasn't impressive enough.