Mr. Bernard Pivot: Good-bye and… “merci”!

Bambi grew up seeing Mr. Pivot on the French TV her late mom used to watch on a daily basis. For those of you who do not know this great journalist who just died at age 89, he received the highest distinctions from both Québec (2001) and Canada (2008) for his passion for words.

As per to The Governor General of Canada website (https://shorturl.at/msIQY), “Bernard Pivot has been sharing his passion for reading and words for the past 50 years. His television programs, “Apostrophes” and “Bouillon de Culture,” as well as his famous spelling bees, have made an incomparable contribution to French culture. Over the years, he has helped make a number of Canadian authors known beyond our borders and famous within La Francophonie. He has a great love for words and continues his important work as a member of the Conseil supérieur de la langue française and the jury for the Prix Goncourt”.

Last but not least, on the BBC archived online page (https://shorturl.at/kpEIX), we can appreciate Mr. Pivot’s own words and their translations as follows:

“La langue, c’est notre mère, on suce la langue en suçant le lait maternel. La langue, c’est notre oxygène, c’est notre chlorophylle. On est inséparables de notre langue. La langue, elle est à l’intérieur de nous. Elle est dans notre tête, mais elle est dans nos mains, elle est dans notre sexe, elle est dans notre corps. Vous arrachez notre langue, c’est comme vous arrachez une demi-livre de chair”.

“Language is our mother. We absorb language with our mother’s milk. Language is our oxygen. Language is inside us. It’s in our heads, our hands, our sexual organs, our bodies. Ripping our language from us is like ripping out half a pound of flesh”.

Thank you, Mr. Pivot for your legacy. Long live the beautiful French language and… may your memory be eternal!