I'm sure I'm not the first to offer this observation, but as a French teacher, I can't let it pass. I'm staying this weekend at the luxurious Pierre Best Western Ramkota, where I am happily judging the 102nd South Dakota State Oral Interpretation Festival, taking place today in the beautiful Ramkota River Center.
Wait, did I say River Center? Au contraire!
That's Centré, pardner, apparently intended to be pronounced /son-TRAY/. Everything's classier with an acute accent mark (or accent aigu, as we call that little wingdinger over the e). Of course, the Frenchmen who visited this place in 1743, like today's Francophones and (with practice) my French students don't put an acute accent on that ending e. Center in French is centre, no accent, silent e on the end: /SON-tr/, with just a puff of air on that lovely throaty French r and no full vowel after it.
Then again, folks around Pierre have never been good at French pronunciation.
Pierre has some great culture- including a first rate community theater group. You should go to their show Friday or Saturday night at the Grand Opera House at 7:30pm. They are performing "A Christmas Story"- a great classic.
Your peers in Pierre may not be amused even if I am ..and I could care less if any foreign language is taucht in schools.
Cory, you should just send these posts straight to me. Hilarious.
The RiverCentre has an interesting and controversial history. It was one of those projects that used tax dollars for a private development. The Pierre Chamber was all for it, of course, but a motley coalition of liberals and conservatives were opposed. It went to several referral votes, and divided the city. One restaurant that bucked the Chamber was boycotted, and they ended up going belly up. Eventually the project was changed a bit, and they just wore down the opposition.
When was the facility built, Donald? What form did the subsidy take -- loan? grant? It would be interesting to see an analysis of the economic impact.
The controversy would have been in the mid-1980s, I think. It was built soon thereafter. I don't remember the specifics of the final financial subsidies. It went through several versions during the controversy. I remember the name of David Sweet being associated with the project. He was out of Sioux Falls, and tied to the SD power structure. I thought it could have been built without the subsidies, and I thought the location was a bit too close to the floodplain. Did this place flood this year?
It didn't look to me as if the building got wet, but they Guards did build a big levee through the Ramkota property. I wonder: were they able to stay open during the flood?