Talk:Bernard Pivot

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Bernard Pivot (born 5 May 1935) is a French interviewer and host of a cultural television broadcast.

He was born in Lyon. His parents were grocers. During World War II, his father, Charles Pivot, was taken prisoner and his mother moved to the family house in the village of Quincié-en-Beaujolais. As a child, Bernard Pivot started school in this village.

In 1945, Charles was released, and the reunited family returned to Lyon.

At 10 years old, => At the age of ten,

Bernard Pivot went to a Catholic boarding school and discovered a consuming passion for sport, a passion which helped teachers to overlook his general mediocrity in all traditional school topics except French language and history.

Initially a student in law in Lyon, => Initially, a law student in Lyon,

Bernard Pivot

(En anglais, on parle de la personne par son nom de famille après la première mention, alors, moi, je dirais, tout simplement "Pivot")

entered the CFJ (Centre de formation des journalistes) in Paris, where he met his future wife, Monique.

He finished his studies the second of his promotion. => He finished second in his class.

After a training period in => with

"Le progrès" in Lyon, he studied economical journalism for a full year, then entered the « Figaro littéraire » in 1958.

In 1970, he was animator of a daily humoristic radio broadcast; (no, here, use a comma, the ; is only to join two complete sentences) during which

he often raised up political topics, => brought up political topics

something only be midly appreciated by Georges Pompidou. => something which Georges Pomidou hardly (only mildly) appreciated.

In 1971, the « Figaro littéraire » was closed and Bernard Pivot becomes became (because you have been narrating in the past from the beginning of the article)

a manager at « Le Figaro ». He left the newspaper in 1974 due to a disagreement with Jean d'Ormesson. Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber invited him to start a new project, which led a year later to the creation of a magazine : « Lire ».

Meanwhile, he became animator (the host)  in April 1973

Moi, j'écrirais plutôt, "Meanwhile, in April of 1973, he became the host..."

of Ouvrez les Guillemets, on the first TV channel. In 1974, the ORTF was dissolved and Bernard Pivot started the famous Apostrophes programme. The first broadcast took place on Antenne 2, on January 10, 1975, and stopped in 1990. Bernard Pivot then created the famous Bouillon de culture programme whose scope he tried to broaden beyond books. But he eventually came back to books. [edit]

Orthography championships

In 1985, with linguist Micheline Sommant, Pivot created the Championnats d'orthographe (orthography championships) (in American, we say "spelling". I'm not sure for British English)

which became, in 1992,  Championnats mondiaux d'orthographe(orthography world championships) (World Spelling Championship) then in 1993,  the Dicos d'or (golden dictionaries).

These yearly contests are held in three phases:

* During spring, selection tests are organised with the press, in particular in the (omit "the") "Lire" magazine, and in a few local communities (e.g. schools). These are multiple-choice questionnaires. (quizzes -- a questionnaire is a survey, not a test) * During fall, the selectioned (selected) candidates meet region by region at the semi-finals. They get again (again complete) multiple-choice questionnaires (quizzes), and a dictation. * Then, during winter, the finals are held at a single place.

There are four categories: school juniors, juniors, professional seniors and amateur seniors.

Participation is free of charge, except for the cost of the magazines that publish the selection (qualifying) tests. [edit]

Bernard Pivot and James Lipton

When (While) flicking (flipping) through the TV channels, James Lipton once came upon a program on cable TV that displayed French people discussing around a bottle of wine. "They're having a good time", he thought. He boredly looked at it, and eventually realized that the conversation was quite lively, that he was hearing quite interesting things about a lot of unexpected subjets, that the emission relied on solid contents (drop the "s" -- content), to the contrary to the programs he had seen up to that time where an artist only came to TV to promote his or her last work in conventional terms.

He was inspired.

"That's what TV should be like", he thought, and under that inspiration he created his program Inside the Actors Studio which made him famous. Every time, at the end of the program, he asks his guests to answer a questionnaire, which he presents as the questionnaire of great Bernard Pivot, in Apostrophes and Bouillon de culture (a ritual expression he deliberately reuses each time.) Pivot, indeed, had devised a questionnaire à la Proust and used to present it to his own guests at the end of his shows.

Pivot eventually overheard (heard) about Lipton's questionnaire, and (omit the "and") watched one of Lipton's show on cable TV, and couldn't believe his eyes: the emission of a humble Frenchman (a humble Frenchman's TV program) [had] inspired a US show, and in such a way that it receives (received) a (an) hommage back (in return), instead of having its core ideas being just stolen, as usually. (as usual)

Back then, the last of [the] "Bouillon de Culture" shows was being prepared. Pivot sent a letter to Lipton --they had never met before--, written in French, that began with "Cher amirateur" (untranslatable play on words: a cross between "dear admirer" and "dear friend") [and "amateur", not a compliment in English], and invited Lipton to that closure (closing) show. Lipton enthusiastically accepted. "Me, in (on) Pivot's show? My heart is going to stop right away!", he stated to the French press. Nothing much actually happened between the two men during the show, as each of them seemed to be too impressed by the other to be at ease. But the show looked like a "passing of the flame" between the two men as well as a historical and symbolical (symbolic) cultural encounter. (here, I would write "encounter between two cultures" just to avoid the three words practically in a row ending in -al...c'est trop)

James Lipton currently seeks to have the extant Apostrophes and Bouillon de Culture programs dubbed in English and (re)broadcast, since the US public does not like subtitles (very) much. Since the world-wide success of Inside the Actors Studio has already brought the public's attention to Pivot even though most of them never saw him, and thanks to the quality of some of Pivot's shows, Lipton claims that they would surely please the world public, and perhaps even trigger followers.

The conclusion I would rewrite as follows, since it has several flaws:

Lipton claims that these programs would surely please the world public, due in part to the world-wide success of Inside the Actors Studio, which directed the public's attention to Pivot, and also to the quality of Pivot's work itself.

Is that better ?

195.132.56.137 18:42, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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