Wesh, chenapan, berezina and hieroglyphics. In Bernay (Eure), 250 people attacked Tuesday, June 6 the giant dictation of Rachid Santaki. In the central aisle of Notre-Dame Abbey, the tension was palpable among college students but also adults, retired or working, who came to test their level of spelling and grammar.
"I'm definitely going to make mistakes," warns one retired participant. In my life, I wrote a lot because I was in the legal field, but with spell checkers, we pay less attention. "Oh no, I write everything without a proofreader," says Najate, a young nurse. Since I was a little girl, I love French. »
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Among the white copies are some texts with holes for a group of people with disabilities. "At Esat de Bernay, with Ladapt Normandie, we were able to participate in writing workshops to prepare for dictation. But we had practiced a real dictation with no help, "says Valérie, their accompanist. "Yes, but it's better," replies Nicolas, sitting next to him, because we can concentrate on difficult words."
Uninhibiting writing
"I'll tell you a secret: I repeated the CP," Rachid Santaki told a participant who came with the Esat group. The author and writer, nicknamed the "Bernard Pivot" of the suburbs, wanted to propose a way to have fun and not "take seriously the exercise of dictation while being serious": "The giant dictation is to arrive with workshops because the text is constituted before, then a collective correction. The idea is to uninhibit people in their relationship with the written word to better move forward. »
When Rachid Santaki takes the microphone, silence fills the place. Only the words he chants echo against the walls of the abbey. In a large concentration, everyone looks for the right spelling for "tyrosemiophile" – the one who collects the labels of Camembert boxes tells us Rachid before detailing the correction of each word.
"On the networks, I made a million views, it arouses interest from everyone, including abroad"
Rachid Santaki, journalist, novelist, screenwriter and organizer of giant dictations
The hubbub resumes when it comes to deciding whether a missing hyphen or a capital letter to "berezina" is a mistake. In search of the perfect copy, Rachid separates adults, less disciplined than teenagers.
The writer is amazed at the success of the giant dictation. "With the 1500 people on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, we had a lot of spinoffs, we talked about it on TikTok, my children and my nephews tell me that I broke through, that I made a million views, it arouses interest from everyone, including abroad," he says. Hilare, he reads a comment published on the social network Twitter of a passer-by on the Champs wondering: "What is this country of crazy" which blocks the most beautiful avenue in the world for a dictation. Others respond by quoting the names of popular or essential French authors. Rachid Santaki agrees: "The France is the land of letters."
