Source : am French and have been laughing about this since I was 8yo. Recently read about the prefect response and it’s now even better.
3 points
Hmm… Maybe the translation affects the meaning indeed.
To clarify, McMahon was visiting a city crippled by flood and didn’t find anything better to say than “so much water!”. The follow up by the French official was “And there’s more, you’ve only seen the top of it!”, meaning the surface of the water (implying “beneath the surface, there’s even more water, Mr. President, you’d be surprised!”).
It’s my understanding that the official was somehow trolling McMahon for his… mmh… stupid comment.
Is it better this way?
3 points
