I'm watching Broadchurch, and one lawyer answers the other by correcting her: "My contention is that there is no proof that Tom committed the murder."

For lawyers, much like for mathematicians grading homework, one must constantly emphasise the difference between a statement, and a proved statement. But that is not what I am talking about, it is not what I was thinking about when I was watching Broadchurch. The word contention brought back a fond memory.

In high school, me and Mark Sewell decided to do debating. There were 5 or 6 Marks in our grade at high-school, but Sewell was the best of them to debate with, and so I chose him to be my partner. It turns out you don't really have to partner up with someone with the same name, but I don't know why anyone wouldn't.

We were not good debaters. We had other things to do, and didn't spend much time on it. I'm not sure why we even decided to do it. But we did.

There are some conventions that one uses in debating. Like in anything, there is specialised vocabulary that you use more in debating that you do not use elsewhere. The one example of a word that is more often used in debating than in normal life is 'contention'. The main point of your argument is your contention.

Like that lawyer on Broadchurch, a debater will often refer to their, or their opponent's contention.

Though I remember the word now, I did not remember it at the big debate in Kelowna.

The day before the debate, Mark and I worked out our contentions on the topic, both in the affirmative and the negative. They seems rock solid. And Mark and I were both top students, so we were sure we would kill it.

We were confident until the bus ride down to Kelowna, where Amber and Mel, another team that had much more experience than us in debating, was working on their arguments. Their arguments seemed much more intricate than ours.

It began to seem like there was more to this than having a couple of good arguments prepared.

Our first debate was against some Julie and Julie from Kelowna High School. "Same names." I said to Mark, "They'll probably be good."

"They are the best." said Claire, Mark's girlfriend, "They are going to kill you."

Oh yeah. She was on the team. Maybe that had something to do with why we joined debating.

The debates were spread out in different classrooms. The time came, and we went to our classroom. The judges, and our opponents were there. We did introductions. Julie and Julie were pleasant and smiling. And Julie was cute. Maybe this had something to do with why I joined debating. It was mostly girls on the team. It was going to be fun.

But it soon wasn't. As soon as the debate started, Julie and Julie shed their smiles, and we immediately saw how out-classed we were.

I was the first negative speaker. In her opening, the first Julie had defined the topic differently than we had, and so our arguments didn't really apply. Apparently as first negative speaker, I am allowed to disagree with their definition of the topic; but what she said had just made sense. Our definition of it was clearly wrong.

Bumbling through my spontaneous negative argument, I went on to rebutting hers. As one is wont to do, I disagreed with her first contention. Only, I forgot the word.

"I take issue with your...your..."

Cute Julie smiled at me expectantly.

"...with your..."

Mark looked up at me concerned.

Mark could not talk, only the speaker can talk, but he could write me notes.

"...with your..."

In an whisper to Mark, I asked "What's that c-word?"

Both Julies giggled. The judges smirked. Apparently a whisper in an almost empty classroom is not really a whisper.

It was not long before everybody on both teams started delighting themselves by asking me what my issue with Julie's c-word was.