Anyone else get offended (or pissed) at non-Canadian spellings?

[HEyHEY]

Like "Color" your world. Or those ATMs that say "Checking"

I do, we really should keep our spellings Canadian


Iverglas, I know you're with me!

[Lithos]

1. Take Off!!!

:evilgrin:

[yvr girl]

2. I prefer to use Canadian spelling but

I often need to use American at work. If I'm making a piece of collateral that will be used in Canada and the States, we use US spelling. Americans will think we were wrong if we use the Canadian spelling.

I was working on a piece with a colleague from the US that was going to be used for a primarily British audience. He kept red-lining certain words, and I kept reversing it.

[hermetic]

3. You mean like

"dat" or "dem"? Just kidding. No one loves Canadians more than I and words like "colour" make the language so much more of a romance language than "mericun".

[iverglas]

4. you betcha

Frankly, when I see the word "check" used instead of "cheque", I don't even know what it means until I stop to think.

I haven't encountered these ATMs. So our bank machine transactions have now been offshored, have they? I assume those are the ones like the one in my 7-11, formerly a trusty CIBC beast, now some sort of foreign-looking unbranded object. I've only used it a couple of times and been mostly intent on figuring out what it wants me to do -- I'll look this week to see whether it wants me to take money out of a "checking" account.

Do the ATMs where you're at ask you to choose English or French before beginning?

What was I watching this morning -- oh yeah, a very old 22 Minutes rerun on BBC Canada -- in which Rick Mercer, of all people, and one of the others, repeatedly said "ant-eye" instead of "auntie", for "anti-". That -- and "quas-eye" and "sem-eye" and all their cousins, drive me up a wall.

It may sound quaint or picayune or pointless to make these objections -- but a language and culture that so easily abandon their distinctive characteristics are exhibiting symptoms of ceasing to exist. Not just the spelling or the terminology (girl guides, wolf cubs, grade 3 ... and all the others that are so casually replaced by things like girl scouts, cub scouts or third grade in public speech), but the essence of the culture they express.

I'm still optimistic that "Canadian" is on the ascendancy, though, both here and in the world, even if we lose a few of the symbolic manifestations along the way. We can probably manage to retain health care and appreciation of diversity and all our other substantive manifestations of our cultural/political heritage, and our sophistication and maturity as a culture and society, even if we lose the "u" in "colour". ;)

But let us not lose them without a fight, let alone without even noticing!

Btw, Didn't Conrad Black order the "u" put back in when he took over the media? Well, talk about yer stopped clocks.

[HEyHEY]

5. The ATM actually ...

only asks languae if you're at a bank you aren't a member of (I'm told). Otherwise the card has your prefered language programmed into it.

[yvr girl]

8. It depends on the bank

I tend to go to random bank owned ATMs. I have been asked several language questions. English, French and what I am guessing to be a Chinese language and Japanese. I seldom manage to actually hit my own bank's machines.

[ironflange]

6. It doesn't bother me

If I'm in a forum with Americans about, I'll stick to "color" etc, I'm tired of being questioned. I draw the line at one thing, though. For me, it's always "you all" rather than "y'all."

[HEyHEY]

7. I mena within Canada

like when you read a menu or something that is spelled in US english

[iverglas]

9. of course, then there's Montreal English

Or just bilingual-federal-government English in general. I'm so tired of hearing about Ministers being responsible for "files". There is no "childcare file", or what have you. "Dossier", in French, means "file" literally in some instances, but just not all the damned time. Ministers, formally, have a portfolio, which functions the same way as dossier in that case. And childcare is an issue, not a file.

And then there's Adrienne Clarkson and her bleeding "Madame" (and all the CBC news presenters who say things like "Madame Chrétien"). "Madame" is not even a word in English. And in French it isn't some high-falutin' honorary title -- it's simply the exact equivalent of "Mrs." -- or, these days, it being used universally for women now, "Ms." And of course that's why all francophone govt. employees now address me as "Mrs.", working backwards from the French, and taking me backwards about 40 years in social progress as a woman.

Anyhow, speaking of menus ... I think my all-time favourite was the one in Quebec City that offered "beef consumed" on the English side of its soup section. Looking to the French side to find out what on earth that ghastly item might be, one found boeuf consommé ...

[gula]

10. And here I always thought that a Madame

was someone running a particular type of enterprise?

I agree that language is important to curlture, so here is something you might want to think about. A lot of us immigrants (and thank you a million times for not calling us aliens) adding to your much cherished diversity do no come from English speaking countries and learn English once we get here through trial and error. In other words, we haven't got a clue what kind of English we use. So if you want us to get a handle on Canadian English you must ensure that our newspapers, radio, etc use it. If not how will we ever learn?

[iverglas]

11. nonono!

And here I always thought that a Madame
was someone running a particular type of enterprise?"

That's a madam! That's the English word.

And that's why, for several years, the female judges of the Federal Court of Canada insisted on being called "Madame Justice" in English, rather than "Madam Justice" as every other female superior court judge in the history of the English-speaking world has ever been called. (Well, except in Rumpole novels and some ESL bits of the world, where they actually say "Mrs. Justice".) The judges wouldn't let on publicly that this was their problem, but it was, and it was nonsense.

In other words, we haven't got a clue what kind of English we use. So if you want us to get a handle on Canadian English you must ensure that our newspapers, radio, etc use it. If not how will we ever learn?

Absolutely! That is a real problem with immigration. (And here I speak as a former lawyer for many many many would-be immigrants and refugees.) There *is* a culture here, which includes language and also values, like that famous tolerance and fondness for diversity. And when immigrants fail to recognize and adhere to those really fundamental things, it doesn't make for a happy mix.

Take the bloody Chinese "christians" -- the ones who left the United Church en masse, and are now doing the same with the Anglican Church, because of the churches' acceptance of gay and lesbian clergy, in the first case, and same-sex marriage, in the present case. My (primitive and unCanadian) urge was to re-join the United Church and start a movement to ban Chinese-Canadian clergy. Fuck you right back at ya.

For several years, a room in my house was the unofficial clubhouse for a number of little Chinese-Canadian girls in my neighbourhood -- I didn't have kids their age, I was just their middle-aged friend. We watched movies that weren't recent Hollywood releases (actually, they were mainly Brit -- they acquired my own childhood fondness for Hayley Mills) and played the piano and tended the neighbourhood cats and squirrels and did homework and potted up flowers for the neighbours' porches and went to the library and on excursions to local historic sites, and talked about stuff. Their own parents were overworked, and largely isolated from mainstream Canadian culture by the language barrier, and most of their community, both at the school and at home, were immigrants as well. One of their older brothers came to me when he had problems, and their parents consulted me about the kids' school and behavioural problems as well. And for a while my next-door tenants were a three-generation Chinese-Canadian family -- grandmother, dying father, goofy young-adult son -- and I performed the same kind of cultural-connective tissue function with them.

One of the little girls used to watch Quincy with me after school. (I used to say, to explain what he did, that if you woke up and found that Quincy was your doctor, you knew you were in trouble. She thought that was funny ... and then one day, a "body" in his morgue did just that!) I made sure she knew that "Quincy" was modeled on the Canadian 60s television coroner "Wojack", who was himself modeled on Ontario's real-life crusading NDP coroner Morty Shulman.

I suppose I sound like I'm tooting my horn. But really, I believe in Canadian culture, I believe in our values and way of life, and I want to pass it on and strengthen it, and I enjoy doing it -- and think I have a responsibility to do it. (And I should add that the cultural exchange worked both ways, as it should, this being Canada: I got culinary treats from the mothers, and attended multicultural events with the kids at the school, and insisted that they take their Saturday morning board of ed Chinese classes seriously, etc.) The funny time was when I took two of them to a craft fair and, for their treat, they got those little carved stone things for imprinting your name on sealing wax. I agreed with the Chinese vendors that they should have their Chinese names (which they hated) on the seal with their English names. And the vendors asked whether the two little girls -- who didn't even look remotely alike themselves -- were my daughters. ;)

Anyhow -- they're teenagers now and not interested in me anymore, so I'm missing them a bit. But I think they got a leg up on "integrating" into Canadian society, and I think Canadian society is the better for their knowing a bit more about what they're integrating into.

And as far as you getting good Canadian English in the media, I'll promise to do what I generally only think about doing every time I hear somebody on TV, or read someone in the newspaper, saying "defence attorney" (there are no "attorney"s in the English-speaking Canadian bar, except for those Crown Attorneys ... who are *not* "district attorneys" of course) or "ant-eye" ... or "third grade" or "cub scout" ... and write that letter!

[gula]

12. Oooops

Well I learned something today. Madam, Madam, Madam. There, I should now remember. Thanks.

Not to depress you but what I am noticing more and more is that a number of immigrants, especially newer ones, never even watch Canadian TV or read local papers anymore. They watch programmes from their country of origin on cable/satellite, send their kids to private schools modeled on their native country and/or religion and get other news via internet. In other words, they are completely cutting themselves off from Canada. When I mention something that happened here such as the fires in BC or some local issue, they have no idea what I am talking about. I see this a a huge problem which will only grow, escpecially the fact that the kids are being cut off as well.

Of course the Canadian government doesn't really help either. When I received my citizenship, nothing and I mean nothing, was asked of me. They handed it out like week old bread. I was so dissappointed. It somehow felt cheap, like they put no value on it at all. I gather that has changed somewhat. I hope more than somewhat.

We need more people like you.