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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1999-05-12, Page 5Arthur Black An urban legend in his time There's this very mysterious property down the road from where I live. Very private - a couple of hundred acres and heavily treed. It is also surrounded by a ten-foot chain-link fence. This in a rural area where even a half-baked split rail fence is considered unduly ambitious. Everybody knows something unusual is going on there, because front-end loaders, bulldozers and crews of workmen show up regularly and disappear behind the padlocked gate. Naturally it leads to great speculation down at the coffee shop. My coffee pal Gavin says it's no mystery at all. He says that Robin Williams is moving in. Yep - Dead Poet/Good Morning Vietnam/Patch Adams Robin Williams. Gavin says Robin's been looking for property in our neck of the woods for years and now he's found it. And he's building a mansion back in the trees beyond that fence. Gavin's dead sure, and I’d normally give him the benefit of the doubt - except I heard it was Jack Nicholson who was moving in there. I also heard it was Barbara Streisand. Someone else was dead certain that Tom Selleck was buying the place, but only so that International Scene What is a standard language? When I arrived in Canada at a relatively early age, I was informed by one of my new classmates that I did not speak English like the other kids. I had, he said, "a funny accent." You have to remember that this took place at a time before immigration to this country was a growth industry. If I am not mistaken, my sister and I were the only ones to arrive at the public school in Simcoe that year and we were, naturally enough, objects of curiosity, which extended not only to our accent, but our clothes, mannerisms and customs. I'm sure that all the children in our respective classes went home that week with tales of the foreign kids, who had arrived, with emphasis on our "funny” accents. To be honest, I still have not got totally rid of it. My wife can attest to the fact that, when she met me, 1 had a tendency to forget ''th” sounds and used either d or t. It was a few years before I got over that. Place names I still have problems with, tending to pronounce them as a German or French word, depending on the language in which I first heard the name. You almost need \ he could give it to Sharon Stone as a birthday present. It's a genuine Urban Legend in the making - one of those irresistible word of mouth stories that spreads like wildfire because it's delicious, and because it's too good to be true. Turn on your radio to the local easy listening station and you can hear another Urban Legend in the making. It's a song called "Everybody's Free (to Wear Sunscreen)" - a frothy ditty that offers ironically cornball advice to young folks about to shamble down The Rocky Road of Life. What makes it an urban legend is that the American writer Kurt Vonnegut is supposed to have delivered the original version of the song in the form of a commencement address to the graduation class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a couple of years back. He didn't. Vonnegut has never given the commencement" address at MIT. Besides he writes a lot better than that. "Wear Sunscreen" was, in fact, born as a newspaper column written by one Mary Smich, who writes a regular feature for the Chicago Tribune. Ms Smich has no idea how Vonnegut's name became attached to her work. She takes every opportunity to set the record straight - but to no avail. The Vonnegut angle simply will not die. I even heard a disc jockey introduce the song as "words of wisdom from the man who gave us "Breakfast of Champions". By Raymond Canon a foreign dictionary to keep up with my geographical names. You may wonder at this stage where this is all leading but bear with me. If I spoke with an accent, what was the standard? Is there a standard Canadian English, supposedly spoken by newscasters on the CBC? Maybe not even there since I have heard several accents on both radio and television. Somebody told me one time that the best English was spoken by the BBC, which may be fine for people on the British Isles but certainly not here. What, too, is an official American accent? I can't answer that; maybe some readers can. This confusion extends to other languages. I hear, for example, all about Parisian French, and I have been complimented several times on speaking it. However, I have never lived there. The only explanation is that I picked it up in a previous life (maybe I was Voltaire). However, I can vouch for the fact that many French-speaking people will state categorically that "Parisian French" is standard French. I have the feeling that, if you can understand it, it must be Parisian French. I also know people who claim that standard Spanish is spoken in Madrid and standard Portuguese is spoken in Lisbon since both are the capitals of their respective countries. However, this does not extend to Italian since Urfc>an Legends are like crabgrass. Once they take root, you'll spend a lot of time and energy trying to get nd of them. As with another popular Urban Legend currently making the rounds on Canada's west coast. This one has it that a woman wanders into an ice-cream parlour in downtown Victoria, where it slowly dawns on her that Hollywood screen idol Paul Newman is standing right beside her, licking a cone. "I am not going to act like a fluff-brained fan" the lady tells herself firmly. "I refuse to fawn and simper and tell him how much I love his movies." Calmly, looking directly at the server, the woman orders a double-dip, vanilla ice cream cone, coolly takes her wallet out of her purse to pay for it, accepts her change graciously and nonchalantly exits the shop. When she gets outside, she realizes that she has forgotten the very thing she went in for. Flustered, she goes back inside and says to the clerk, "I'm sorry, but I forgot to pick up the cone that I paid for." And from behind her, the woman hears the unmistakable voice of Paul Newman saying: "You'll find it right where you put it, ma'am, - in your purse." Well I know it's only an Urban Legend but it's a great story. Can't wait to tell it to Robin when he moves in down the street. it is generally accepted that "standard" Italian is derived not from Rome but from the Tuscan dialect since the first great Italian writers Petrarch, Boccaccio and Dante all lived in Florence, the capital Tuscany and naturally wrote in their local dialect. But even that dialect varies in several aspects from so called "standard" Italian. Nor is standard German the language as spoken in Berlin or even Bonn. It has been said (but not by me) that the best German is spoken in the central part of the country around Hanover, but this may be local pride on a level with that of the French living in Paris. I can assure you that there is no standard Swiss German. It is certainly not the dialect spoken in the canton of Bern where the capital of the country is located. I would also hate to think that Austrian German is as spoken in Vienna. If so, I am in for a bit of trouble. Maybe we can just say that there is no such thing as a standard language anymore and anybody who claims there is can be put down as a linguistic snob. I ~1 A Final Thought Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance. - Samuel Johnson THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 12, 1999. PAGE 5. The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp Thanks Mr. Blay Tall, slightly gangly, bespectacled, he wasn't the most handsome man in the world. But almost from the day he entered mine I was enamoured. He never asked much of me, but for him I would have dressed like Juliet, climbed to a roof top and quoth Shakespeare to the entire town. Yet, like many infatuations, mine was unrequited. Mr. Blay came to teach at my high school the year I entered Grade 10. Though I was always a keen English student, he made me believe I could put my interests to good use. He encouraged my writing, he offered constructive criticisms, and subtly pressured me to improve. But more importantly, he seemed to really enjoy his students. Though his classroom was for learning, it was also always entertaining. It was a place I looked forward to being every day. More than English, he taught me the positive impact a teacher can have on a child. Unfortunately, the next year I experienced the antithesis from whom I learned nothing but that there are people who should never teach. Granted, I was not an easy teenager. I carried into the classroom a book bag full of emotional crap. But a good teacher knows how to not just keep the bad stuff hidden away, but even for a time remove its existence. Such was Mr. Blay. I never told him how I felt. And though I can be excused for my reticence while an awkward adolescent, I threw away a second chance. While on vacation several years ago, sure I saw him, I wrangled through a mental argument and let the opportunity slip by. I will not make the mistake again. This past week, because of my youngest children's involvement in an extracurricular activity and through work, I have had the opportunity to spend some time watching one specific teacher on the job. Anyone who thinks educators' days end at 3 p.m., who thinks they are only in it for the pay cheque, who thinks they don't care about the kids, need only follow this woman around to see otherwise. Tenacious, but patient; firm, but respectful, the affection for her students and enthusiasm for her career are evidently genuine. There is not a student past or present whom I have spoken with that does not adore her. She likes them, she believes in them and they know it. From all that I have seen and heard, she is their Mr. Blay. As with any profession, any job there are the good, the bad and the... ...well, my Grade 11 teacher. There are terrible doctors, lousy plumbers, butcherous hairstylists, and even politicians who represent the party not the people. Yet few are painted with the same general brush as teachers. I believe the majority of educators do their job well. After all, the differences seem simple enough to notice. A bad teacher doesn’t care about getting the best from their students if it means a struggle. A good teacher asks and usually receives. An exemplary teacher doesn’t have to ask her students for their best, they just give it. It is to the latter that I draw attention here and to make sure they realize they will fondly be remembered for a long, long time.