HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2001-09-26, Page 5Bonnie
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The short of it
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2001. PAGE 5.
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Sew, kin ewe spel dud?
Language is magic: it makes
things appear and disappear
Nicole Brossard
0 f all the lucky stars that twinkled over
my birth, I am most thankful to the orb
responsible for making sure I was born
into an English-speaking family.
This is not mere linguistic chauvinism. The
fact is — I don't think I could ever learn
English as a second language.
Simply put, our language is insane. Consider
this sentence; "Farmers ought to plough
thoroughly through a rough trough."
Six words that use the "o-u-g-h"
combination: each one with a different
pronunciation.
George Bernard Shaw once wrote the word
`ghoti' on a blackboard and asked a class of
• English students how they thought it should
properly be pronounced. The overwhelming
answer was GOTTI - like the former New York
Mafia don. ,
"No," replied Shaw, "it is pronounced
`FISIT".
"Wha?" said the students.
Shaw took up the chalk again and wrote:
"GH" as in cough (i.e. "F").
"0" as in women (i.e. "I").
"TI" as in notion (i.e. "SH").
English is a language of potholes and cul-de-
sacs, trip wires and cherry bombs — all
predisposed to blow up in the unwary user's
face.
And nowhere is that more evident than when
Ialways get a laugh when I find that some
company attempts, and unfortunately
generally succeeds, in passing a price
increase on to an unsuspecting public, giving at
- the time a rather incomplete picture of the
situation.
I thought I might share with you a few of the
most recent of them and add a few comments.
Let's take a look first at that wildly
successful .donut chain, Tim Horton's. You
know, the one that makes foreign tourists think
that donuts are to Canadians what beer is to the
Czechs or Germans.
Well, recently I went in to enjoy one of my
periodic cups of coffee, along with my
weakness, a sour cream glazed donut, when I
noticed the price of the coffee had gone up.
I inquired about this and was given some
barely credible excuse for the increase; it didn't
wash since the world price of coffee has been
dropping for the past year and a half, due to
bumper crops of existing producers and the
entry into the market of additional growers,
such as Vietnam. Right now this price is half of
what it was 18 months ago. The price should be
going down, not up.
Don't try that excuse on me again, Timmy.
Hands up all those who will no longer buy
coffee at Tim Horton's as a result of this
knowledge. Ah, I thought so. ,
The reason for this lack of agreement is
because the price of a cup of coffee is what we
economists call inelastic or price insensitive.
This means that it will take a relatively large
increase in this price to bring about any
reduction in consumption.
As for -me, I announced to the manager that I
was boycotting his outlet until he brought the
price back to its, former level. And so I do.
What good is'an economist if he doesn't have
the courage of his convictions?
Let's move on' to another product. If you
have a sweet tooth and like chocolate bars, you
will be pleased to learn that the price of them
we write the language down. Our daily
newspapers bristle with bungled English -
which is not to malign our beloved editors
(especially that Prince of Print who signs my
weekly paycheque).
But consider this item (which appeared,
fortuitously enough, during the Clinton reign)
in an Alabama newspaper: The president, who
has been sick for several days, is now in bed
with a coed.
Sometimes, in the rascally tongue of '
English, it only takes the errant placement of a
single letter;
Advanced Life Painting Studio. This group
grows out of a need for professional artists to
have an opportunity to paint the model. Tuition
includes model feel.
Even church bulletins are not immune to the
misplaced letters virus: As an encore, Miss
Brown played the old favourite, "Carry Me
Back to Old Virginity!'
And folks with seemingly harmless hobbies
are as likely to be maligned as anyone else: Ms
Dwyer has been raising tropical birds for many
years, and is credited with having the largest
parateets in the country.
Raymond
Canon
The
International
Scene
should be coming down too.
The operative word here is "should" since
the world price of cocoa has, like coffee,
dropped considerably. It was at a 28-year low
last year before it came up a bit.
Have you noticed any drop in price of these
chocolate bars at any time during the past few
years? Dream on! If anything, the
manufacturers are likely to try to put a smaller
bar into the same packaging. That is an old
ploy, by the way.
I've talked about gasoline prices in the past
but it's worth another shot. You drive by your
favourite gas station and see that the price has
.gone up five cents a litre since yesterday (that's
25 cents a gallon).
Did the world price go up by that much at
any time? Not by a long shot!
Yet, when I ask anybody in the industry,
without saying who I am, I can count on
getting some song and dance about supply and
demand. Whenever I hear that expression I
invite, the person spouting that nonsense to
come into my classroom to explain it.
That would be interesting but you might like
to know that nobody has taken me up on that
invitation so far. I wonder why.
Finally there is a joke in the travel industry
Final Thought
While there's life, theie's hope.
— Terence (Publius Terentius Afer)
The personal ads? Don't think they are safe
from unintentional embarrassment: Single
Male, professional, financially and
emotionally secure, seeks SWF, 22-38, who
likes to travel and experience different
vultures.
Even TV weathermen, those blow-dried,
smiley-faced TV icons, can fall afoul of
English misfires - as evidenced by the Toronto
forecaster who faced the CBC television
camera and purred: Tomorrow we may expect
strong northwest winds reaching a gal in
exposed places.
Luckily we live in an age of sophisticated
computer technology. We have a built-in
computer device call Spell Check that will save
us from such embarrassment, right?
Not right. The spell check feature, as any
computer user will tell you, opens a whole new
frontier of Linguistic Blooperdom. Spell
check doesn't care if your writing makes sense
- only that every word you use in it is a
recognized English construction word.
I leave you with a poem that was sent to me
by email:
Eye halve a spelling chequer
I disk covered four my pea sea
It plane lee marques four my revue
Miss steaks aye kin knot sea.
Iran this poem threw it
I am shore ewer pleased two no
Its ladder perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.
I think we're fair
4 4 don't know why The Citizen prints
that shit." I suppose it's likely this
comment gets made moreifrequently
. than I care to know. But 'with regards to this
particular instance, the remark came directly
to me concerning court coverage.
The only response, which I believe strongly
is a good one, is that court news is just that,
news. When a person commits a crime it
becomes of interest to the general public, who,
ik by the way, could be sitting in that courtroom
to hear the outcome. We are not telling any
secrets, nor are we spreading gossip.
Nor do we want to. Trust me when I tell you,
it gives us no great pleasure to report the
details. There is no glee in publicly noting
another's misdeeds or misfortune.
I actually harbour a certain sympathy for the
majority of people there, who often times have
made one foolish mistake, of which we are all
capable. There but for the grace... Holding
them in judgement is not my job.
Then there are those whom one is convinced
are wrongly accused. For this reason The
Citizen generally does not print the names of
people charged with an offense. There are
exceptions, of course; more serious crimes,
such as assault with a weapon, drunk .driving
causing death, or drug trafficking, do tend to
carry a little more notoriety. Reporting these
would be expected of us. Which is another
reason why we cover court. In all fairness you
can't pick and choose crimes to report.
I believe as well, we demonstrate a
sensitivity to the victim whose identity we
attempt to keep anonymous, unless there is no
way to do so without losing the integrity of the
work.
We also do not discuss court appearances, or
report trials in which the charge is dismissed.
However, like it or not, the cold fact is that
once there is' an admission or finding of gilt,
' it's news. Like the cop who arrests them, the
lawyer who defends them, the attorney who
accuses them and the judge who metes out the
punishment, we have a job to do.
The other reality is that in some cases, the
publication of one's name in the newspaper in
connection with less than-exemplary conduct
may on rare occasion be a greater deterrent
than the actual punishment. If so, if once out of
1,000, someone felt so shamed by seeing their
misdeeds in print, that they decided to turn
their life around then why is that a bad thing?
And for every person like the
aforementioned, who feels the page on which
the court report is printed deserves a final
resting, place in the toilet, there are others
interested in knowing the facts, There are
people who know the accused, who know all
too well the crime committed and who want to
know that justice has been done.
Actually, the sentiment is one we have
encountered from time to time with nearly
every aspect of the paper. A woman once
complained that there was too much space
wasted on sports. I tried to explain that dozens
of parents enjoyed reading that news, but the
bottom line was, it didn't interest her.
There's too much Brussels news for Blyth
people. too much Blyth news for Brussels
people. There is always someone who can find
what they believe to be a waste of space.
You can't please everyone, but we do what is
humanly possible in trying. Covering court,
we realize only too well. is a sensitive issue.
Ideally, it would be nice if they didn't have any
cases. But people keep showing up. I believe
we approach their stories with an open mind
and fairness in our reporting.
Call it a funny phenomenon
that, if you ask the passengers in an aircraft
how much he or she paid for the ticket, you will
find that no two people paid the same amount.
It is amazing how one seat can have so many
different prices.
It is just as amazing that I can fly to Europe
from Toronto for about $150 more than it costs
me to by to Halifax.
Do you not get the impression at times that
the airlines would rather fly you to another
country than they would to some place in
Canada?
Well, there you have it. I just shake my head
at times when I read or hear of such increases.
It is, unfortunately, so easy to raise the price
of something for whatever reason; if only the
producers were so prone to lower the price
when there is a drop in one or more of the
production costs. There is a name for that too;
its called price stickiness.
Well, we live in an imperfect world and all
this is just one more example of it. But why, oh
why, does it have to work against us so often?
Letter to the editor
Continued from page 4
Sir Charles Bagot proposed a bold new plan for
dealing with the border: I - Bring home the
soldiers, 2 - withdraw the battleships. 3 -
destroy the forts. When the treaty was signed in
1818 it said no soldiers, no battleships and no
forts along the border. Canada and the US have
had an undefended border--and peaceful
relations since then.
Today we have an opportunity to say yes to
justice and no to vengeance. I pray that we and
our leaders will have the wisdom and creativity
to do so. As I walk I will be carrying a sign that
says "There is a Better Way". May we find it
before our hatreds and our technologies of
violence destroy us all.
Yours sincerely,
Tony McQuail, •
Lucknow