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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1983-03-16, Page 4Page 4 Times -Advocate, March 16, 1983 Imes - Times Established 1873 Advocate Established 1881 Amalgamated 1924 dvocate Serving South Huron, North Middlesex & North Lambton Since 1873 Published by 1.W. Eedy Publications limited LORNE EEDY Publisher JIM BECKETT Advertising Manager BILL BATTEN Editor HARRY DEVRIES Composition Manager ROSS HAUGH Asti tint Editor DICKONGKIND Business Manager *CNA i I' Published Each Wednesday Morning at bleier, Ontario Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386. Phone 235-1331 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $21.00 Per year; U.S.A. $56.00 C.W.N.A., O.C.N.A. CLASS 'A' and 'ABC' A step backwards Exeter council's attempt at avoiding the pitfalls of piece -meal budget approvals suffered a setback last week when approval was given to the area fire board to proceed on the purchase of a new rescue van. Having previously decided that the board's budget should be deferred until such time as the town's over- all budget picture was set, the purchase approval caught some members off guard and they had actual- ly endorsed the move before realizing what they had done. The irony of the situation was that the motion was presented by finance committee chairman Bill Mickle, who in the past has been quite adamant in his stance that all town, expenditures must be weighed against each other before any final decisions are made. There was probably little doubt that the purchase would have been approved in the fire board's budget, but as a major capital expenditure it should have received the scrutiny of council members in light of other budget expenditures that may turn out to be equally or more pressing. It is a retrograde step in the budget practice of council. Excuse for the weak A part-time teacher recently convicted on 16 counts of defrauding the unemployment insurance commission defended his action with the argument that "everybody does it". His argument drew a stiff rebuke from the presiding judge, who contended that as a teacher, the accused should set a model for his students. The teacher's reply to that was "everyone cheats." As demeaning as the argument may appear, there is a growing concern for the attitude that the only sin in cheating or breaking the rules is in being caught. Attitudes, unfortunately, are not something that can be legislated. They reflect the teachings and ac- tions of those with whom people come in contact, either directly or indirectly. However, only the weakest can excuse themselves on the grounds of ignorance as right and wrong, regardless of what they see or hear going on about them. Campaign approaches Springtime in this part o1 Canada besides the reawakening of nature, means campaign time for the Canadian Cancer Society. Daffodil days and bike-a- thons and door-to-door canvasses are as recognizable to generous volunteers and donors as the familiar red sword symbol of the society itself. However, this spring, unless householders and businesses are alert they could find themselves mail- ing donations to an organization that sounds and has a logo similar to that of the Canadian Cancer Society, but isn't. It is the Cancer Research Society Inc., a Quebec - based organization that has its headquarters in Montreal. Literature pertaining to the Cancer Research Society Inc. is now turning up in the area. The promo- tional materials are very similar and anyone glanc- ing at the material would believe it to be from the Canadian Cancer Society. The Cancer Research Society Inc. is generous in its use of red ink which is also the trademark of the Canadian Cancer Society, and its red sword symbol which includes a circled cancer sign could easily be taken for the society's red sword. As far as anyone can determine The Cancer Research Society Inc. is an honorable organization. However, donors should realize that most of the funds it collects stay in the province of Quebec, although the literature accompanying the appeal for funds also lists universities in British Columbia, Manitoba, New- foundland and Ontario as recipients of grants and fellowships. We wouldn't for one minute suggest anyone should not give a donation to the Cancer Research Society Inc. However, at the same time, they should not confuse it with the Canadian Cancer Society which will be mak- ing its annual appeal for funds in the next few weeks. Goderich Signal -Star Illiteracy level not surprising Several universities, recognizing the deplorable level of illiteracy among many of the students seeking admission to the higher halls of learning, have establish- ed pee -entrance examinations. Surprising as it may seem to those who have been contributing towards the high cost of education, as many as 30 or 40 per- cent of the high school applicants fail the pre -entrance tests. It is indicated that well over one million Canadians are functionally illiterate. They cannot write or read English at any more than a grade eight level. Many can- not read and write at all. While the major fault must rest with the education system, it must also he con- sidered that the environment in which people live has something to do with the incessant attack on the English language. Nowhere is this more obvious than in advertising. Product names blatantly at- tack the correct spelling. It is not surpris- ing that a junior grader has problems even spelling the word cat correctly when he sees an advertisement for a product in which the spelling is altered to kat. Advertising slogans also cause ir- reparable harm. Now, however, there is a group attemp- ting to bring some sanity back into pro- per English. The Society for Advance- ment of Good English (SAGE) awards an annual Dunce Cap of the Year to firms which attack the language. The award for 1982 was given to Kraft inc. for "persi'•tent and conspicuous abuse of the English language in the com- pany's advertisements. The award com- mittee cited "It's more cheesier" and "You did good" as examples of wording that brought the dubious trophy to Kraft. SAGE feels that its existence is serving a useful purpose. The awarding of the Dunce Cap to Wendy's Restaurants in 1981 resulted in the company cancelling BATT'N AROUND with the editor ar .....3"'? s. acs a campaign that featured the slogan "Ain't no reason to go anywhere else." Young people are bombarded daily,with hundreds of other examples of spelling and grammar abuses in the spoken and written word and there is little doubt that the work of many English teachers is quickly negated by the actions of people who should know better and he more con- scientious in their efforts to defend the language. • • • • The English language, of course, is recognized as being one of the most dif- ficult to master, primarily because it is filled with rules and the long list of cor- responding exceptions. It is a virtual nightmare for even the more intelligent among us. Small wonder that kids with learning problems have difficulty. There's a new problem being faced by people who work with words. No longer can we easily solve grammar on a sex basis. One of the constant problems is in reaching agreement in number between "anyone" and "their". In the past, the solution was easy. The "anyone" could be correctly (from a grammatical sense) followed by "his"; as in "anyone who missed his copy of the newspaper can pick it up at the office". The English language, unfortunately, fails to provide a neutral pronoun and those who choose the masculine connota- tion have to be prepared for the accusa- tions of sexism. The solution is to use his/her, he/she, etc., sacrificing precise grammar to avoid any changes of sexism. So, more and more people are opting for the "anyone" and "their" and thereby creating yet another confusing situation for those who are attempting to teach pro- per English use. • • • • The problems are already severe enough, but there is yet another one quickly gaining momentum and that is in the new talking computers. Until such time as someone develops a computer which will instruct other com- puters in correct use of the language, we will have to face the prospect of coin- puters spewing out the grammatical er- rors with which they are programmed by humans. So again, the poor English teacher sees his/her ( their, if you prefer) work go down the drain when the class dismisses to head home to compete with a talking video game that incessantly breaches the classroom instruction. Small wonder that we ain't getting any moresmart in knowin' good English when it is writ or spoke) Curse of the 20th century A newspaper article the other day reminded me of one of the inexorable laws of modern life: Things multiply in inverse pro- portion to their use. It is a simple fact, and we've all been through it, that there are certain things in life that multip- ly like rabbits, and others that invariably disappear forever. No matter how hard you try to get rid of pennies, they just build up, and if you carry your loose change in your pants pocket, as I do, after, a week you are listing heavi- ly to the right. You pile your 18 pennies on the top of the dresser and start again, and a week later you have 22 pennies in the same pocket. Another multiplier is the single sock. Start out a new year with 12 pairs of socks. In three months you'll have six pairs and six odd socks. In six months, you'll have 12 single socks. After years of suffering this, I've counter -attacked. I now buy 12 pairs of identical socks, so that after six months at least I have six pairs of socks. Ladies used to have the same problem, before the invention of panty -hose. But this discovery •nasn t lessened their problems. In the old days, if they got a run, they usually had a spare single to match the good one with. But now, if you get a hole in onelegof your panty -hose, you're scuppered. Out they go, the intact one with the bum one. Women also have other multipliers in the singles division: earrings and loves. How many women in this fair land have seven or eight exquisite single earrings and four or five superb single gloves? It's quite fashionable these days for a man to wear a single earring, and a practical chap who lost a glove would wear the other and put his bare hand in his pocket. But women don't think that Sugar and Spice' Dispensed By Smiley tests and bureaucratic bumph. Makes me feel like an old badger. Bottles, particularly those on which there is no deposit return, pile up about as fast as you can empty them. But prepare to take back your beer - way, and the gloves and earrings proliferate in their solitary glory. Old keys multiply at a fantastic rate, until cup- board drawers and plastic bowls are overflowing with them. We have a huge collection of car keys going back to our fifth -last car, every key to the house before we changed the locks, and enough skeleton keys to outfit James Bond on one of his capers. New keys are diminishers. We have lost two sets of keys to our pre- sent car, and sometimes search for half an hour to find one of the new sets we had to order. The new keys to the new locks disappeared, and we had to take off the locks and go to the key man for new ones. I wonder where they are, at this moment? The new ones that is. Paper is definitely in the multiplier list, especially if you are a writer and/or teacher. As both, I sit to write this column in a sort of tunnel between two massive piles of paper higher than my head. When I sit down to mark papers, I'm in another tunnel between essays and Should be a All right. Last week i commented about politics a little bit. This week I'd like to draw to your atten- tion, if you haven't notic- ed it, about the 'Honourable' Donald Mac- donald, one of the Liberal party faithful, who is ser- ving on a commission in Ottawa. For his part as chairman of this commis- sion he receives $800 a day. Now if you think that this is a misprint in this newspaper maybe we bet- ter rephrase it. For a typical 8 hour day the man is receiving $100 per hour. When the press ques- tioned him about it, he laughingly remarked something to the effect that he figured he was worth it. I'm afraid i can't agree with you, Mr. Macdona Id case of empties, and there are always two missing. Where did they go? Is there a guy, or a dame, hiding behind the furnace who sneaks up when you are beddy-byes, drinks two of your beers, then eats the bottles? For the ladies, the wrong shades of lipstick and half -empty bottles of nail polish multiply along with saucers for which the cups have disappeared. Wire coat hangers reproduce like rats. The other day, while attemp- ting to get my coat out of the closet, I knocked down six empty hangers. I carefully fished them up from among the parts of the vacuum cleaner, took another 40 empty hangers off the pole, tied thein all together with cord, mar- ched calmly into the base- ment and hurled them in- to the woodpile. Two weeks later, I knocked down eight hangers while getting my coat, andsat down and wept tears of fury and frustration. Pencils multiply, but there's never one in the house when you are trying to take down a long- distance phone message. Odd buttons multiply until it seems like a button factory. But when you need two the same size and color, forget it. You have six thousand buttons, no two alike. You think you don't take many snapshots. Been to the attic lately? There are twelve boxes of them up there, right from your own baby pictures, through. your courting days, into' your own children at every stage, and about five hundred of the grand- children. But -just try to find that especially good one you wanted to send to Aunt Mabel. Completely vanished. Shoes multiply. My wife has about thirty-six pairs, most of them out of style, just like that outfit she had to get the shoes to go'with. She has to tear my com- fortable old shoes out of my hands to put them in the garbage. Igo to a half- price sale, buy three new pairs, and they sit there, stiff and stark, while I go on wearing the old shabby ones. Stamps run out; magazines pile up to the ceiling. Bills and receipts multiply while bank ac- counts diminish. Por- nography flourishes as sex drive diminishes. Televi- sion channels multiply while their contents diminish in quality. Workmanship diminishes as cost of it soars. And I've just touched the surface. How about acid rain and fish? Or safe, salted highways and holes in your car? Was it always like this, or is it just a curse of the twentieth century? Make up your own list; two col- umns, one headed Multipliers, the other Diminishers. It will shake you. major issue minimum amount of money. How would you like to try living on $500 a month Perspectives By Syd Fletcher 1111111111111111111111111111111111 i really don't care if you were making that much in private life as a lawyer. That has nothing to do with the issue. There are over a million people in this country who are out of work right now and surviving on a as are- some people on disability pensions? flow would you like to be a widow in this country trying to find a decent apartment to live in, hav- ing to watch every penny she spends, while you pocket the money she and her husband paid out in taxes over the years? It seems to me about time that a committee of common citizens should be set up to oversee the wages and benefits of elected representatives and see that they no longer are given the authority to set their own salaries. If necessary the issue should be put to a country -wide referendum. An even better techni- que would make it com- pulsory that any wage in- creases by our lawmakers could be passed only, and' 1 mean only, just before any election iso be called. At the very least it should be a major issue in the next election.