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The Citizen, 1991-09-11, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11,1991. PAGE 5. If you think my grammar's bad..... Here is a letter from a grumpy reader which begins, “I have been several times surprised al your careless use of English, but you have outdone yourself in this...” — and the letter goes on to flay me for an alleged linguistic misdemeanor. All I can say to Grumpy Reader is for God's sake sir, obtain a life. If you have nothing better to do than pore over my poor prose winnowing out grammatical offenses, then you are a man in serious need of a hobby. Have you considered tatting? Mind you, he has a point. English grammar and I have had little more than a nodding acquaintance since those dreary, dreadful days of Grade 7 English Composition when a merciless Miss Swinson lashed the class with volley upon volley of English Grammar Rules and Regs. It made me the pathetic unlettered wretch I am today. Even now, I shamble around with my participles dangling obscenely, tripping Days of whine and poses BY RAYMOND CANON I recently did an article on the effect of the GST on Canadians informing all and sundry that it was old hat elsewhere and that furthermore the tax rate of a GST was higher in most countries that had it, with the Swedes taking the prize al 25 per cent. I have received a letter from one of my readers as a result of my comment that Canadians were "a bunch of crybabies." Actually, I didn't say that: I put the words into the mouth of an unnamed foreign finance minister but, never mind, the result came out the same. My reader, who really wasn't criticizing my comments, sent me a copy of a recent edition of Time magazine, a well-known American publication, in which one of the leading articles, not to mention the title on the cover, was about the current tendencies of the Americans to be a nation of "busy­ bodies and crybabies." "See," the reader said, "we are not the only nation that can be labelled as such." My first reaction was to sue Time for plagiarism, a time-honoured custom in the U.S. (if you will pardon the pun). However, I consoled myself by saying that imitation is still the sincerest form of flattery. However, Time is right. A great many Americans are running around complaining about unfair foreign competition, loss of manufacturing jobs, stupid government, etc. (does it all sound familiar). Al the same time copious others are posing as defenders of the American way of life which includes banning or wanting to ban a whole host of activities, practices, points of view, to mention only a few. Come to think of it, I heard the same thing in Germany where the East Germans; instead of being thankful for having a big, rich brother to help them through the transition from an inefficient communist-style over misplaced modifiers, slapping ineffectively at insubordinate nouns, averting my eyes shyly from brazen copulative conjunctions that don't even have the common decency to wear a set of brackets... It’s a situation up with which no one should have to put. And sometimes I can't — put up with it, I mean. When that happens I have a failsafe cure. I reach for my Fractured English file. This is where I keep my collection of people who mangle the English language even more grievously than I (do). More often than not, these folks are labouring under a disadvantage — namely that English is clearly not their first language. Such as whoever wrote this brochure I have for a Japanese car rental firm. Some advice it offers: “When a passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet at him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigor.” Or these assembly instructions that came with an Italian-made baby carriage: “Insert the blushing for blocking in the proper split, push it deeply and wheel in anti time sense till it stops.” Oh yes, and buona fortuna. I believe that's Italian for 'good luck'. A polite reminder on the back of a Japanese hotel room door is, I think economy to an efficient free market one, were developing to a fine art a large number of complaints about things, that should have been done, but so far hadn't. Xenophobia was increasing in France. Jugoslavs of all political and ethnic hues decided that they couldn't stand each other although a brief reading of the history of the Balkans would reveal that nobody there could stand anybody else for any length of time during the past 1000 years. In short whine has become an international drink.. According to Time the busy-bodies are running around infecting society with a nasty intolerance of a great many things. When somebody does not conform, as often as not, the accuser rushes out to consult his or her lawyer since it is generally conceded that Americans are the people who love to sue. Although I do not smoke, I think that one of most ridiculous cases to dale involves a woman in Indiana who lost her job because of a company rule that stated that you could not smoke either at work or at home. The company insisted that the woman take a urine test which proved positive for nicotine, hence her dismissal. Animals frequently have more rights than individuals; people are arrested for reasons that can only be described as bizarre. The Japanese are blamed for everything that ails the American economy and even Canada and Canadians are targets for some Motocross was great success TO THE CITIZEN AND ITS STAFF: On behalf of my family and myself I would like to express a special note of appreciation to Dave Williams and Bonnie Gropp for the insert prepared for our recent motocross event. It was fantastic! We were totally unprepared for such a high quality job. Il contributed to the overall success of the event and left a lasting appropriately Zen-like: “Is forbitten to steal the hotel towels please. If you are not person to do such thing, is please not to read notis.” In the Scandinavian countries, English is often spoken, but not always flawlessly. Witness the Oslo cocktail lounge which sports a sign reading: “Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.” Riding in elevators can be unnerving in the most cosmopolitan of cities, but there's one lift in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, that I intend to avoid for the rest of my life. It carries a sign that reads in (sort of) English: “To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.” Under which some wag was crayoned: “Or you could take the stairs.” Sometimes overseas English isn't merely mangled — it's fraught with menace. Look at this advertisement in a Hong Kong dentist's window. It reads: “Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.” Or the sign in a Jordanian tailor shop that advises: “Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.” Or the notice on the wall of an Acapulco hotel dining room: “The management has personally passed all the water served here.” No wonder they warn t aristas not to drink the water. complaints about unfair business practices. One man even sued a hospital for "wrongful living." i.e. they saved his life. I can only wonder what might have happened if they didn't. Even language is coming under attack. While there is no doubt that some words, such as "bimbo" and "broad" are derogatory when applied to women, other words are now subject to scrutiny. An alien may be illegally in the U.S. but it is deemed unkind to use the expression illegal alien, especially where Mexicans are concerned. "Burly" has to be used with care since it could conceivably be associated with a large black man and imply ignorance. One university in the U.S. has compiled a dictionary of n o less than 22 pages of loaded words and phrases. What is causing all this is problematical. However, one of Time's articles makes the comment that "hypersensitivity and special pleading are making a travesty of the virtues that used to be known as individual responsibility and common sense." Lack of these two virtues is probably what brought about the decision of three of the policemen who witnessed the vicious beating of a black in Los Angeles to apply for worker's compensation, claiming that they suffered stress and anxiety. Are we going to tum into a world of hypochondriacs? impression of our local community with every participant. I was near Port Hope this weekend and some people in that area had been given a copy of the paper by a competitor! It's just the sort of community support that really makes the effort rewarding. CHRIS LEE WALTON. Getting away from...well, most of it By Keith Roulston Jill and I had a chance to get away for a couple of days last week to a friends cottage and, though the rest wasn't nearly as long as it should have been, it helped put some perspective in our lives. I wouldn't call it exactly getting away from it all because the motor boats keep roaring by and helicopters kept thumping overhead preparing for TV coverage of a triathalon championship that weekend and some guy down the bay was building a luxurious new house with accompanying racket. Still there was the restless slap of the waves on the dock, the silent sail-past of three ducks and the occasional quivering call of a loon. There was no TV, no radio, no news of Yugoslavia or Russia or mail strikes or constitutional crisis. It was a simple kind of life. There was a pump in the kitchen for water from the lake. Going to the washroom entailed a trip outside. If we'd had a few more days of it, we might have been able to leave all our normal concerns behind and get down to what really mattered in life: to remember that life isn't all about world problems, and finding enough money for some new gadget for the kitchen or the playroom (A.K.A. the family room these days). Life is really about enjoying being alive, enjoying this particular moment and not worrying about tomorrow, about being with those you love. How quickly we lose all that these days. How many people are miserable worrying about things that aren't worth worrying about. How many marriages are being destroyed because couples worry loo much about new cars and kitchen cupboards, new clothes and jobs that will pay more money to buy all of the above? The most scarce commodity in Canada these days is perspective. Perspective requires memory and most of us don't seem to have much of a memory. If we did, we might remember that our great- grandparents, grandparents and parents strived to get things like indoor plumbing because they wanted more time for a better life. We might remember further that the early pioneers risked death on crowded ships, trekked through almost-impenetrable forests to locate the land that had been given to them, then worked for years to clear the land, grow crops and establish a home, all to get a kind of freedom they could not have enjoyed in the rigid society of Europe. Our ancestors did all this to give their descendants the kind of freedom we have today but take for granted. They couldn't have dreamed there would be the kind of material comfort we have short of heaven. They would have thought that surely, a people given all these privileges must be happy. I think they'd be very surprised to see the state of our country today. They'd see an unexplainable restlessness, a frustration and anger. They'd see an appalling breakdown of the family, a breakdown even of the country that is blessed more than most in this world. They see a people that has everything, yet acts as if it was bereft of everything that matters. They might scratch their heads and wonder how all those bright dreams they had which now seem to be coming true, could have gone so wrong. Maybe we need to build a whole string of cabins in the bush, then institute some form of national service which means that everybody has to go and spend a few weeks every year in those cabins just to re­ establish a little perspective. Of course if we did, there would no doubt be a protest movement spring up saying how unjust the system was.