I'd like to thank readers for their kind words in regards to our 1000th post.As longtime readers know, I am not using the "Royal We" in describing myself and this blog, I use the term 'our' in acknowledging that this blog is collaborative, with a lively discussion every day in the comments section that most everyone finds satisfying or infuriating but not often dull.
Our 1000th post generated thousands of pageviews, so it is pretty clear that many readers drop by without commenting and that is just fine.
I do not get to see IP addresses and cannot identify anyone, but I do see what city people are coming from, whether they came directly or via a link from another website and what blog piece they are reading and whether they click on any of the links provided in our blog.
As I said, it is strange to see a reader from say Perth, Australia visit our blog and leave via a French language link, but it happens all the time.
This week I noticed an uptick in readers arriving from vigile.net, so no doubt NoDogsOrAnglophones was mentioned in a recent blog piece, not in a particularly flattering manner, I imagine.
As you know, I often provide links for words or phrases that may be unfamiliar to readers for whom English is not their mother tongue. Some say it is annoying, but I see many, many of these links being clicked on every day, so I will continue to provide them.
Nothing could be farther from the truth, I love this province, just as many of you 'complaining' Anglos and Ethnics do as well.
I enjoy speaking French, having spent a thirty year career travelling Eastern Canada and speaking French most of the time. I co-owned and helped manage a company which was staffed with employees who were 70% unilingually French.
By the way, many of my experiences that I write about have been been shaped not by my political involvement, but rather my professional career, travelling on a daily basis to the four corners of eastern Canada, working perhaps one day in the Saguenay region, visiting company installations in Dolbeau, Jonquière and Alma, to be followed the next day, perhaps by a trip to Fredericton, Moncton and Saint John in New Brunswick. Then it might be off on flight to the GTA, where I always made sure to dine at my favourite Chinese restaurant on Spadina, down the street from our company location.
I'd come back to my Montreal office for a day of office work, perhaps followed by a road trip down Highway 20, stopping perhaps in Beloeil, St. Hyacinthe, Drummondville and finally on to Quebec City.
I also did trips to Sandy Beach, Rimouski, Rivière-du-Loup in the Gaspé peninsula and visited Granby and Sherbrooke and Magog in the Townships on other days. Another day it would be a road trip to Ste. Agathe in the Laurentians, with stops in Laval, Rosemere, St. Sauver, St. Adele, with very occasional jaunt all the way up Highway 117 to Mont Laurier.
Let's not forget Eastern Ontario, Cornwall, Kingston and Ottawa as well trips to Abitibi visiting Val D'Or, Rouyn Noranda, LaSarre, Kirkland Lake and Timmins. And let me not forget to mention Halifax and environs.
Over those thirty years I think I got a sense of the locals, I knew these towns and cities like the back of my hand. Each was fascinating. I cherished my time on the road, the greatest learning experience of my life.
I liked my employees as well as the locals that I interacted with. Everyone knew I was a Anglophone boss from Montreal who spoke pretty good French and that seemed to make all the difference. I was always treated with courtesy and respect. I made many friends, separatists as well.
It's hard to spend that many decades in the field and not learn a thing or two. Most of my memories are fond.
So why on Earth would I dislike Francophones or Quebec, I spent an entire lifetime interacting here on a most satisfactory level?
Quebec-Basher...me really?
I understand and respect Quebecers' right to speak and live French, I just have a difference of opinion with French language radicals who use the issue to divide and inflame based on a well-defined separatist agenda. If calling them out on their duplicity and dishonesty makes me an angryphone, so be it, I'll wear the badge with honour.
The truth is that I like francophones a whole lot and I particularly like the French language, it is quite simply beautiful, especially classically written French, which is simply delicious. Those who have the ability to read and understand Marcel Proust in classic French and William Shakespeare in old English, understand that languages are like flavours, the more you are familiar with, the more you enjoy life.
But even modern day French is wonderful, the blog pieces I read on French web sites, even amateur ones like vigile.net are chock full of literate and skillful writers, anyone who says different doesn't know what they are talking about.
At any rate for this 1001th post, I am going to do something different, I'm going to play the 'l'avocat du diable' and I hope you indulge me. You might be surprised...
On Wednesday, I was watching a portion of the Charbonneau corruption commission on the French language news channel LCN, when a commercial appeared that had me scratching my head.
I recorded it and present it here, in accordance with fair use doctrine.
I don't know what the car company was thinking about in presenting a commercial on a French television channel that is essentially all in English.
The song, as you can hear, centers the commercial and sets the tone for what the company wants consumers to feel about the product, which is I imagine, the feeling of freedom to roam the countryside in their wonderful Dodge SUV.
If you are a native English speaker, the commercial is effective, the song, powerful and evoking, but if you are French....well that's another story.
More than half of Quebec francophones don't really speak English and I imagine that of the bilinguals, or semi-bilinguals, there aren't many who could understand the message or the mood that the commercial was trying to set. Music lyrics in a foreign language are always difficult to understand and even then, who of us concentrates on commercials anyways?
Commercials have but thirty seconds to catch our attention and make a point. For francophones I can't imagine the impact of this lame attempt.
So why not translate the lyrics into French to make the message more effective? This is not a political issue, it is a business issue.
I'm not proposing that the company use a different song, but hey, even Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer has a French version. Here's something sung by Dean Martin and Mireille Mathieu that is not quite a French version, but demonstrates the possibilities. Youtube
The idea is to sell trucks and I cannot imagine the message being more effective presented in English than in French, to a francophone audience.
Now I'm not suggesting that the Bell Centre adopt an all French musical program during Montreal Canadiens hockey games, that is another case all together.
At the hockey arena, it is hit songs that the fans want to hear (I imagine) and all of the vast majority are sung in English, that is just the way it is.
I guess the days of a dreary organist playing old standards, lame renditions of Hava Nagila or NaNa Hey Hey are gone, but that being said, I do remember getting stirred up (like Pavlov's Dog) when the timeless Les Canadiens Sont là ! struck up as the Canadiens jumped onto the ice to start the game.... but I digress.
In a letter to LE DEVOIR, a reader complains about English Christmas music in a Montreal shopping mall and I cannot help but agree.
"I just returned from Sears, the department store in Galeries d'Anjou in the east of Montreal. As you know, the east is the last refuge of "pures laines" francophones on the island of Montreal. The magic of Christmas was in full swing, but particularly in English. During the two hours I spent there, Christmas carols and holiday rigadoons echoed exclusively in the language of Mordecai Richler.There is absolutely no excuse for not playing French Christmas music in the mall.
It seems that the magic of Christmas is now programmed directly from Chicago (or Toronto ...).
But Sears is not the only culprit. In the mall, it's the same scenario, we hear but Bing Crosby and Nate King Cole. No Tino Rossi or Marie-Michèle Desrosiers, this in spite of being deep in the east end, with 90% of customers speaking French ...
Another sign of the decline of French as I mentioned earlier?
Of course, the example is trivial. We won't mount a battle for a few Christmas carols ... Far be it from me to suggest that we should regulate the music in shops and malls. Seriously ... But the example is instructive...." Link{Fr}
French Christmas carols are every bit as good as English ones, so it isn't a choice of quality. Christmas music is played in shopping centres to set a mood, it gets clients feeling good about the season and ultimately gets them into the spending mood.
Again, a good business decision would be to play French Christmas music, it resonates with French clients more so than does English music.
This isn't brain surgery, nor should it be a big political issue.
Those who program English Christmas music in a French-speaking area are lazy, stupid and not particularly adept at their job.
So should people complain, as this letter writer did?
They should, but they don't because most have busy lives to lead and so as the situation degenerates, it is up to the language hawks to make a big stink, which is unfortunate, but lazy and insensitive anglophones who make these bad decisions have to accept a measure of the blame.
I know most English Canadians believe that Quebecers are big complainers but the opposite is true. We hear the vocal minority, but the majority usually just grin and bear language slights.
I defend my francophone compatriots because they are my friends and I can't abide the injustices that they do suffer, deliberate or by accident.
How many products in our store have garbage French translations that should be insulting to all Canadians.
I'll let readers in the comment section explain the unfortunate translations above to those without French.
So I do support playing English music when francophones want to hear English hits (Bell Centre), but I cannot abide by English music being played when the francophones prefer to hear French (shopping mall). Again, not brain surgery.
The language debate, whether it be signs or music, is complicated, in that everybody has a valid opinion, even if those that are diametrically opposed.
I'm reminded of one of my favourite scenes from Fiddler on the Roof wherein the main character, Tevye, is called upon to mediate a dispute.
He listens to the story told by the first of the disputees and promptly agrees that he is in the right. He then listens to the second story told by the opponent and agrees that he is also in the right.
When an onlooker reminds Tevye that they both can't be right, he agrees, telling the kibitzer that he is right as well!
Or as the old CERTS commercial told us...."Stop, You're both right!"
Such is our language debate.
Here is an article that I found online, that has nothing and everything to do with our Quebec language debate, from all places...Israel.
"Others like Haifa’s mayor, Yona Yahav, are fighting to prevent the English language from taking over both the municipality and from appearing on business signs across the city.Language will always be an issue, such is our destiny in Quebec.
Yahav, who was born in Haifa before Israel became a state, has had enough with English dominating the coastal city and has banned municipal employees from using English words such as global, audition, fine-tuning, test, and project in official documents, in order to encourage Hebrew word usage.
Likewise, the Haifa mayor is trying to stop businesses from using only English signs to market their services.
It all started when Yahav went to get his haircut at his favourite barber and discovered to his dismay that the barbershop had a huge sign with the word, "Hair Stylist," printed on it. The Haifa mayor asked the young owner to switch the sign into Hebrew, and when the owner refused, the mayor decided that he would start a campaign against the overuse of English in his city. Link
As for music in the Bell Centre, one final note.
When that day comes that the Habs win another the Stanley Cup on home ice(cough, cough!..) I know one English song that will be played that not even the staunchest of French language militants will complain about.
"We are the Champions."....by Queen.
Readers, it's Friday and I like to finish with a smile.
This is what made me laugh this week, I hope you get a chuckle.
and finally....
Have a great weekend!
Bonne fin de semaine!
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