Happy Canada Day!!!

[Evie]

The one constant that has angered me throughout, though, is that one of the country's two official languages could be considered illegal in any way whatsoever.

In any case where the presence of English is considered illegal, I'll be first to agree with you that this is abominable and has no place in Canada.

OTOH, when it's the absence of French being considered illegal, I suspect you and I will still argue

 

[Valka D'Ur]

In any case where the presence of English is considered illegal, I'll be first to agree with you that this is abominable and has no place in Canada.

On the other hand, if what's illegal is the complete absence of French, then we're probably going to argue

The only time I ever heard a hullabaloo about "French isn't allowed here! " was when one of the MLAs in our Legislature wanted to ask a question in French. Some of the MLAs were Very Upset, and the Speaker had to go off to figure out if he would allow it or not. I seem to recall that the question was finally allowed, but not without a lot of fuss from politicians who weren't very dignified about it.

Just about everything sold here contains French as well as English on the product labels and instructions. I'm grateful that I took as much French as I did - for one thing, because that means it's no big deal to me if the French side of a box or can gets turned outward in the grocery store, and for another, it meant extra business when my old French teacher and a couple of his friends wanted some typing done - in French. I was happy to do it, although I did warn them that I couldn't guarantee 100% accurate proofreading, as I could in English.

And then there was the time when my dad's girlfriend wanted me to program her VCR. The original instructions had been in Chinese, then translated to English via German. It was such a confusing mess that I finally read the French instructions, and they made a lot more sense.

So no, I'm not advocating French to be illegal. I am advocating for both languages to be legal everywhere in the country.

 

[Evie]

Oh, I wasn't saying you do, or the rest of Canada has issues with it. Aside from the occasional boorish idiot, Canada seems generally okay with bilingualism.

The one thing I was saying we might disagree about is laws that don't BAN english, but that mandate the use of French (ie, you CAN have English on your sign all you want ; but you can't chose to NOT have French). I'm fine with these (though I'd like the people in charge of applying those rules to be flexible and understanding); if memory serves me, you aren't.

 

[warpus]

I think we need a law that if both English and French use the exact same word for a product, that the product name doesn't need to be listed twice. Because that's just silly

 

[bhsup]

NO! Comply with language laws or pay the fine! Thousand dollars Canadian, or ten American dollars if you prefer...


Link to video.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I think we need a law that if both English and French use the exact same word for a product, that the product name doesn't need to be listed twice. Because that's just silly

And if a store or business name had an apostrophe in its name before the language laws came into effect, they don't have to change it or change their signs to something miniscule so as not to "offend." Going after places like that was disrespectful and just plain stupid.

 

[warpus]

I missed apostrophegate, what happened?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Businesses with apostrophes in their names were told to change their signs, to comply with the laws and French grammar (because said apostrophes indicated possessives and that's not how the French language works).

 

[warpus]

But.. McDonald's.. Schwartz's.. When I was in Montreal, both of those had apostrophes. Is this a bylaw in some small town?

 

[Evie]

Per the law as written, as best as I know it, companies can keep their names.

However, there's been lots of campaigning, both official and not, to encourage name changes from English-named companies for their Quebec branches.

Some do it (Staples -> Bureau en Gros). Others don't (Toys'r'us, Pier Import, Subway, Home Hardware, Home Depot, Best Buy, etc), or try to be very sneaky about it (Second Cup -> Les Cafés Second Cup)

I definitely agree the apostrophe thing, if it's been forced on anyone (rather than encouragement to drop the apostrophe in Quebec), shouldn't have been.

 

[warpus]

Yeah, that Staples name change is just silly, but if they think that it'll help their business, all the power to them. Brand name recognition seems to be a more important consideration though, which is why places like La Chateau aren't called The Palace or whatever in English speaking countries.

I'd be opposed to any sort of mandated business name change.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

But.. McDonald's.. Schwartz's.. When I was in Montreal, both of those had apostrophes. Is this a bylaw in some small town?

Those have the corporate clout (and expensive lawyers) on their side. Others, like small, independent local businesses, may not.

 

[Evie]

I don't see it as particularly silly to change your name to show respect to the people and culture you're trying to get business from. I don't see it as necessary, but it's not silly either. Especially in Staples case, where the English name is descriptive. Switching to a French one in this case especially make sense, since your average French speaker might not understand what your store is about from "Staples", but will from "Bureau en Gros"

Agreed that mandating name change (and threatening people and making them feel like name change is mandated) would be entirely disgusting.

 

[warpus]

Of course it's silly

If La Chateau changed its name to the English equivalent to "respect the local culture" or for whatever other reason, it'd be silly, partially because their brand name already carries a lot of brand clout behind it.... but also because.. it's so unnecessary.

If the local population really does demand that such silly changes be made, in some capacity, then yeah, it'd be a good business move. But generally speaking it is rather silly. There are tons of businesses here where I live with non English names. It'd be silly to expect them to even want to change to English equivalents. This sort of thing happens all around the world: When I was in Poland back in 2004, there were a lot of English names on storefronts, as well as some German. Names are names, it's generally silly to translate them.

Not that it really is a worthy enough subject to argue about, but when a company changes a name like that and it isn't for business reasons (i.e. the locals really goddamn demand everything to be written in language X no matter what) then it just seems like an over the top PC type of move.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I'm guessing that in some cases, the local people probably didn't care one way or the other, and it was the provincial government's language police that made all the fuss.

We've got businesses whose names are in Greek, Italian, French, and quite a few other languages. There has been absolutely no outcry I'm aware of about changing them to English. Some people here complain about the French on the stuff at the grocery store, but that tends to come about because the stock clerks sometimes leave that side turned out. It depends on how they take the boxes or cans out of the packing boxes. If they're in a hurry, sometimes they don't notice.

 

[Evie]

Warpus - of course if you ALREADY have clout with a brand name then changing is silly.

I'm pretty sure Staples had zero presence in Quebec prior to coming in as Bureau en Gros. so they had no brand name clout associated with "Staples" in Quebec, and switching to a French name probably made identification easier initially for customers who had never heard of them (ie, everybody). So in a way it probably made it easier for them to *get* brand name clout in Quebec.

Valka: and we have business named in plenty of non-French names in Quebec. Yes, there are campaigns out there to encourage francization of the names, but to the best of my knowledge it's not mandatory, and it's a choice for companies to make as it stands. (And no, Valka, it's NOT just the language police).

The reason for encouraging francization of names, from where I stand, appears to be more "branding" than anything - a deliberate attempt to emphasize what makes Quebec unique in North America, ie French, the moment someone gets into Quebec. Which is why I'm fine with encouraging it, but would be up in arms against legally forcing it.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Valka: and we have business named in plenty of non-French names in Quebec. Yes, there are campaigns out there to encourage francization of the names, but to the best of my knowledge it's not mandatory, and it's a choice for companies to make as it stands. (And no, Valka, it's NOT just the language police).

I didn't say it was. But in some cases, I can't imagine the average person really caring that much.

The language police are not as belligerent about it now as they used to be, which must be less stressful for a lot of business owners (and English-speaking customers).

BTW... we have a "Le Chateau" in Red Deer. It's a Chinese restaurant.

 

[Evie]

which must be less stressful for a lot of business owners (and English-speaking customers).

I'm not sure having to deal with wrong-language business names is all that stressful for the customers of either languages

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I was referring to the stress of dealing with belligerent language police.

 

[Evie]

Ahhh. I don't know how much customers really have to deal with the language police. They're more inspectors (ie, like health and safety inspectors) than police, they don'T come in with guns all "Nobody moves, we've heard contraband English words were going through this shop!"

Still stressful for owners, of course.