Quebec Language Wars- Vol. 1

English Signs Pique Nationalist Group
The nationalist group 'Imperatif Francais' has an interesting website that is dedicated, in part, to rooting out cases of flagrant abuses of the language law.

One of it's pages is devoted to exposing shopping malls that play English elevator music exclusively, to the detriment of French artists.

There's also a page devoted to exposing Montreal's English and ethnic communities who are humiliating the French language by posting unilingual English signs throughout the downtown area.

Here's some examples that I lifted from their site.

In the interest of helping them along with their work, I offer this example, a sign which I found on the door of a local business, blatantly flouting the law.

I don't know if the offending enterprise is English or ethnic, I'll leave it up to them to investigate.


Letter Writer Against "Outing" and "Coming Out"

In a letter to the editor to "Le Tribune," a Sherbrooke newspaper, a reader complains that while it's not nice to 'OUT' people, it's even worse to do so with English terms.
He bemoans the fact that "OUTING" and "COMING OUT" have entered the common French lexicon. Now the OLQF, the agency that is in charge of protecting the French language, does try to keep pace with advances in the English language, but alas, has not had the time to offer French alternatives to these phrases.
Perhaps they need some additional funding....

Meet the Next Michael Sabia

A CBC story reports that Toronto architect Jack Diamond, who designed the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, has been selected to design a new concert hall for Montreal, to be located adjacent to Place des Arts

YIKES!!!! Wait until the nationalist groups get a hold of this story...

• "He doesn't understand Quebec culture"
• "He doesn't understand Quebec architecture"
• "Surely, we could have found a Quebecker to do this"
• "It's a scandal!"
• "It's a humiliation!"
• "It's cultural imperialism!"

Think I'm joking? Wait and see.

As 'pipesrussell' wrote in the comments section of the story;

"Just as long as the project is not within the grasp of Roger Taillibert..."

(the ignoble designer of the Olympic stadium -my comment )

What's a 1-UP in French?
It seems that the "Law of Unintended Consequences" has reared it's ugly head in the matter of the Quebec's government policy of forcing video game manufacturers to provide French language versions of their games before allowing the English version to be sold in Quebec.

"I can also see this clumsily implemented law encouraging game piracy, as gamers who would not ordinarily be willing to get a bootleg game for free or much cheaper on the Internet, may decide they don't feel like waiting for months to enjoy something that's out just a few kilometres south in the U.S.A. right now."

Read the entire article by-Raffy Boudjikanian