in labor we trust

A liberal Texan brings us This Day in Alternate History. I'm kind of amazed. A lot of thought and creativity goes into this.

Comments

  1. lunger18 May 2005 at 20:15

    I think you mean labour

    ReplyDelete
  2. laura k19 May 2005 at 05:31

    It's not going to be easy, re-learning to spell...

    ReplyDelete
  3. laura k19 May 2005 at 05:31

    It's not going to be easy, re-learning to spell...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous19 May 2005 at 07:54

    For the most part american spellings have become acceptable in Canada, except for some purists...

    The only one that I really hold onto is colour.

    I generally always spell the British/Canadian way, but it doesn't bother me too much to see the american way anymore.

    Peter

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous19 May 2005 at 07:54

    For the most part american spellings have become acceptable in Canada, except for some purists...

    The only one that I really hold onto is colour.

    I generally always spell the British/Canadian way, but it doesn't bother me too much to see the american way anymore.

    Peter

    ReplyDelete
  6. barefoot hiker19 May 2005 at 08:57

    It's interesting the issues this can raise. Here in Ontario, there's a cartoonist named Lynn Johnson who's been writing and drawing the successful family strip For Better or Worse for about 25 years now. I saw an interview with her some time ago in which she commented on the cultural pressures she's come under from certain quarters in the US. Early on, there was a lot of suggestion that the strip should be situated in the US, rather than Canada, and that she should adopt US spellings rather than Canadian ones... color for colour, check for cheque, tennis racket for tennis racquet, and so on. To her credit, she stood her ground and resisted these. The cultural differences and assumptions have led to some contention, too. A lot of papers in conservative communities in the US dropped the strip when she revealed that one of the characters, Lawrence, was gay. And she was surprised by a number of letters she got objecting to the imperialism implicit in sending Michael to school in London. Of course, what those complaining didn't realize was that she was sending Michael to London, Ontario, to the University of Western Ontario. It's not an impossible mistake to make (Archie Bunker on All In the Family lost his Christmas bonus one year by shipping an order to London, England... "who the hell ever heard of London, Ontario?" he groaned), it does reveal an interesting set of assumptions about Canadians held by some people in the States.

    ReplyDelete
  7. barefoot hiker19 May 2005 at 08:57

    It's interesting the issues this can raise. Here in Ontario, there's a cartoonist named Lynn Johnson who's been writing and drawing the successful family strip For Better or Worse for about 25 years now. I saw an interview with her some time ago in which she commented on the cultural pressures she's come under from certain quarters in the US. Early on, there was a lot of suggestion that the strip should be situated in the US, rather than Canada, and that she should adopt US spellings rather than Canadian ones... color for colour, check for cheque, tennis racket for tennis racquet, and so on. To her credit, she stood her ground and resisted these. The cultural differences and assumptions have led to some contention, too. A lot of papers in conservative communities in the US dropped the strip when she revealed that one of the characters, Lawrence, was gay. And she was surprised by a number of letters she got objecting to the imperialism implicit in sending Michael to school in London. Of course, what those complaining didn't realize was that she was sending Michael to London, Ontario, to the University of Western Ontario. It's not an impossible mistake to make (Archie Bunker on All In the Family lost his Christmas bonus one year by shipping an order to London, England... "who the hell ever heard of London, Ontario?" he groaned), it does reveal an interesting set of assumptions about Canadians held by some people in the States.

    ReplyDelete
  8. laura k19 May 2005 at 09:19

    "The cultural differences and assumptions have led to some contention, too. A lot of papers in conservative communities in the US dropped the strip when she revealed that one of the characters, Lawrence, was gay."

    Amazing the state of denial these people live in. If we don't talk about them, they won't exist...

    "it does reveal an interesting set of assumptions about Canadians held by some people in the States."

    Well yes, but... fame. London England is rather more well known than London Ontario - the world over, not just among Americans.

    There's a Brooklyn, Kansas, but if I write about Brooklyn, I don't need to say Brooklyn, New York.

    ReplyDelete
  9. laura k19 May 2005 at 09:19

    "The cultural differences and assumptions have led to some contention, too. A lot of papers in conservative communities in the US dropped the strip when she revealed that one of the characters, Lawrence, was gay."

    Amazing the state of denial these people live in. If we don't talk about them, they won't exist...

    "it does reveal an interesting set of assumptions about Canadians held by some people in the States."

    Well yes, but... fame. London England is rather more well known than London Ontario - the world over, not just among Americans.

    There's a Brooklyn, Kansas, but if I write about Brooklyn, I don't need to say Brooklyn, New York.

    ReplyDelete
  10. laura k19 May 2005 at 09:26

    "For the most part american spellings have become acceptable in Canada, except for some purists..."

    I'm really going to try - so as not to be an Ugly American. I can set my spellchecker for Brit English, that will help me get in the habit.

    But not until after I move!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Rognar19 May 2005 at 09:51

    There are differences between Canadian and Brit English. Canadian is something of a fusion of American and British. We say aluminum, rather than aluminium. Also, words like cheque and check or program and programme are used pretty interchageably. The biggest differences with US English spellings are, of course, the `u` in colour, harbour or valour and the rather recent switch from `er` to `re` in words like theatre, centre and metre. Personally, I don't care for the latter. They are French spellings of words that are pronounced differently in English and should rightfully be spelled differently.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Rognar19 May 2005 at 09:51

    There are differences between Canadian and Brit English. Canadian is something of a fusion of American and British. We say aluminum, rather than aluminium. Also, words like cheque and check or program and programme are used pretty interchageably. The biggest differences with US English spellings are, of course, the `u` in colour, harbour or valour and the rather recent switch from `er` to `re` in words like theatre, centre and metre. Personally, I don't care for the latter. They are French spellings of words that are pronounced differently in English and should rightfully be spelled differently.

    ReplyDelete
  13. laura k19 May 2005 at 12:08

    Then it'll be a little easier. Coincidentally, I already use the spelling "theatre" - when I in theatre, it was an affectation we all used, and it stuck. Like putting the line through my 7s.

    ReplyDelete
  14. laura k19 May 2005 at 12:08

    Then it'll be a little easier. Coincidentally, I already use the spelling "theatre" - when I in theatre, it was an affectation we all used, and it stuck. Like putting the line through my 7s.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

blood for oil

Independent journalist Greg Palast writes : The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks, sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed. Two years ago today - when President George Bush announced US, British and Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad - protestors claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been conquered. In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of "Big Oil" executives and US State Department "pragmatists." "Big Oil" appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by Newsnight from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with the help of American oil industry consultants. Insiders told Newsnight that planning began "within weeks" of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th...
Read more

the great weed of 2015?

You will not be surprised to learn that Allan and I own a lot of books. And CDs. And even LPs! Many, many hundreds of each. We have culled our collection a bit over the years, out of necessity, but living in houses for the past 10 years, we expanded again without much thought. Now here we are in an apartment. It's a large apartment, to be sure, but we no longer have extra rooms where we can stash as much stuff as we like. And neither of us wants to fill up every inch of wall and floor space with books and music.    Thus we are contemplating weeding our own library. And this is very strange.  Books are us. Or are they? When I was in my 20s, I wanted to own every book I'd ever read. I was one of those people who believed that my personal library was a statement about myself. I needed to proudly display my politics and my tastes through my bookshelves and records. I loved seeing other people's libraries, and loved when people perused mine. I can recall that when we found our...
Read more

the limits of empathy, part 2

When I was a kid, I used to fantasize about a magic potion that would change me into a different person. Not because I was trying to escape my own life, but so I could truly know what it was like to be someone else, from inside their skin. The potion would turn me into that other person for a set amount of time, then wear off and I'd be me again, but I'd remember everything I experienced and felt. I didn't dream of being specific people, just people essentially different from me, or with extremely different lives. A man. A black person. A coal miner. A rock star. Often these mental exercises revolved around someone who had suffered great hardship. A slave. An abducted child. I still do this to some extent - and you probably do, too - just without the hocus pocus. We imagine what it's like to be an Iraqi. Or a stranded tsunami survivor. While walking my dogs this morning, watching them sniff a bit of brick wall as if it contained the Secret Of Life, I remembered this chi...
Read more