Chew on This

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Well, necessity is the mother of inventions. Only in Alberta would someone think of regrowing teeth because the hockey players over there are more interested in "Rock them sock them" instead of scoring goal. Even our national icon Wayne Gretsky aka "The great one" is in the top ten list of players with most foul. Probably because he came from Edmonton (Ontarian by birth though). For the benefit of non-Canadians, and "not so Canadian" Canadians, Alberta is the Texas of Canada. First, it is the oil capital of Canada like Texas is in the USA. Then it has a cow boy culture including the famous "Calgary Stampede". Recently the chief executive (our lovely Stevie boy) is from Calgary like the American chief executive is from Texas. No wonder Albertans are more American than Americans themselves. When it comes to cramming donut shops, I think the research should have been in Hamilton, Ontario. Hamilton holds the highest number of donuts shops per capita. Incidentally, it has the highest number of Tim Hortons per capita. It is not easy to find a street that does not have a Tim Horton there. One of my cousins from Englands once remarked, "Boy you have more donut shops here than we have pubs there!". The research of beer should have been more in the Atlantic regions, specially Newfoundland. My Newfoundlander friends often boasted about their ability to drink more than any Irishman! I always wondered why did they listen to "Irish Trinkin" songs rather than "Newfie Drinking" songs. Since thousands cross border from Windsor to work in Detroit, the research of American-Canadian translation should have been in University of Windsor but Newfoundland is again a good candidate. One of my collegues forwarded me a piece of "Newfie talk" to decipher.

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[H.Boldt]

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Hassan: Just a minor nitpick: Stephen Harper ("Steve" to his new buddy "W") was born and raised in Leaside. At the time, Leaside was a suburb just outside of the city of Toronto. (It's well within the city now.) It seems like Harper doesn't want that little fact to be more well known. Cheers! Hans

[bharder@nlrha.ab.ca]

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Merge the 2 spellings? Compromise (a natural Canadian reaction)?

[J.Klebanoff]

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To be honest, I had absolutely no idea how it was spelled, so I went to the online catalogue of that great Canadian fashion icon, Roots. They spell it toque. (Thankfully, and much to my surprise, there are summer toques and kayak toques. Otherwise I probably would not have been able to find out how to spell it until their winter clothing comes in.) Not satisfied, I looked "toque" up in a dictionary and on a few Web sites that I found through Google by searching on "toque". I found out toque was an alternate spelling of tuque. Then I had to decide whether to use "toque" or "tuque". Being a Canadian, I reacted by compromising. I used the Roots spelling but made note of the alternate spelling. I didn't find a touque spelling when I wrote the article, but that might have been laziness on my part. On seeing your post, I tried Googling "touque." It seems that a number of people do spell it that way. And yes, compromise is a cherished Canadian tradition.

[Guest.Visitor]

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There are more Ukrainians than Francophones in Alberta. Even Poles and Germans outnumber them. (Maybe even the Punjabies). So I always wondered where exactly Steve picked up his French? He can certainly speak fluent French unlike our Miss Stronach Born and raised in Leaside? Well that explains! So did you solve the Newfie puzzle? It is a little simple for an intelligent person like you but you will enjoy it!

[JohndeCoville]

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In addition to the medical breakthrough allowing the regrowth of teeth, there has been the Alberta-based discovery on how to harvest Pancreatic "Islets" allowing the Type-I diebetic freedom from the Insulin Syringe. Only in Alberta means major medical breakthroughs. Because of Pharmaceutical Strangle-holds in the United States, these breakthroughs are being tested in Europe. I look forward to more good news from Alberta! --John from Arizona

[H.Boldt]

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Bzzzt! Sorry, but native French speakers are outnumbered by several other languages in Toronto too. Living in Leaside in the early 1960's, Harper would have had little exposure to anything other than English. Here's an interesting fact about multiculturalism today in Toronto: If you call 911 in Toronto, you can get service in any of 140 different languages! Cheers! Hans (Still working on that bit of Newfie! I'm sure I'll get it eventually, so no hints please!)

[Guest.Visitor]

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It is true that Francophones are a very small minority in Toronto. However Ontario was a founding member of Canada along with Quebec and probably for this reason Ontarians feels that they are the big brothers of Canada and it is their job to keep the country together. Therefore they give special importance to French and it is taught and encouraged in Ontario. All my children speak French. This historic sense of responsibility is not there in Alberta, or for that matter in any prairie. They would let go Quebec and would like to merge with the USA. Preston Manning was caught discussing merger with the US Ambassador during the Quebec referendum. Unfortunately for him, US as usual was not interested in merger. For this apathy towards French, there is no French in Albertan schools and when my children moved to Ontario, learning French was the biggest problem in their transition.

[Guest.Visitor]

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Necessity is the mother of invention. At one point Canadians had the highest per capita diabetics. That is the reason Insulin was invented in Canada. There are lots of successful experiments in different areas such as transplant, artificial regrowth, and oral feeding. These experiments are carried from Alberta to Ontario. I know this because my daughter was severly sick in Alberta and damaged her pancreas badly. I share your looking forward to good news in the field of Diabeties from Canada or anywhere else in the world.

[J.Klebanoff]

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Hassan said:

Therefore they give special importance to French and it is taught and encouraged in Ontario.

I think the encouragement of French in Ontario is relatively recent. Back in the days when I was in school -- many years ago -- French was a required subject but it was not taught with any enthusiasm. I was able to get by not learning much more than one phrase that allowed me to answer any question the teacher might ask: "Je ne sais pas." ("I don't know.") At the time I didn't care that I wasn't learning French, but I have since come to regret it. Its not just that it's one of my country's official languages, but also I've been to Paris three times in my life, Quebec City once and Montreal a few times. I really liked those cities, but I'm sure I would have enjoyed them much more if I spoke French.

[Guest.Visitor]

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"Its not just that it's one of my country's official languages, but also I've been to Paris three times in my life". Well then you must have known that the French of Montreal is not the French of Paris, as the English of London is not the English of "New Yok New Yok" or "Worshington". As in the movie "Snatch" Frankie Four Fingers's brother complained in London, "Hey! nobody speaks English here". The same way when my cousin from London came, the shopkeeper of the corner stored laughed on her English and accent and said, "My god, you speak the language of my Grandma". One of my Francophone friend complained that when he went to Paris, they made fun of his French saying his French was too "bookish" (literal) and made them laugh. I did not understand that until I read in the newspapers that Quebec banned Hollywood movies that were dubbed in France. As you know, no English movie can be premiered in Quebec unless it is also showed with a French dubbing. However they want Quebec French instead of French French! So probably you need to learn two Frenches

[J.Klebanoff]

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I did know that the dialect and idiom in Quebec is very different from Parisian French. However, I recommend not trying to tell the average Quebecois that there are two Frenches (no matter how true it might be). From what I understand, you'll likely be subjected to a long diatribe if you do. I failed at learning one French in school. If I ever stop being so lazy and try again to learn it I'll have enough trouble learning one and that one would probably be Parisian.

[Guest.Visitor]

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"I recommend not trying to tell the average Quebecois that there are two Frenches (no matter how true it might be). From what I understand, you'll likely be subjected to a long diatribe if you do." Maybe something like this was told to Zizou to get a head butt. I don't think twisting his injured armed and pinching his nipples got the reaction. Rather Mazaretti must have said, "You speak like a Quebecois".

[H.Boldt]

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I studied French too in school since it was a required subject. I started in grade 7. But after a truly terrible French teacher in Grade 10, I managed to unlearn practically everything from the previous three years. One problem with French education in Ontario is that our schools teach Parisian French, not the language spoken by French Canadians. My sister-in-law studied French in university, but was laughed at when trying to speak French in Quebec. I don't think she ever spoke French again after that. I also took four years of German in high school. For this person of German ancestry, that has meant a lot for me - much more than French ever could. Even though I'm still nowhere near 100% fluent in German, that education has definitely made it easier for me to visit any part of Germany and Austria that I want. It has also come in very handy visiting other neighboring countries like Slovenia. Regarding the issue of learning French to keep Canada together, I'm not sure if most Canadians would consider that a valid reason to learn French. I think most Canadians would be just as happy to see Quebec separate, so long as the separation was complete. That is, no special treatment for Quebec after separation. For that matter, if Ontario were to separate from Canada, that wouldn't bother me too much. We don't get any respect from the rest of the country either! Cheers! Hans