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Yesterday I wrote three letters, two to a newspaper, one to a radio station.
Context: Iran is in the news. Meanwhile, in my province (state) the conservatives, in power forever, suffered a four year loss to the “socialist” New Democratic Party. (NDP) Now the conservatives have been back in power for under four years. Danielle Smith (supposedly) is about to be elected party leader, hence to be the provincial premier (state governor) with her new crazy plan for “sovereignty.” Normally such plans need a snap election for a “mandate from the people” who are not, of course, party members.
(1) Got a red neck province turning socialist, anyone?
Dear Editor,
Danielle Smith claimed the conservatives lost under Jim Prentis because their election was a snap one. Wrong. Other conservatives then thought Albertans had converted to socialism or the NDP, (and hence their panicky need to unite the right. Wrong again.
Back when I read about their scandals and stupidity, I voted the conservatives out of power for their own good. They needed time to pull up their socks and deal with their ethically challenged members. But instead they took their eye off the ball, wasted four years, by being distracted into “uniting the right.” (Uniting with the other party) Such a stupid plan, since Albertans had never converted. I better give the conservatives a second chance by voting NDP again.
(2) Got the big city media ignoring a story, anyone?
Dear Editor,
I didn’t read anything in today’s paper (maybe I missed it)
and a google search is not turning anything up. (but I don’t search well)
Hence I am alerting you.
On the BBC home website, which daily has a top ten news list to click on, one of the top ten is Dax harvesting, to the point of waste, Canadian old growth forest.
I cannot speak for the credibility of BBC journalists.
To investigate, besides checking with the BBC story, you might start with calling the newspaper in Kelowna, as I found something there, but found nothing in any big city or national paper.
(3) Got liberals messing with our plain language?
Here’s me, writing to the CBC Radio Style Guide for Reporters:
Dear Radio Style guide editors
We all used to say Shah of Iran as “eye-ran.” Because the standard English for our children is the five vowels. There are new babies being born every minute who will adopt the plain and democratic standard, and I don’t want them to have to memorize an ever-lengthening list of exceptions. That’s why I say “a bunch of animals” rather than memorize a pride for lions, a parliament for owls, and so on. I try to standardize my conjugations: these days I say ‘I dived in” rather than “I dove in” the way I used to. I commonly avoid various Latin plurals, by just using a plain “s”—something I have noticed radio announcers doing too. (They will say “Scientists say octopusses are intelligent,” not octopi.
Our language will never be as free of exceptions as Esperanto, but I don’t want us making things worse for the children. I see no sense in moving in the direction of French, where I was still learning irregular conjugations in my last year of high school. Of course I will say “Paree” when I speak French, but if we are speaking English then a Frenchman and I will both say Paris.
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Pause for Blog Identification…You are reading
Sean Does Essays,
Canada
October,
2022…
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Part II,
bonus material by other writers
For balance, here’s a big city snob liberal calling me a Yokel: (an uneducated and unsophisticated person from the countryside) Yes, I’m from Alberta, but hey, I live (just barely) within the city limits, so that makes me urban.
From the blog https://mleddy.blogspot.com/ orange crate art:
It’s easy to tell when NPR has switched from the feed to the local affiliate. From Garner’s Modern English Usage :
In educated speech, the country’s name is pronounced either /i-rahn/ (preferred) or /i-ran/ (more anglicized). Avoid the xenophobic yokel’s pronunciation /I-ran/ or /I-ran/.
Not everyone who says /I-ran/ or /I-ran/ counts as a xenophobic yokel. But who wants to be mistaken for one?
[May the women of Iran succeed in their fight against the official order of things.]
In fairness, not everyone in the six comments on orange crate art “sucked up” to the city slicker:
BY MICHAEL LEDDY AT 8:00 AM COMMENTS: 6
Fresca said…
“xenophobic yokel”?
That’s some judgment call on Garner’s part.
When people say liberals are wankers, I think of things like that.
We really can be.
September 23, 2022 9:15 AM
Michael Leddy said…
He’s a snoot, yes. But he was a member of the Republican Party until fairly recently.
Remember when we were first hearing Obama pronounce the country’s name properly? I think anyone reading news on NPR should have a handle on it.
September 23, 2022 10:27 AM
Fresca said…
Lol—funny I got MY judgement call wrong—he was not a liberal!
But still a wankker🙄
I remember a song during the first Iraq War (“Desert ShitStorm”) on CW radio
“I don’t know the difference between Eye-raq and Eye-ran…”
Anyone on NPR should At least get the names right, yes!
September 23, 2022 11:23 AM
Michael Leddy said…
Here in Illinois we also have Eye-talian beef. And don’t forget, we have public figures who deliberately mispronounce Kamala Harris’s first name.
I haven’t mentioned it in a post yet, but I was (am?) a member of the panel of critical readers for the forthcoming fifth edition of Garner’s Modern American Usage. BG is a good guy.
If I were to make a Venn diagram, there’d be a big circle for people who mispronounce Iran, and a smaller circle inside for the xenophobic yokels. In other words, mispronouncing it doesn’t make you a xenophobic yokel. But those who are xenophobic yokels mispronounce it.
September 23, 2022 12:55 PM
J D Lowe said…
I was once a manager of a documentation team at a high tech company (If my parents were alive they’d certainly have a laugh at the idea that I had duped someone into putting me in charge of a group whose reason for being was reading and writing, but I needed a job 🙂 ). One day at this job I had my trusty copy of Garner’s 4th open on my desk while beavering away on some writing task. Unbeknownst to me my boss snuck up and took a picture on his phone of the open Garner’s and me looking at it. He then immediately emailed it to his teenage daughter as proof that there were some people in the world who actually still used books. Apparently this was debating point between them, and he was glad to have proof he was right. From then on my copy of Garner’s had legendary status.
September 23, 2022 2:45 PM
Michael Leddy said…
A book!
Maybe I shouldn’t mention it, but the book is also available as an app. Really.
September 23, 2022 4:55 PM
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Blog note: I had to recreate yesterday’s letters, because my email “sent” file does not hold stuff sent to the media.
Update: My last two letters were for the editors only, FYI, but the first one was public. It was published on Saturday, in the fancy left hand editorial column, among four other letters. My piece was improved by cutting the last line, probably for space, as editors cut from the bottom up.
