Canadian usage

[Dan Goodman]

Date:    Sat, 19 Mar 2005 10:49:34 -0800
From:    "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: Canadian usage

"over on the newsgroup sci.lang, there's a thread on "Canadian usage"
that dismays me.  it's another one of those searches for a *language
essence*, in this case what is truly canadian -- shared generally by
canadians and not shared with other groups.   so people suggest
characteristically canadian items, and other people write in to say
that they're canadian and *they* don't recognize this usage, or to say
that the item is also used in the u.k., or in the northern u.s. or
wherever (so it's not really *canadian*).  when you exclude these two
types of items, there's really nothing left.

"i'm waiting for someone to be told that, well, if they don't have a
particular usage, then they're not *really* canadian."

I can't recall in which newsgroup I saw a post from a Canadian who
wanted to reshape his country so that it only took in "real Canadians."
    He did not consider residents of Ontario and Quebec to be real
Canadians.

"the problem is that this is *sci.lang*, and the participants are
supposed to know something about language.  (yes, i know, a lot of the
participants seem to be deeply, and aggressively, clueless, but still
one hopes.)  they seem to be unaware of the simplest facts about
variation.  how have we -- linguists, dialectologists, variationists --
so failed to educate our students and colleagues?  they just seem to
fall back on folk conceptualizations of language varieties as unique
unities standing outside actual people and social groups."

At least it's on topic.  I once looked at a Scottish political
newsgroup, out of curiousity about Scottish politics.  It was full of
Canadians discussing Australian gun laws.  (Did you realize that the
Magna Carta protects the rights of Australians to bear arms?  Rather
foresighted of the Barons of Runnymede.)

On rec.arts.sf.science, the people who've taken their scientific
knowledge from Star Trek (I mean that literally; this is not hyperbole)
aren't the problem.  Their questions are answered politely, and they
politely accept the answers.  The problem posters are the ones who have
some scientific knowledge -- but not nearly as much as they think they do.

--
Dan Goodman
Journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/dsgood/
Decluttering: http://decluttering.blogspot.com
Predictions and Politics http://dsgood.blogspot.com
All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.
John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician.