Canadian Forces Recruitment "Center"

[Machjo]

I'd noticed awhile back that the Canadian Forces Recruiting Center in downtown Ottawa does in fact spell the word according to US English spelling. I've passed it many a time and each time I pass it I can't help but look at the spelling just to be sure it's not my imagination.

Who in the world decided to use US spelling for the Canadian Forces Recruiting "Center". Was this work contracted out to a US company? If so, and that company was offering the best deal, I have no problem with it. But we would have thought the Canadian Armed Forces would have ensured the spelling was correct as per our standards. Are they all so illiterate in Canadian spelling conventions at the recruiting centre that they'd never even noticed this yet? Or are they just blind?

[ToadBrother]

I'd noticed awhile back that the Canadian Forces Recruiting Center in downtown Ottawa does in fact spell the word according to US English spelling. I've passed it many a time and each time I pass it I can't help but look at the spelling just to be sure it's not my imagination.

Who in the world decided to use US spelling for the Canadian Forces Recruiting "Center". Was this work contracted out to a US company? If so, and that company was offering the best deal, I have no problem with it. But we would have thought the Canadian Armed Forces would have ensured the spelling was correct as per our standards. Are they all so illiterate in Canadian spelling conventions at the recruiting centre that they'd never even noticed this yet? Or are they just blind?

The British spellings are absurd, preserving Anglo-Norman spellings that haven't been pronounced that way since Chaucer's time. I know the written form of any language is highly conserved, but do we really need to spell "colour" with a "u"? And if that's what Canadians need to make themselves feel proud, then wow, we're pretty damned low.

[Machjo]

The British spellings are absurd, preserving Anglo-Norman spellings that haven't been pronounced that way since Chaucer's time. I know the written form of any language is highly conserved, but do we really need to spell "colour" with a "u"? And if that's what Canadians need to make themselves feel proud, then wow, we're pretty damned low.

It's the symbolism of it. In all schools in Canada, if you spell it 'center', the teacher will certainly correct the spelling.

No, it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but symbolically it does seem strange that while practically every shop in town spells it 'centre', that a government institution spells it 'center'.

[Machjo]

Now if the concern is for logical spelling, then why not this:

http://www.mittelschulvorbereitung.ch/content_new/engfr/eZ550EuroEnglish.pdf

[ToadBrother]

It's the symbolism of it. In all schools in Canada, if you spell it 'center', the teacher will certainly correct the spelling.

It's stupidity. One of the reasons English is so hard to learn is because of all these ludicrous anachronistic spellings. We do not pronounce the "ou" in colour, we pronounce it "color".

No, it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but symbolically it does seem strange that while practically every shop in town spells it 'centre', that a government institution spells it 'center'.

It's symbolic of someone growing a brain and booting out spellings of French words that were brought over by the Normans. The Yanks at least have made some steps, though even their spellings retain most of the awfulness of our spelling system.

[Machjo]

It's stupidity. One of the reasons English is so hard to learn is because of all these ludicrous anachronistic spellings. We do not pronounce the "ou" in colour, we pronounce it "color".

It's symbolic of someone growing a brain and booting out spellings of French words that were brought over by the Normans. The Yanks at least have made some steps, though even their spellings retain most of the awfulness of our spelling system.

Seu if it's oll djust sili simbolizm, dhen sertenli yu hav new ishyuz widh mai adopting a mor ladjikel speling, rait.

[bush_cheney2004]

You mean these Canadian "centers" do not meet the "standard"?

• 8th Hussars Sports Center, Sussex NB
  
• Meadow Park Sports Center, Whistler, BC
  
• St Stephen Sports Center, Old Ridge, NB
  
• Martensville Sports Center Ice Skating Rink, Martensville, SK
  

Let's hope Her Majesty didn't notice!

[Machjo]

You mean these Canadian "centers" do not meet the "standard"?

• 8th Hussars Sports Center, Sussex NB
  
• Meadow Park Sports Center, Whistler, BC
  
• St Stephen Sports Center, Old Ridge, NB
  
• Martensville Sports Center Ice Skating Rink, Martensville, SK
  

Let's hope Her Majesty didn't notice!

I can't believe it's that common. You must have searched for those.

[bush_cheney2004]

I can't believe it's that common. You must have searched for those.

Not very hard to find such "violations" of the Queen's English:

Ottawa Carleton Physiotherapy And Sports Injury Center

http://www.ocphysio.com/

[Machjo]

Not very hard to find such "violations" of the Queen's English:

Ottawa Carleton Physiotherapy And Sports Injury Center

http://www.ocphysio.com/

I guess I'll have to keep an eye peeled in the next few days.

[Bonam]

It's stupidity. One of the reasons English is so hard to learn is because of all these ludicrous anachronistic spellings. We do not pronounce the "ou" in colour, we pronounce it "color".

So hard to learn? Compared to what?

In my opinion, knowing 5 languages, English is definitely on the easier end of the scale, especially to obtain a passable level where you can communicate without sounding like an idiot. In other languages, words have to be modified for case, conjugation, declensions, etc (mechanics used little or not at all in English) which can be substantially more complex than the English use of articles to achieve the same meaning. Additionally, many other languages split words into 2 or more genders, with corresponding changes in spellings and pronunciations of adjectives and, in some languages, verbs, depending on the gender, plurality, and possibly other aspects of the subject that they are applied to. Moreover, agglutinative languages can combine multiple words to create entirely new word meanings, and this can be done by speakers in a very casual manner, baffling people with less knowledge of the language.

Additionally, almost every language, except for ones which have only very recently gained written forms, are plagued with anachronistic spellings. If you think English has a lot of letters which are not pronounced, just take a look at French, where the plague of silent letters is far far worse. Or consider languages where the written symbols do not relate to the spoken pronunciations at all.

Some languages are more intuitive in terms of spelling, like Russian for example, where almost everything is spelled exactly as it is pronounced, but it has its own problems of having some of the most complex grammar in terms of being a semi-agglutinative language, having 3 genders, multiple cases, conjugations, and declnsions, all of which can change forms as they go through the various permutations with each other, and also with all the tenses. In fact, the grammar is so complex, that one can detect significant grammatical errors in the speech and writing of all but the most highly educated Russians, and speaking without major mistakes in the use of cases and declensionss is considered a sign of intelligence. In comparison, a typical English speaker probably doesn't know what the heck a case or declension is in the context of language, and it doesn't hamper them whatsoever.

Anyway sorry for that random stream of information, it just annoys me slightly when people say English is "hard to learn" when in fact it really is not. And I'm not saying this as some proponent of English or a native English speaker; English is my third language.

Edited July 7, 2010 by Bonam

[Machjo]

So hard to learn? Compared to what?

In my opinion, knowing 5 languages, English is definitely on the easier end of the scale, especially to obtain a passable level where you can communicate without sounding like an idiot. In other languages, words have to be modified for case, conjugation, declination, etc which can be substantially more complex than the English use of articles to achieve the same meaning. Additionally, many other languages split words into 2 or more genders, with corresponding changes in spellings and pronunciations of adjectives and, in some languages, verbs, depending on the gender, plurality, and possibly other aspects of the subject that they are applied to. Moreover, agglutinative languages can combine multiple words to create entirely new word meanings, and this can be done by speakers in a very casual manner, baffling people with less knowledge of the language.

Additionally, almost every language, except for ones which have only very recently gained written forms, are plagued with anachronistic spellings. If you think English has a lot of letters which are not pronounced, just take a look at French, where the plague of silent letters is far far worse. Or consider languages where the written symbols do not relate to the spoken pronunciations at all.

Some languages are more intuitive in terms of spelling, like Russian for example, where almost everything is spelled exactly as it is pronounced, but it has its own problems of having some of the most complex grammar in terms of being a semi-agglutinative language, having 3 genders, multiple cases, conjugations, and declinations, all of which can change forms as they go through the various permutations with each other, and also with all the tenses. In fact, the grammar is so complex, that one can detect significant grammatical errors in the speech and writing of all but the most highly educated Russians, and speaking without major mistakes in the use of cases and declinations is considered a sign of intelligence.

Anyway sorry for that random stream of information, it just annoys me slightly when people say English is "hard to learn" when in fact it really is not. And I'm not saying this as some proponent of English or a native English speaker; English is my third language.

English is my second language and by no means my last. I know it, but at the same time, when we're talking about social policy, it would be foolhardy of me to say English is 'easy' to learn when statistics show that in fact most fail to learn it well. You and I may have had more chances to learn languages, so for us to say English is easy would be like a black-belt karateka who'd been training for years to say karate is easy. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but to know for sure, you wouldn't ask a black-belt karateka. Instead, you'd look at statistics showing the success rate in karate for the average person. And from the statistics I've seen concerning English, the prognosis isn't good. According to some European statistics, only about 5 to 7%, depending on the country, really learn English well. Hardly a standing ovation.

Now as for the Canadian Forces Recruiting 'center', we'd expect that it's targeting Canadian citizens and so people who know either English or French well, and so would have no need to dumb it down.

[bush_cheney2004]

....Now as for the Canadian Forces Recruiting 'center', we'd expect that it's targeting Canadian citizens and so people who know either English or French well, and so would have no need to dumb it down.

Looks like it's getting "dumber" then, because the recruiting web site continues this Yankee dog blasphemy:

http://www.forces.ca/html/index.aspx?m=0〈=en&sid=200&sm1=6&sm2=0&content=200&mp=ON

Edited July 7, 2010 by bush_cheney2004

[Bonam]

Instead, you'd look at statistics showing the success rate in karate for the average person. And from the statistics I've seen concerning English, the prognosis isn't good. According to some European statistics, only about 5 to 7%, depending on the country, really learn English well. Hardly a standing ovation.

I haven't seen the statistics of which you speak, but I'd venture to say some of that might have to do with the fact that English can be learned "well enough" to communicate, even at a professional level, without being learned "well", while there are many languages for which this is simply not the case. Additionally, it may have something to do with the shear number of people who try to learn English, probably more people try to learn it at some point in their lives than any other language, and of course many of those attempts are not particularly enthusiastic or dedicated, thus they fail to "really learn English well".

Of course it is not as easy as Esperanto or other recently constructed languages. There are also examples of real languages that are relatively easy to learn. But if you made some sort of scale, ranking languages in terms of ease to learn (I realize that such a thing is subjective but if it could somehow be ranked objectively or based on very thorough statistics) I very very strongly doubt that English would be among the most difficult.

Edited July 7, 2010 by Bonam

[Machjo]

Just to take a few examples:

http://www.frivolity.com/teatime/Songs_and_Poems/english_is_tough_stuff.html

http://the_english_dept.tripod.com/eng.html

And among other illogicalities:

Noun, adjective, adverb correlations:

There is no obvious relationship between the words monkey and simian. The adverb form is chaotic. You could say 'in a monkey-like manner' or 'in a simian manner'. But in many cases there really is no specific adverb.

Numbers. There is no obvious relationship between the words ten and one on the one hand, and eleven on the other.

Verb conjugation. What obvious relationship is there between be, am, are, is, were, etc. from the spelling and pronunciation of these words?

Antonyms. What obvious relationship is there in spelling or roots between 'hot' and 'cold'?

Gender distinction. What similarities can you find between 'father' and 'mother'? OK, they end in -er. but what about boy and girl?

Believe it or not, in some languages, the relationship between all of these kinds of words would be very transparent. In fact, in many cases you could guess them once you'd learnt a large enough word stock, as the meaning of words would always be obvious based on the roots and affixes.

[Machjo]

I haven't seen the statistics of which you speak, but I'd venture to say some of that might have to do with the fact that English can be learned "well enough" to communicate, even at a professional level, without being learned "well", while there are many languages for which this is simply not the case. Additionally, it may have something to do with the shear number of people who try to learn English, probably more people try to learn it at some point in their lives than any other language, and of course many of those attempts are not particularly enthusiastic or dedicated, thus they fail to "really learn English well".

Of course it is not as easy as Esperanto or other recently constructed languages. There are also examples of real languages that are relatively easy to learn. But if you made some sort of scale, ranking languages in terms of ease to learn (I realize that such a thing is subjective but if it could somehow be ranked objectively or based on very thorough statistics) I very very strongly doubt that English would be among the most difficult.

The statistics I have are in a few books I have, one from Elizabetta Formaggio (Interkompreniĝi,sed Kiel?), and another quoted from a book by Ulrich Matthias (La Nova Latino por la Eklezio kaj Ekumenismo). In the one from Matthias, one study went about making 3 common statements in English, and asking to translate the meaning correctly into their mother-tongue. That was a study spread across Western Europe. Only about 5 to 7% translated correctly, depending on the country.

[Machjo]

By the way, I've personally met people in my travels abroad who'd studied English for well over a decade and I still had no choice but to switch to their language.

[Machjo]

Another book worth reading (and this one's in English) is English-Only Europe: Challenging Language Policy, by Robert Phillipson. I don't agree with everything in the book, but it does bring up many worthwile points, one being the difficulty inherent in learning English. He brings up a similar point in a previous book of his titled Linguistic Imperialism, dealing mainly with English-language education policy in many former British colonies, whereby many children, by the time they reach high school, still have a low level of English, and yet are expected to learn science in English. The result is that while many do learn English well, they may fall behind in the sciences since they can't follow everything the teacher is teaching. If English were easy, certainly research would not be presenting such sad findings.

Again, like I said, for you and me to say that English is easy is like a karate instructor saying karate is easy.Unless it's backed by statistics, the claim is senseless.

[Machjo]

This could be of interest to the topic too:

http://www.hltmag.co.uk/sep05/mart05.htm

And again it confirms the poor rate of success even among educated Thai.

[Bonam]

There is no obvious relationship between the words monkey and simian. The adverb form is chaotic. You could say 'in a monkey-like manner' or 'in a simian manner'. But in many cases there really is no specific adverb.

Numbers. There is no obvious relationship between the words ten and one on the one hand, and eleven on the other.

Verb conjugation. What obvious relationship is there between be, am, are, is, were, etc. from the spelling and pronunciation of these words?

Heh all you've done is illustrate a few exceptions. Instead of "be", take a typical English verb, like, for example: walk. How many forms does it have? Walk, walking, walked. Do you know how many forms a regular verb has in French? You could probably write a page full and I don't know if you'd have them all. And then these languages still have exceptions, where the forms like be, am, are, is all sound different (the french verb etre has the exact same issue). This is true for the majority of Romance, Germanic, and Slavic languages, and is much worse in many of them than it is in English.

By the way, if you said "in a simian manner" chances are whoever you were talking to wouldn't know wtf you were talking about ;p

Antonyms. What obvious relationship is there in spelling or roots between 'hot' and 'cold'?

Each of the 5 languages that I know has a separate word for hot and cold. By separate I mean it is not an obvious antonym relationship. In most languages, the origins of terms like hot and cold predate the notion of codified grammar and antonyms. More recent words in English often do obey the simple antonym rules. Satisfied - unsatisfied. Gravity - antigravity. Reversible - irreversible.

Gender distinction. What similarities can you find between 'father' and 'mother'? OK, they end in -er. but what about boy and girl?

Gender distinction is one of the things where English is clearly simpler than many many other languages. Specifically, most of the time, English has NO gender distinction. Words retain the same forms regardless of gender. Compare this to French where adjectives (among other things) have to be modified depending on the gender of the noun that they are describing. And French is still relatively simple when it comes to genders, believe me.

Believe it or not, in some languages, the relationship between all of these kinds of words would be very transparent. In fact, in many cases you could guess them once you'd learnt a large enough word stock, as the meaning of words would always be obvious based on the roots and affixes.

It is true that in English, there is a wider range of non-obvious vocabulary. Words aren't simply constructed from a small number of prefixes, roots, and suffixes, (and potentially other roots joined together). That is, English is not an agglutinative language. But such languages have their own complexities, consider German as an example. The ease of English lies in is its drastically simpler grammar, when compared to many other languages.

Edited July 7, 2010 by Bonam

[Machjo]

Bonam, I agree many other languages are difficult too. But to say English is easy because French and German are difficult is a non sequitur.

yes, French and German are just as difficult as English, but that does not make any of them easy. But I'm glad you agree that some languages are much easier to learn than English.

Bahasa Indonesia, Turkish, and especially Esperanto come to mind.

[Bonam]

Bonam, I agree many other languages are difficult too. But to say English is easy because French and German are difficult is a non sequitur.

I am comparing English to some of the world's other widely spoken languages.

yes, French and German are just as difficult as English, but that does not make any of them easy. But I'm glad you agree that some languages are much easier to learn than English.

I would argue that many of the languages I've been referring are more difficult, not "just as difficult".

Bahasa Indonesia, Turkish, and especially Esperanto come to mind.

Yes, as do Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. But for me anyway, many more hard languages come to mind.

[M.Dancer]

. I know the written form of any language is highly conserved, but do we really need to spell "colour" with a "u"? And if that's what Canadians need to make themselves feel proud, then wow, we're pretty damned low.

If we were to spell colour as it is pronounced in Canada, then it would be spelled culleur...better colour that rhymes with huller than color that rhymes with poller

[Michael Hardner]

Minor spelling variations like this will be the last vestiges of Canadian culture long after we are assimilated into the American Borg. As such, let's celebrate them and make sure that they are added into all of our WordPerfect dictionaries.

[Pliny]

So hard to learn? Compared to what?

In my opinion, knowing 5 languages, English is definitely on the easier end of the scale.....

Loved this post.