Canadian Forces Recruitment "Center"

[Guest American Woman]

Here's a news article out of Canada about the bombing of a Canadian Recruitment "Center" in Quebec:

An organization that calls itself The International Resistance Initiative has claimed responsibility for the bomb attack on the Canadian Armed Forces Recruitment Center early Friday morning in Trois-Rivieres. link

Most media outlets do, however, refer to it as a Canadian Recruitment "centre."

[Argus]

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

Your spelling is not logical. You changed very clearly spelled words like "see" just for effect, and actually made them more difficult to understand. Honestly, why change "logical" which is spelled like it sounds to "ladjikel"?

[Argus]

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.

How difficult a language is often depends on how it relates to your native language. If you are French, you will have an easier time learning Spanish than an Anglophone will, for example.

I've spoken to a number of French teachers and they all say that English is relatively easy for a Francophone to learn in comparison to the reverse. French is a much more complicated language, with its emphasis on gender and accents, as well as the massive number of silent letters. It's verb forms vary far more than English. And every rule of grammar has dozens if not hundreds of exceptions.

[Pliny]

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.

Your English vocabulary is very good. Do you ever assume the meaning of English words? Many people don't know the roots of English words. A lot of it is from Latin which few people know today but if they did know Latin they could probably be pretty close in guessing the meaning of words.

English is an inclusive and evolving language. Not a stifled, preserved exclusive one complete with language police.

Having said that, I do find it unsettling that people are so careless when it comes to understanding the basic rules of spelling and grammar.

Edited July 7, 2010 by Pliny

[M.Dancer]

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

I will say this, that, above, makes as much sense as most of your posts...

[TimG]

And every rule of grammar has dozens if not hundreds of exceptions.

What makes a language useful as an international communication tool is how badly the language can be mangled by a non-native speaker yet remain understandable. English is a very forgiving language on that front. Edited July 7, 2010 by TimG

[Moonbox]

What makes a language useful as an international communication tool is how badly the language can be mangled by a non-native speaker yet remain understandable. English is a very forgiving language on that front.

Bingo. Simple grammar is the great equalizer. If you can figure out the grammar properly, you can dumb the language down with simple words. Experience and memory will eventually fill in your holes in vocabulary.

Edited July 7, 2010 by Moonbox

[Guest American Woman]

An organization that calls itself The International Resistance Initiative has claimed responsibility for the bomb attack on the Canadian Armed Forces Recruitment Center early Friday morning in Trois-Rivieres. link

I'm finding it interesting how the "US English spelling" of a Recruitment Center in Canada is apparently of more concern than a Canadian recruitment center/centre being bombed.

Edited July 7, 2010 by American Woman

[Michael Hardner]

I'm finding it interesting how the "US English spelling" of a Recruitment Center in Canada is apparently of more concern than a Canadian recruitment center/centre being bombed.

Then you have a lot to learn about Canada. Or maybe I should say - you will find Canada very interesting indeed.

Edited July 7, 2010 by Michael Hardner

[Guest American Woman]

Then you have a lot to learn about Canada. Or maybe I should say - you will find Canada very interesting indeed.

I'm finding out that it's a constant - and interesting - learning process, for sure.

[bush_cheney2004]

Then you have a lot to learn about Canada. Or maybe I should say - you will find Canada very interesting indeed.

Accordingly, I am sure that bombing instructions were available in English and Francais, as required by federal law.

[Moonbox]

Hmm...I hadn't even thought of that.

Why are we talking about how we spelled it? I guess we just dismiss it as a bunch of idiotic nutjobs and forget about it. We ARE weird.

[Michael Hardner]

Accordingly, I am sure that bombing instructions were available in English and Francais, as required by federal law.

Check !

[M.Dancer]

Check !

Cheque!

[Machjo]

Your spelling is not logical. You changed very clearly spelled words like "see" just for effect, and actually made them more difficult to understand. Honestly, why change "logical" which is spelled like it sounds to "ladjikel"?

First off there is no word 'see' in there. And secondly, the 'g' in 'logical' could just as easily be pronounced as 'g' in 'lo'. And the 'c' in logical is just an unnecessary complication when you can just use 'k'. So no, 'logical' is not necessarily spelt logically.

[M.Dancer]

First off there is no word 'see' in there. And secondly, the 'g' in 'logical' could just as easily be pronounced as 'g' in 'lo'. And the 'c' in logical is just an unnecessary complication when you can just use 'k'. So no, 'logical' is not necessarily spelt logically.

Argus' response just shows that your effect only made comprehension harder.

as well, I have no idea how "pronounced as 'g' in 'lo'" would sound....in my understanding...g can sound hard as in gap, soft as in general and silent as in gnat...as well as swallowed as in..enough

Edited July 7, 2010 by M.Dancer

[Machjo]

Your English vocabulary is very good. Do you ever assume the meaning of English words? Many people don't know the roots of English words. A lot of it is from Latin which few people know today but if they did know Latin they could probably be pretty close in guessing the meaning of words.

English is an inclusive and evolving language. Not a stifled, preserved exclusive one complete with language police.

Having said that, I do find it unsettling that people are so careless when it comes to understanding the basic rules of spelling and grammar.

Bear in mind though that owing to English using roots so inconsistently, many words are misleading.

For instance, the word 'hopefully' is usually misused even by native English-speakers. For example, If I say 'Hopefully, I'll go to work tomorrow', according to correct English, it means 'I'll go to work tomorrow in a hopeful manner, or with a hopeful demeanor or attitude'. When most people say 'Hopefully, I'll go to work tomorrow', what they really mean is 'I hope to to go to work tomorrow'.

Essentially, what makes English particularly difficult for non-native speakers is the way native speakers massacre the language. As a result, they often do not use words as per the correct definition.

We also find ourselves with false friends, words borrowed from other languages but redefined. For example, the English word 'raisin' comes from the French word for 'grape', yet in English it means more specifically 'dried grape', which could thus be deceiving for a French-speaker learning English. For such reasons, while knowing other languages can certainly help to learn English, it's very dangerous in English to assume.

Then we come across English words of Latin roots that are also used in other European languages and previously used in the same way in English but changed a few generations ago or being used differently in different countries. A good example is 'billion'. In most European countries, its equivalent would mean a million million. In the US it has meant a thousand million for a long, long time. In the UK, it used to mean a million million officially, but now officially means a thousand million, with some Britons rejecting that new definition and sticking to defining it as a million million, resulting in both definitions being included in the dictionary. How confusing can a language be when we can't even agree on numbering conventions?

And don't even get me started on the multiple definitions of 'corn', 'elevator', etc. all of which can sometimes be confusing when you're translating technical documents concerning fields you're not always familiar with. You find yourself having to go back and ask the client if by this or that word, he means this or that meaning. It can get frustrating for both sides, especially when the client had never even thought of all the different meanings of common words and just took them for granted.

Believe it or not, that's where a lot of the costs of translating documents from English come from. It's all the back and forth trying to figure out the exact meaning. It's no secret among translators and interpretors that English is a grammatically vague language comparatively speaking. And that makes translation and interpretation that much more difficult.

[Machjo]

Argus' response just shows that your effect only made comprehension harder.

as well, I have no idea how "pronounced as 'g' in 'lo'" would sound....in my understanding...g can sound hard as in gap, soft as in general and silent as in gnat...as well as swallowed as in..enough

But English spelling truly is logical, isn't it?

[Machjo]

But going back to the OP, you'd think the Canadian forces would be consistent at the very least. When I was in the military, they expected our rucksacks to be packed identically after all.

According to this page, it's 'centre':

http://www.forces.ca/html/index.aspx?m=0〈=en&sid=162&sm1=4&sm2=0&tab=1&subTab=1

You'd think that at the very least they'd be consistent, especially when they emphasize so much consistency on practically every other front.

[ToadBrother]

How difficult a language is often depends on how it relates to your native language. If you are French, you will have an easier time learning Spanish than an Anglophone will, for example.

I've spoken to a number of French teachers and they all say that English is relatively easy for a Francophone to learn in comparison to the reverse. French is a much more complicated language, with its emphasis on gender and accents, as well as the massive number of silent letters. It's verb forms vary far more than English. And every rule of grammar has dozens if not hundreds of exceptions.

It is true to a point. Certainly German speakers can much more easily pick up a closely related like Dutch than a more distant one like, say, Danish or English. At its core English is still very much within the West Germanic family, the vocabulary having grabbed considerably more Greek and Latin loan words via Norman French than, say, Frisian, which is kind of like Old and Middle English in that when I hear it, I can almost understand it.

[Michael Hardner]

Cheque!

I meant 'check' as in 'All present, colonel !' not as in 'la compte'...

[M.Dancer]

I meant 'check' as in 'All present, colonel !' not as in 'la compte'...

Czech!

[Remiel]

%#(%*#%*#(%@#_)$@)#$(#($#%*#(%*(#Q

That is how I feel after I just erased my entire post because the ctrl key on this laptop is NOT on the outermost bottom left corner. I usually copy my posts so that I do not lose them if there is a posting error. This time however, it is that practice that has screwed me over. To make a long story short though, here is what I was going to say, in point form, all in response to Machjo.

- By naturalization, what you call an incorrect use of " hopefully " I would call correct.

- The American use of billion is superior to the British/Latin use. When Latin was invented, billion was an academic number. No longer.

- If Canada has a spelling reform, that is cool, but until that day, mispelling " centre " as " center " in formal contexts should be no more acceptable than mispelling " dog " as " dawg " .

[bush_cheney2004]

- If Canada has a spelling reform, that is cool, but until that day, mispelling " centre " as " center " in formal contexts should be no more acceptable than mispelling " dog " as " dawg " .

Does Canada have a reference standard for such things, that is an equivalent to (dare I say), the works of American Noah Webster or derivative dictionaries? What is the published Canadian standard?

[Remiel]

Does Canada have a reference standard for such things, that is an equivalent to (dare I say), the works of American Noah Webster or derivative dictionaries? What is the published Canadian standard?

Wikipedia makes me think it is the Canadian Oxford Dictionary.

The Canadian Oxford Dictionary second edition contains 300,000 entries, including about 2,200 true Canadianisms. It also provides information on Canadian pronunciation and on Canadian spelling, which has features of both British and American spellings – colour, centre, and travelling, but tire, aluminum, and program. The second, updated edition of the dictionary was published in 2004.

It is used by most major Canadian newspapers, publishing houses, and the Canadian government. The influential Canadian Press Stylebook follows the Canadian Oxford Dictionary. The dictionary was a publishing success, staying on Canadian bestseller lists for over a year, something quite unusual for a reference book.