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Author Topic: The language police want your food  (Read 2848 times)

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Offline dpareja

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The language police want your food
« on: February 21, 2013, 10:48:47 am »
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2013/02/20/montreal-language-pasta-translation.html

Apparently someone in the Office québécois de la langue française was a bit overzealous in their application of Quebec's language laws:

Quote
Quebec's language watchdog is backtracking after demanding a chic Montreal Italian restaurant change its menu because Italian words such as "pasta" were too predominant.

The Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) said it may have been over-zealous in its attempt to promote French language in public places.

"The office will consider this restaurant's particular situation while taking into account exceptions relating to foreign specialties," said the OQLF in a release late Wednesday.

...

Late Wednesday, OQLF spokesman Martin Bergeron said officials may have misinterpreted the law.

"If it's only the name of the dish, if it's an exotic name in the language of origin, that won't be a problem," he said.

Basically, someone in the OQLF decided that dishes couldn't be named "pasta" or "fish and chips" on menus, until they decided that was a bit much, anyway.

The minister responsible for the office says she'll look into it, so now I await a law that requires such dishes to be given their translated French name most predominantly on the menu.

The comments (sort First to Last) sell it:

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is there a french eqivalent for bs

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PQ
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Offline Old Viking

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Re: The language police want your food
« Reply #1 on: February 21, 2013, 05:16:07 pm »
Restaurants in Quebec are not allowed to serve frogs' legs.
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Offline dpareja

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Re: The language police want your food
« Reply #2 on: February 25, 2013, 04:01:01 pm »
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2013/02/25/quebec-restaurants-language-police.html

They're at it again:

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According to Maurice Holder, the owner of Brasserie Holder, the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) asked the restaurant to comply with the law, Bill 101, and get rid of several things around the kitchen.

Holder said his chef's grocery list, which was written on a blackboard when the language police dropped by the restaurant, said "salade, oeuf, sucre and steak."

The OQLF told Holder to change "steak" to "bifteck," he said.

The restaurateur said he was also asked to cover up print on a hot water switch that read "on/off."

When a first layer of opaque tape failed to cover up the English words, Holder said he was told to add a second layer of tape.

David McMillan, the co-owner and chef at Joe Beef, was also asked to take down vintage signs in his restaurant and told to translate some items on his menu into French.

Yeah. You can't use English even when all the employees are OK with it, when your appliances only come with English markings, and where none of your customers will ever see it unless you specifically let them into the area in question.
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Quote from: Jordan Duram
It doesn't concern you, Sister, that kind of absolutist view of the universe? Right and wrong determined solely by a single all-knowing, all powerful being whose judgment cannot be questioned and in whose name the most horrendous acts can be sanctioned without appeal?

Quote from: Supreme Court of Canada
Being required by someone else’s religious beliefs to behave contrary to one’s sexual identity is degrading and disrespectful.

Offline Dakota Bob

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Re: The language police want your food
« Reply #3 on: February 25, 2013, 04:27:56 pm »
Haha, what the fuck.
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Offline MadCatTLX

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Re: The language police want your food
« Reply #4 on: February 25, 2013, 06:12:01 pm »
Why the hell is there a language police? Why does it matter? Why does it matter what language the is on the fucking light switch? Many light switches have no markings and we handle those just fine. This seems ridiculous as all fuck.
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Offline dpareja

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Re: The language police want your food
« Reply #5 on: February 25, 2013, 06:22:10 pm »
Quote from: MadCatTLX on February 25, 2013, 06:12:01 pm
Why the hell is there a language police? Why does it matter? Why does it matter what language the is on the fucking light switch? Many light switches have no markings and we handle those just fine. This seems ridiculous as all fuck.

Because this is Quebec and we must protect the French language against those evil anglos at all costs!

(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_French_Language.)
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Quote from: Jordan Duram
It doesn't concern you, Sister, that kind of absolutist view of the universe? Right and wrong determined solely by a single all-knowing, all powerful being whose judgment cannot be questioned and in whose name the most horrendous acts can be sanctioned without appeal?

Quote from: Supreme Court of Canada
Being required by someone else’s religious beliefs to behave contrary to one’s sexual identity is degrading and disrespectful.

Offline TheUnknown

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Re: The language police want your food
« Reply #6 on: February 25, 2013, 07:50:05 pm »
Quote from: dpareja on February 25, 2013, 06:22:10 pm
Quote from: MadCatTLX on February 25, 2013, 06:12:01 pm
Why the hell is there a language police? Why does it matter? Why does it matter what language the is on the fucking light switch? Many light switches have no markings and we handle those just fine. This seems ridiculous as all fuck.

Because this is Quebec and we must protect the French language against those evil anglos at all costs!

(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_French_Language.)


If only there was a whole country that spoke French, perhaps named after the same origin that French comes from . . . . But no, that's insane!  Quebec is the only area that will ever speak French, sadly.  It's practically extinct!
« Last Edit: February 25, 2013, 07:56:12 pm by Iosa the Invincible »
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Offline Osama bin Bambi

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Re: The language police want your food
« Reply #7 on: February 25, 2013, 07:53:20 pm »
lol, Quebec

I don't really understand this obsession with making sure all the signs are in French. If the only reason why people still use your preferred language is because you force them to, even when they'd rather use another language, it's probably time to chill the fuck out.

I actually met a Quebecker kid at summer camp who also happened to be a Quebec separatist. (Yeah, he was like 14 years old or something.) He was also a fedora-wearing MRA and fundie atheist who constantly made sexist rape jokes and ended every other sentence with "no homo." Oh, and he would constantly bring up bizarre conspiracy theories about how the "Anglo Canadians" were trying to keep him down because they're evil fuckers, and whenever he got an opportunity to talk about politics, he would bash all the other Canadians in the discussion. Now, in general, Canadians are great people, but it was literally impossible to not hate this guy.
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Offline ironbite

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Re: The language police want your food
« Reply #8 on: February 26, 2013, 12:39:20 am »
Jesus fucking christ, the hell is wrong with these idiots?

Ironbite-just leave the country if you're that hung up on language.
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Offline dpareja

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Re: The language police want your food
« Reply #9 on: February 26, 2013, 12:43:37 am »
Quote from: ironbite on February 26, 2013, 12:39:20 am
Jesus fucking christ, the hell is wrong with these idiots?

Ironbite-just leave the country if you're that hung up on language.

They know they can never do as well as a separate country than they can as part of Canada, and at least here they're 20-25% of the population and have clout.
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Quote from: Jordan Duram
It doesn't concern you, Sister, that kind of absolutist view of the universe? Right and wrong determined solely by a single all-knowing, all powerful being whose judgment cannot be questioned and in whose name the most horrendous acts can be sanctioned without appeal?

Quote from: Supreme Court of Canada
Being required by someone else’s religious beliefs to behave contrary to one’s sexual identity is degrading and disrespectful.

Offline Askold

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Re: The language police want your food
« Reply #10 on: February 26, 2013, 01:33:33 am »
It is quite easy to see what caused this. The language police has probably been free to do pretty much whatever they want for years, now the power went into their heads. They are probably just suprised that someone even dares to talk back.
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Offline Osama bin Bambi

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Re: The language police want your food
« Reply #11 on: February 26, 2013, 02:32:26 am »
Quote from: askold on February 26, 2013, 01:33:33 am
It is quite easy to see what caused this. The language police has probably been free to do pretty much whatever they want for years, now the power went into their heads. They are probably just suprised that someone even dares to talk back.

They'd probably be okay with back-talk as long as it was in French and not English, god forbid.
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Offline ScrappyB

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Re: The language police want your food
« Reply #12 on: February 26, 2013, 07:02:39 am »
Quote from: Iosa the Invincible on February 25, 2013, 07:50:05 pm
Quote from: dpareja on February 25, 2013, 06:22:10 pm
Quote from: MadCatTLX on February 25, 2013, 06:12:01 pm
Why the hell is there a language police? Why does it matter? Why does it matter what language the is on the fucking light switch? Many light switches have no markings and we handle those just fine. This seems ridiculous as all fuck.

Because this is Quebec and we must protect the French language against those evil anglos at all costs!

(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_French_Language.)


If only there was a whole country that spoke French, perhaps named after the same origin that French comes from . . . . But no, that's insane!  Quebec is the only area that will ever speak French, sadly.  It's practically extinct!

From what I gathered in the comments, their language police are even more anal than the French. Stop signs in France say STOP because it's the actual correct word in French for the act of coming to a stop. Kinda like no in Spanish is no. What do the ones in Quebec say?



It's not even the correct word in French. In fact, there is a whole fucking debate over the wording on stop signs.

http://nodogsoranglophones.blogspot.com/2011/03/only-in-quebec-is-stop-sign-language.html
http://www.ctvnews.ca/quebec-activists-want-english-stop-signs-to-arret-1.282999
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Offline dpareja

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Re: The language police want your food
« Reply #13 on: February 26, 2013, 07:42:16 am »
Keep in mind that Québécois French is French as it was spoken something like 300 years ago when the English took over the place.

The language police are also why Tim Hortons is so called--it used to be Tim Horton's, but you can't have apostrophes for that purpose in French, and the company decided it wasn't worth the expense of manufacturing two different kinds of packaging, so they just dropped it everywhere.
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Quote from: Jordan Duram
It doesn't concern you, Sister, that kind of absolutist view of the universe? Right and wrong determined solely by a single all-knowing, all powerful being whose judgment cannot be questioned and in whose name the most horrendous acts can be sanctioned without appeal?

Quote from: Supreme Court of Canada
Being required by someone else’s religious beliefs to behave contrary to one’s sexual identity is degrading and disrespectful.

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Re: The language police want your food
« Reply #14 on: February 26, 2013, 08:14:29 am »
Huh, and I thought my government had wasting everyone's time and money down to a fine art.
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