City Councilors find new cause: Spell check

[Mystic Point]

The thing is you DON'T NEED Canadian English spell-check to spell proper Canadian English. You only need your own brain. It's not a "millions of dollars" problem. If Canadians want to protect their culture, they should be educating their citizens how to spell what they believe to be properly. Of course Canadian English is just an amalgam of British and American English so I hardly think our spellings are worth protecting.

Ooh look at us, we use American spelling like tire and curb (versus tyre and kerb), and American words like gas and hood (versus petrol and bonnet). But then we also use British spellings like colour, honour, valour, centre, theatre (versus color, honor, valor, center, theater). Wow how original. Lemme find that rolling eye smiley.

I agree completely. If that's as original as Canada gets, we're doomed.

 

[SunriseChampion]

Seeing as it's a product of our unique history, I really don't know what the bloody hell you two are so puzzled by and what you expect.

Either but not a unique hybrid of the two?
French only?
A new, bastardised English a la Quebecois?
Mandarin and/or Cantonese?

 

[Dan416]

Seeing as it's a product of our unique history, I really don't know what the bloody hell you two are so puzzled by and what you expect.

Either but not a unique hybrid of the two?
French only?
A new, bastardised English a la Quebecois?
Mandarin and/or Cantonese?

A hybrid is completely expected based on our proximity to the USA and our history with the British Empire. The uniqueness of our preferences for spelling and vocabulary are hardly worth celebrating. It's always the British ones that get all hailed as "Canadian" even though a lot of the words we use are "American". It's just a fact of life. We might as well get all patriotic about plants or animals that happen to live in Canada. Oh wait...

 

[SunriseChampion]

Apart from that, there are unique Canadian words and sayings as well as the hybrid English usage and spelling we have here. I guess you're of the mind that history is not worth remembering.

Look, we all know Howard Moscoe's a complete twat but there is a touch of legitimacy to his complaint. Take, for example, the city's website. That should, as a world-wide representative of the city bureaucracy and, by extension, of the city at large, be standardised and logically constructed. Though, I suppose, a mashed up city website is sort of indicative of the make-up of the city itself.

 

[Mystic Point]

A mashed up, confusing, incomprehensible, cluttered and poorly designed website rich in spelling and grammar mistakes, is an accurate representation of the city.

Howard Moscoe should keep his Canadian Spelling to himself.

 

[SunriseChampion]

Howard Moscoe should keep his Canadian Spelling to himself.

Or maybe just his self to himself.

 

[Dan416]

Apart from that, there are unique Canadian words and sayings as well as the hybrid English usage and spelling we have here. I guess you're of the mind that history is not worth remembering.

I'm sure there's Canadian words and sayings that are unique. I just can't think of any. And even if there are, I doubt they belong on the City of Toronto website. This thread is about spellcheck. Until relatively recently, Canadians didn't have a standard for how to spell color/colour. And really, Canada didn't exist until relatively recently either. That said, there's Americans who prefer -our and -re spellings as well. It's not really a British/Canadian vs American thing. I personally think colour looks better than color. Valour looks more glamorous than valor. Dialogue looks better than dialog. But analogue looks silly compared to analog. It's personal choice, and I know we should be "consistent", but I'm not consistent at all. And personally I think the pronunciation of lieutenant as "leftenant" by anchors on Canadian TV sounds pretty ridiculous. With a British accent it makes sense. Just as "shejule" (schedule) sounds fine with a British accent, but not with a North American accent. And I really detest the spelling of maneuver as "manoeuvre" or whatever. That looks ridiculous too.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

And personally I think the pronunciation of lieutenant as "leftenant" by anchors on Canadian TV sounds pretty ridiculous.

i bet alot of people are wondering why we never hear about the rightenants.