Buying in the States was Re: HP analyzer probes

From: der Mouse <mouse_at_Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
Date: Wed Jun 30 17:13:48 2004

>>> The opposite is true in Canada and most other countries. You also
>>> have to do everything in two langauges (by law, no less!).
>> Only in rather special circumstances are you required by law to do
>> anything in both languages.
> EVERYTHING that we did was in both languages and every offical,
> semi-offical or just government document that I saw was in both
> langauges.

Certainly. A great deal more is bilingual than is required by law to
be, though.

> But in any case, you've proved my point. Many people in the US
> doen't want to deal with other countries because of the language (and
> other) problems.

Oh, I know. Their loss. They're welcome to crawl back into their
insular little hole and pull it in after them.

>>> [...] they are required by law to greet you in French and to try
>>> and initiate the conversation in French.
>> By law? Did you check this??
> I certainly did. I checked into a lot of Canadian laws [...]

Well, that would be a Qu?bec law, not a Canadian law, but that's really
nitpicking. :-)

> That's another one of the French preference laws. If your children
> haven't started school before you move to Quebec then they MUST go to
> a French speaking school regardless of where you're from or what
> language is spoken at home.
>> If true, [the "must greet in French" law is] certainly widely
>> ignored.
> It might be now but it wasn't when I was there.

When was that? I suspect that your description would have been on the
mark some twenty or thirty years ago but is very out of date today.

> In fact, one shop owner in Montreal was arrested for having English
> signs up in his store window while I was there. It made the news all
> over Canada. But since you don't own a TV I guess you don't know
> what's going on, do you?

My dear friend, I live and work in downtown Montr?al. I think I know
what is going on here (as opposed to what *was* going on here) better
than you, describing your what, decades-ago? experience, do.

Yes, I heard of such an event - occurring in the '80s or maybe late
'70s. I was writing about today's Montreal, not twenty years ago's.

>> Fortunately, language bigotry is fading here.
> It wasn't even as much bigotry as stubborness.

Well, it quacked like bigotry and waddled like bigotry....

> Ever since the French Canadians arm twisted Canada declared that it
> was a dual language country, the French Canadians in Quebec have been
> trying to force the rest of Canada to speak French!

And they've been having a lot less success than the anglicization of
Quebec has been. Basically all native Montrealers, and an awful lot of
the imports like me, are passably competent in both languages.

I came to Montreal in September 1980. Sometime in the early '80s, I
was in some public place chatting with an acquaintance (in English) and
a bystander - a complete stranger - snapped "Parles fran?ais!" ("Speak
French!") at us - or rather, at one of us - and stomped away.

I can't see such a thing happening today. The grudge that fueled the
linguistic bigotry is now just that, a grudge without the substance
behind it that there once was, and without that substance to drive it,
it's dying.

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Received on Wed Jun 30 2004 - 17:13:48 BST