Pronunciation In Cars and Grocery Stores

Just a quick detour to the world of cars again. Thankfully, not a personal story.

Recently, automobile companies have been in the news. (That was for those readers living under a rock.)

And yesterday, two out of the three Canadian politicians on the panel re-reading Obama's conditions to the Canadian subsidiaries of GM and Chrysler pronounced that last car company as "Cryz-ler," with a "z" (zed) sound instead of the "s."

I don't know why they do that.

They also call that Korean car a "hun-dye" up here. Even the dealers. When I owned a Hyundai Excel, back in the Days of Yore, the material with it said the company name rhymes with Sunday. However, I guess they left that out when they printed the two-language instructions.

And a quick detour through the grocery store's produce aisle: exactly what aisle is that, again? Up here, it's at least 50/50 "PROD-yuce." The rest of the people pronounce it "PRO-duce," like this hick.

Like, Totally

Irritation has been my constant companion for the past week or so. Any time I have a free mental moment, there it is, sniping away, a little like the annoying yappy dog on my walking route. It's amazingly (did I mention annoyingly?) loud for being so small, and it's got these feathery things all over its body. It looks like a chihuahua dressed up as Chewbacca for Halloween.

Today, there was also an irresponsibly off-leashed German Shepherd on my walking route. "But it's under voice control." Not when the deer show up, it won't be, and I'm holding you responsible if Bambi's mother breaks her leg.

You can see what I mean about the irritation.

Fortunately, while I was walking today, I was listening to a podcast of Q, CBC's arts and culture radio show (see description here). (Canadian content alert.) Q is a mix of interviews, reviews, music--it's stuff you'd seek out if you knew enough to seek it out but you don't have to because here it is, all held together by Jian Ghomeshi, the accomplished and affable host/tour guide.

One of the regular contributors is Mio Adelman, who talks about websites and blogs and other forms of new media. Today, by which I mean "the podcast from the day I was listening to while walking today," he was talking about this blog, "1000 Awesome Things."

Mio said of this blog, and I agree, that one's opinion about the success of the site depends largely on one's definition of "awesome." To some, broccoflower, the smell of new tennis balls, and flossing might not seem so awesome. Mio also said, and I also agree, that while the site is not necessarily completely guaranteed to drive the blues away, it does make you re-think your knee-jerk cynical reaction to the world.

So, if you can't even take a healthy walk without being dogged by a yappy Chewbaccette and a menacing free-range security system, you can at least give this site a try.

Caveat: some of the entries are ridiculous and some are scary-mean, much like dogs. Quite a few are gross. But in there are gems, like #895, getting something with actual handwriting on it in the mail, or #852, the smell of the coffee aisle in the grocery store.

Bonus: it's a work in progress. He's counting up (down?) from 1000 and just got to 800. It's updated Monday through Friday.

And Double Canadian Content points: Neil, the guy behind the blog, is also a Canadian. Of course. Because Canadians are nice.

Friendly or Too Familiar?

I had to look at new cars last week. I therefore had to talk with people who really really wanted to sell me one.

Which is difficult because I really really don't like being sold to. Very few people can sell me things without tripping my BS detector. That's why I shop online so much. For the most part, in real life I have learned to shop and buy things and make small talk with sales people and just accept that we all know what we're doing there. They're selling. I'm buying.

But people who sell big-ticket items are different. They're harder for me to interact with. Of course they need to know what I'm looking for. That's a legitimate question to ask, perfectly fair information to elicit. No point in showing me an SUV, for example, because I'm slightly obsessed with fuel efficiency. I get that part.

But please don't pretend we're friends. Even if you're a woman. Even if you're a Canadian woman trying to sell me a car I am actually interested in. Don't pretend that you and I are exactly alike just because we both have ovaries and therefore must share some set of values you imagine me to aspire to. I will, and did, leave the lot without driving the car.

I can't pinpoint what she did, either. She didn't wink at me, though I felt as if she had. So I can't even help her back off. I just know I didn't want to buy a car from her.

I'm surprised, actually. I expected car salespeople in Canada to be different from those in the U.S. Perhaps they are; I haven't bought a car since about 1997 and that process consisted of walking onto a lot and saying, "I want a used Camry." (There was some negotiation about price. I'm not a total rube.)

So maybe U.S. sales folk are more egregious than I remember and this woman was mild in comparison. Regardless, there is a line between "friendly sales rep" and "overly familiar schmooze," and she crossed the line. Fortunately, I kept myself from rolling my eyes in front of her.

Truthfully, I'm not in the market for a new car. I just wanted to know what I would want to buy if I were suddenly forced to buy a new-to-me car. So it wasn't actually her too-familiar nudge-nudge that kept me from driving. But it didn't help.

Car shopping reminded me of something else about boundaries and borders. When I was a kid and we drove from Oklahoma to Thunder Bay every summer, crossing state lines was a big deal. It meant we were that much farther away from the oppressive heat and that much closer to heaven. We watched for landmarks like the first birch tree.

One year, I fell asleep somewhere in Iowa. I woke to cornfields stretching from horizon to horizon. My mother insisted that we really were in Minnesota, though it looked just like Iowa to me. It was the first time I realized that states had different kinds of terrain--Minnesota wasn't all evergreen/birch forest east-west-north-south.

It's that in-between state of being that still trips me up: between Minnesota-as-I-imagine-it and Minnesota-in-its-variety, between helpful-and-friendly and back-off-you're-trying-too-hard, between lots of things. Between winter and spring. Between "yes I need a new-to-me car" and "no I do not need a new-to-me car."

So until I can figure out where some of those lines actually are, I'll have to be like the deer are in the yard: just nibbling a bit while passing through. No thanks; just looking, but I'll take your card and call you if I change my mind. Sure I will.

One Response

This Hour Has 22 Minutes is a comedy show. They understand funny.



See?

It's Just Not Funny

Some "comedians" on Fox's overnight Redeye show made fun of Canadian forces in Afghanistan. Some might say they "had fun with" the idea that Canadian forces need a rest. But their "humour" was, at best, not funny. And I would not be alone in saying that their "joking" was in poor taste.

I wasn't going to write about this for a couple of reasons. First, I didn't want to spread the moron-icity any farther or otherwise publicize the network. I'd never heard of these people or the program before this, and now they're getting a huge amount of attention, and "no publicity is bad publicity." I hate that.

Second, they embarrass me. It's one thing for individual Americans to be ignorant but for ignorant Americans to get together in a pack and laugh about their ignorance is something else again. I know I have my own areas of profound ignorance, but I don't celebrate them in front of the world and go on to wonder "why do people hate us?"

Third, I am a bit of a starry-eyed idealist about "censorship = bad." While nobody likes hate-mongering on radio or television, the world has survived with the likes of these dopes for decades now. The more attention you give them, the louder they get.

And finally, I was going to leave it alone because it seemed that the show's timing was particularly unfortunate. The show was taped a week ago. It aired at a time when Canadians were wounded and killed in Afghanistan, and it's been covered in the same news broadcasts that showed flag-draped coffins. I wouldn't have liked the comments at any time, but they're particularly wince-inducing this week.

Though as long as I'm writing about this, I have to say that when armed forces are fighting, people die, and surely someone at Fox might have imagined that perhaps, just maybe, people would die at the same time that they were cracking these jokes, and perhaps, just maybe, these jokes were a Really Bad Idea.

But I decided to write about it because I kept thinking about the relationship between the shots of coffins and the "jokes."

And I wondered: What if Americans saw coffins covered with their flag carried into transport planes by weeping men in fatigues who were members of the same platoons as the dead soldiers? What if those coffins were repatriated on this side of the ocean by means of a motorcade on public highways?

Would the public--friends, veterans, perfect strangers--assemble to honour those in the motorcade, as happens here?

If the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were public events in the U.S., as the war in Afghanistan is in Canada, would Americans be so quick with the jokes?

Maybe it wouldn't matter. Americans--and Canadians, if it comes to that--can be plenty insensitive.

But maybe it would matter. Maybe if Americans saw the human cost of their wars regularly, as Canadians do, they would learn something.

I can always hope, anyway.

Health Care Takes a Holiday: A Comparison

Yesterday I saw a new side of the much-hailed Canadian health care system. People in Canada (at least those in my population sample, which consists mostly of women at the gym and at church) are quite proud of their healthcare system, even as they complain about being on waiting lists.

Many of my American friends say they envy me because I am living in this country with this "fabulous healthcare system." Others are horrified because I have to live in a country with this socialized medicine, which "everybody knows" results in inferior care.

I've written a few times about the healthcare system. Fortunately, I haven't had much reason to. I am healthy (knock wood) and have little need of the system. Which is good because I don't have a family physician. I go to the walk-in clinic when I get sinus infections. I've been maybe three or four times in my going-on-four years here.

Yesterday, I was just along for the ride. My husband had a minor skin irritation that became infected and suddenly swelled, and he obviously needed an antibiotic. His family physician recently retired, leaving him an "orphan," and in any case, it was something best treated at a walk-in clinic. And thus began a bit of an odyssey.

We had at least thought to check which walk-in clinics are open on Friday afternoons. However, as we drove around town from clinic to clinic while the afternoon waned, we discovered that all the walk-in clinics were closed. Why? March break.

I understand that physicians are people too. They have kids. They want to take holidays. But closing ALL the "open on Friday" walk-in clinics really does NOT seem like a good public health policy.

Our last option was the Emergency department at the hospital. It was a perfectly fine experience. I would have felt a little foolish for bringing such an obvious non-emergency to the hospital, but apparently none of the staff showed impatience.

When my husband was called to the inner sanctum to see the doctor, he explained the nature of his "illness," finishing with, "...and all the walk-in clinics are closed."

"Don't I know it," the doctor replied.

Apparently we were not the only ones surprised.

Still, it was only a three-hour adventure, including waiting around for the prescription and all the driving hither and yon.

I've been trying to imagine how this would have played out if I'd been the sick one at 4 on a Friday back when I lived in the U.S.

One option would have been phoning my family practice physician's office to see if (a) he could see me quickly to prescribe the antibiotic or (b) if he'd believe me over the phone and prescribe for me. Option A is more likely, but truthfully not likely at all. If I'd seen him, I'd have had a copayment of $15 to $25.

The next option would have been a walk-in-clinic equivalent--an Urgent Care Center, known as a "doc-in-the-box." The cost for this visit would be more than the co-pay for the family doc. Although the clinic might bill my insurance company first and bill me for the remainder, it's equally possible that I'd have had to pay and request reimbursement. Plus, my insurance would pay something like 80%, but only if I'd met a deductible (which was I think $500). So this option would be more expensive than the first.

The last option would have been the Emergency department at the hospital, which would have been the last resort. The costs there, too, would probably be covered (after meeting the deductible) at 80%. But an ER visit would have run into some money--probably hundreds out of my pocket.

And of course I'd have been paying monthly premiums for an insurance policy. If I had an employer other than myself, my employer would be contributing, too. So for a relatively healthy person, I'd have been paying what now seems like a lot.

Because up here, a swipe of the health card and you're done. The antibiotics cost only $13 because we do have a drug insurance plan with monthly premiums.

As healthcare goes, the whole experience was fine. As I've said before, healthcare systems are systems, which means that they are designed by one group of fallible people and run by another group of equally fallible people, and therefore they don't function perfectly. Each system has pros and cons.

I choose to live here and I can handle the system here. In fact, in thinking back over my options in the U.S. vs. what happened yesterday, I'm pretty glad to be here.

Canadian Content

Here's something most of those living in the U.S. probably haven't heard of: Canadian content requirements, sometimes known as can-con.

Radio and television channels--including cable and satellite channels--must include a certain percentage of Canadian content among their broadcasts. The actual percentages, as well as definitions of what constitutes "Canadian content," vary. For example, a station playing classical music may be required to play a lower percentage of Canadian content than a "top 40" type station. The reasoning is that fewer recordings of Canadians performing classical music, or people performing classical music written by Canadians, exist.

Television stations have similar restrictions. While some stations develop new programs, others don't. A station may fulfill its requirement to broadcast "Canadian" content by showing programs filmed in Canada for US television stations, which is why Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye runs every single afternoon. Even its Deaf-related storylines can't redeem that show. (Sorry.)

The whole idea was to support Canadian creatives in their efforts to, well, create Canadiana. As is true of most policies, practice is different from theory. I'm really not qualified to comment about specifics any more than that.

Canada isn't the only country with content restrictions. In France, Ireland, and the UK, a certain percentage must be EU-created content. Australia, the Philippines, and Mexico also have content restrictions.

All these countries worry that US content will simply overwhelm their airwaves and snuff out their homegrown creative talent. While I have a hard time believing that US programming is so great that it would find an audience around the world, I read somewhere recently (Discover? Macleans?) that CSI: Miami is the most-watched program worldwide. Which is a form of frightening unto itself, isn't it, Mr. Wolfe?

In any case, the whole point of bringing up can-con is to say that I will be sharing thoughts and recommendations about Canadian music and literature here from time to time, for the benefit of my faithful reader in the US and any others I should happen to attract in the future.

And to point out that there really isn't a need for me to share thoughts and recommendations for Canadians about literature and music from the US, is there? Which confirms that can-con is still a relevant concept, even if the practice is slightly off-kilter.

Who Are You Calling "Dodger"?

I've been wondering about another commercial. This one is a sort of public service announcement about energy conservation. The commercial, which you can see here (click on "TV-Habitat"), features David Suzuki visiting the natural habitat of a "draft dodger."

David Suzuki is like Canada's Al Gore, only with a better if sadder backstory (childhood in Japanese internment camps in Canada during WWII), more personality and credibility (he's an actual scientist), and fewer Oscars (though he is known for his TV shows). He also carries a bit of the legacies of Marlin Perkins and Jacques Cousteau (without the toque), especially in this ad.

The commercial shows Suzuki (sloppily) caulking the windows in a 60s-era bungalow, which is said to be the natural habitat of the "draft dodger." The dodger, when he appears, is a middle-aged schlub in a bathrobe who seems understandably confused by the man speaking in hushed tones in his living room (which has a surprising lack of furniture). Suzuki then sneaks out, giving the dodger the caulking gun along the way, presumably so as not to disturb the guy in his natural habitat. Which doesn't make sense, but hey, it's a commercial, so narrative consistency may be too much to ask for.

So here are the things about this commercial I understand. It's good to caulk windows. Also, we all know that David Suzuki intrudes on our consciousness with environmental messages and has been since Al Gore was just a privileged senator from Tennessee, so here he is again, that wacky David Suzuki, and he has a sense of humor, or humour, about his image even though his message is serious.

Also, I "get" it: draft dodger = person with windows that need caulking. Get it? Draft?

However, who else could a "draft dodger" be? Hmm. Canada last had a draft during World War II, so a draft dodger from that era would be 90 or older, and also probably wouldn't be living in Canada, given that he had to escape to somewhere else to dodge the draft. The commercial guy is middle-aged--about the era of someone dodging the draft during the 60s and early 70s, or the Viet Nam era. Which, would make him--an American!

Roy assures me that Canadians think of Viet Nam draft dodgers as guys who were doing the right thing--not necessarily heroes, but definitely people of conscience practicing civil disobedience. Fine. However, I agree with my mother, who pointed out that those who object to war have a process they can follow legally instead of fleeing the country, and I'm proud of my oldest brother, who followed that process and become a conscientious objector and stuck around in the U.S. to contribute from inside the country.

But back to the commercial. This draft dodger seems to be an American. And I can't help but think that the sub-subtext of the commercial is that bad as Canadians may be about drafty windows, Americans are worse.

That statement may be true--certainly Americans as well as Canadians are fortunate (read: wasteful) compared to people in the rest of the world. And "everybody knows" that the U.S. may have signed the Kyoto protocol but the U.S. did not ratify it.

And of course, that sub-subtext may be there; it may not. I may be reading too much into the commercial. I have been called "over-sensitive" before (by an American, though). And in a country with a reputation for "polite," in which writing a sternly-worded letter of complaint is a major step, one does wonder. One must.

Uh, Thanks. We Think.

You know how President Obama's first visit to a foreign country was to Canada? And how that was such a big deal here, and how charming everybody found him, and how pleased people were that he showed up?

Back in the day, President Bush's first foreign visit was to Mexico. That's fine. Mexico is a fine country, and the U.S. certainly needed to strengthen that relationship as well. If I were Bush, I'd have gone somewhere other than Canada, too, somewhere more inclined to be, say, happy I was showing up.

Which is what makes this news so puzzling: Bush's first post-presidency speech is to occur in Canada next week. He won't give a speech in the U.S. until June. I learned about all of this from the Center for American Progress, one of those left-leaning think tanks that is coming in from the cold these days.

I don't know whether Bush's impending presence here is intended as a compliment or merely as a necessary evil, as in, "I'll go anywhere to earn 150K in an evening, just for talking!" But, you know, Canadians are a polite folk, so, uh, thanks. Maybe.

Edited to make (some) sense. Thanks to the alert reader who pointed out where it didn't.

Twenty-First Century Politics, North

One of the most impressive aspects of the Obama campaign was its technological savvy. They're still at it, of course--posting today's versions of Fireside Chats, sending updates by email, you name it.

This weekend, the New Democratic Party of Ontario is selecting its provincial leader. They still rely on the older technologies--this household has had at least one phone call a night, usually two and sometimes more--but the selection process is interestingly new, at least to me.

Before this meeting, members of the NDP could mail in a ballot to arrive by March 3. Members could also vote online. And now that the convention has started, members can still vote online; they can also vote by phone. The voting instructions assure members that they can vote only once. Apparently American Idol-style voting isn't acceptable.

Four candidates are running. When you vote, you put them in order from 1 to 4--1 is your first choice, 4 is last. It's also possible to vote for fewer than four candidates but you still have to rank the ones you pick.

It seems like a good system, partly because it's what we might call "multi-channel" if we were into "trenz": material arrives in the mail, information comes through phone calls, other forms of paper are also available various places, and of course there are the online options.

In another ten years, it might be possible to eliminate all the paper--but not yet. My late father was interested in the world and in life, but he didn't have a computer or the skills to learn from someone's website. It frustrated him when someone said "you can find all that online." He couldn't. And I like that this NDP system makes allowances for that.

Every City Should Have a Site Like This

There's this website, Overheard in New York, where people contribute conversations they've...wait for it...overheard while in New York City.

I've googled a bit and can't find one for Toronto that is updated as frequently and vigorously, which doesn't mean there isn't a fabulous site out there.

And this entry is apropos of the concept of "found poetry," which is the only type of poetry I write, because I don't write poetry, I just write it down. Which is how I came up with a poem that I, with others, read on Tuesday evening at a...wait for it...poetry reading. Its title is "Overheard at a Christmas Party," because it was, and it has five speaking parts, and it was surreal to experience, mostly fun to write down, and pretty fun to read (nerves at speaking in public aside) because of the joy with which the others participated.

Found poetry--creating poetry from something that's already been written, or from other existing sources--is a type of poetry I understand. One element I really respond to is the human need to make meaning from life around us.

While all poets do that, most start by claiming that they've seen something unique and meaningful. Then they tell you about it, and ruminate on it. Often, that whole process is too big a stretch for me. I can't go there with that poet because it's too much poet. First, there's this really neat thing that the poet has told you about (the telling of which reflects the neatness of the poet) and the poet's response (also all about the poet): thus, the poet squared. And then when the poet analyzes his (or her) response (sigh), that cubes the poet. That's a lot of poet.

Meanwhile, a poet of found poetry looks at the text of a cereal box (for example) and ruminates on that. It's still all about the response of the poet, but that's all it's about (unless he, or she, ruminates on his response, sigh), and the side benefit is that you'll never think about cereal boxes in the same way.

My own poem actually is only dialog. The commentary/response/rumination is in the arrangement of it, and I did very little of that. In fact, I'm hardly there. Which is probably a good thing.

I have nothing against poets or poetry. Many of my best friends are poets. I just don't appreciate what they do at the level at which they do it, much as I don't appreciate a lot of jazz the way a jazz musician does, in spite of goodwill and my (admittedly spotty) musical training.

Here's the unvarnished truth: I don't really understand poetry because it uses five words when five thousand will do. What fun is that?

Many Languages

I was at the hair salon last Friday. One of the stylists was cutting the hair of a francophone man whose trip to the "big city" for shopping included a haircut. They chatted away in French.

As the receptionist ushered me to the hair-washing bowl, she watched this little bit of multiculture on parade and said to me wistfully, "I wish I could talk another language. You can get way more jobs, especially if you have French."

I have never heard anyone in the U.S. say that they wished they could speak another language, other than in the "someday I want to" sense. You know: "Someday I want to ride a camel." "Someday I want to climb Everest." "Someday I want to take French lessons and then go to Paris."

Furthermore, at least in the middle of the U.S. (gross generalization alert), people who are bilingual generally don't mention it. That's because they tend to be bilingual English/Spanish, and that's usually not considered an asset. As I was leaving Colorado, a state with a large Hispanic population, a few jobs in public health and social services did list Spanish language skills as a desired quality. But that was rare. (It was also four-plus years ago; perhaps attitudes have changed.)

Of course, any large U.S. city, even those in my beloved flyover country, have immigrant communities and the languages they have brought with them. These communities also tend to be what government-ese would label "an underutilized resource."

But I'm still amazed at the number of times language comes up as a consideration in what seems to be daily life in this country.

The saddest example is from the inquiry into the death of a Polish man in the Vancouver airport as officers subdued him with a taser. An airport worker, whose job was something else completely, testified that his job took him into that area that evening, and because he happened to speak Polish, he offered his services as a translator. For some reason, he was told they didn't need his help.

Imagine, an airport worker who happens to speak Polish. It seems improbable that an airport worker in Minneapolis, St. Louis, or Des Moines would speak Polish. However, now that I stop to think about it, many workers in Minneapolis, at least, appear to be non-native English speakers. I wonder where they're from--and I wonder if any officials at those airports know, or care, what language resources they have at their disposal.

Here's another language example. Recently, I've had a work reason to deal with names from various First Nations communities in northwestern Ontario. Some of the names (of both people and places) are spelled differently in different online resources. My job, fortunately, didn't require me to establish policy. The variety in spellings reflects the fact that the names themselves are transcripts from languages that don't use our alphabet. Like Libyan leader Qadhafi, Khadafi, or Gadaffi.

In my final example, my brother's history of the Czech people was recently translated into Czech. He wrote it in English. I tease him about the oddity of a people's history being written by a citizen of another country--a country on a different continent, to boot. I am of course proud that they think so highly of his work. I can't imagine a history of the United States written by a Spanish or a Lebanese scholar being translated into English. Perhaps I'm being unfair, but I don't think American historians would be particularly interested, never mind the American public.

Which means today's version of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America would likely not be part of political science courses at my alma mater. And that's a shame.

I'm sure that none of the people in the hair salon last Friday had any of this in mind--they were just having a conversation. But I'm pretty sure it was a conversation that wouldn't have--couldn't have--happened in my hometown.