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French language police in Quebec claim Italian restaurant menu has "too much Italian"

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K

Korey

Member
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/...language-police-claim-italian-restaurant-menu

Italian restaurant owners in French-speaking Quebec, beware: your Italian menu may come under the scrutiny of Canada's language police.

Massimo Lecas, the owner of high-end Italian eatery Buonanotte, told CBC that Quebec's office of French language, or OQLF, contacted him on Feb. 14 with an unusual complaint: his Italian restaurant's menu contained too many Italian words.

Lecas said the authorities told him to provide a French translation for the Italian words — including words such as "meatball" and "calamari," for which he had already provided helpful French keys.

The OQLF was allegedly following up on a "written complaint," reported the Global Montreal.

"Other languages can be on the menu," OQLF spokesman Martin Bergeron told CBC. "The thing is they must not be predominant over French."

Late on Feb. 20, however, the OQLF appeared to have backtracked, releasing a statement calling their attack on the Italian restaurant "overzealous."

Diane De Courcy, the Canadian minister who is responsible for the OQLF, told CBC the absurd situation was "surprising," and expressed her intent to look into it.

In 2012, the feared OQLF threatened to prosecute English-language companies that used no French in their store signage, wrote the National Post, including such major names as Old Navy, Home Depot, and Banana Republic, among others.

Quebec Twitter users quickly coined the #pastagate hashtag, mocking the OQLF for their beef with the words "pasta" and "bottiglia" (bottle) on an Italian menu.

The joke @quebecpasta account, impersonating a delicious, delicious plate of spaghetti and meatballs, already had 319 followers as of Wednesday evening.

However, Twitter users might want to be careful with the hashtag, lest they suffer the fate of their cousins in France — where the French government officially outlawed the word "hashtag," replacing it with mot-dièse, translating into "sharp word."
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E

erpg

GAF parliamentarian
Rhomega Beta said:
...Language police? Really? Are they going to stop people from using profanity too?
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Language police's general goal is to preserve culture and prevent assimilation by the rest of North America. Sometimes, like any political entity, they lose sight of what's sane.
 
F

funkmasterb

Member
My old anglophone auntie volunteered in a small English language library in the mid 90s.

They were shut down by the OQLF for the same reasons.
 
K

Konka

Banned
Quebec: "Rosetta Stone is using too many Chinese words in their Chinese Language program. Must be more in French. Thanks"
 
D

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
kfqxOj2.jpg
 
T

TimeKillr

Member
Okay, so this is not the whole thing.

It has been 100% reversed, and the person who did the judgment call apologized, saying he probably went too far.

So don't go making a huge fuss of it, please.
 
F

funkmasterb

Member
TimeKillr said:
Okay, so this is not the whole thing.

It has been 100% reversed, and the person who did the judgment call apologized, saying he probably went too far.

So don't go making a huge fuss of it, please.
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....because of the attention drawn to the stupidity.

How many thousands of other bullshit calls like this happen all the time and aren't recalled.
I sure hope you don't use the words blog, tweet or email or the English gestappo would like a word.
 
S

Slayven

Member
I was going to make a joke and while researching it, I found there are an assload of dead languages. Now I know.
 
C

CrazyDude

Member
Lyphen said:
Language police's general goal is to preserve culture and prevent assimilation by the rest of North America. Sometimes, like any political entity, they lose sight of what's sane.
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It's stupid to try to stagnate culture. Culture is meant to evolve and change.

Black Door said:
Is there oil in Quebec or some other reason why the rest of Canada doesn't just cut them loose?
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I believe it is a major part of Canadian economy.
 
T

TimeKillr

Member
funkmasterb said:
....because of the attention drawn to the stupidity.

How many thousands of other bullshit calls like this happen all the time and aren't recalled.
I sure hope you don't use the words blog, tweet or email or the English gestappo would like a word.
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Bullshit calls like this happen VERY rarely, if anything.

You gotta realize that this was due to ONE idiot lodging a complaint with the OPLFQ and they then had to send an inspector. Said inspector applied the law a bit too strictly, apologized because even him felt it was a bit too much, and they retracted the decision.

While I understand that if you're not from here, this looks completely retarded, but all these laws are made to protect the French language from disappearing (specifically from Montreal, it's at no risk anywhere else in the province, really). Some of it is dumb (requiring that French be the prominent language) but the fact remains that the law states that French must be present everywhere, which is A-OK with me and most people. Nobody's gonna bitch that French and English are on a menu, for example. NOBODY (except complete anti-english retards, who are about the same as the anti-spanish retards in the states).
 
L

lamaroo

Unconfirmed Member
These stupid fucking idiots(ministry of language or whatever) tried to make noise last year over their NHL team employing an English coach. Just a bunch of morons trying to feel important.
 
F

funkmasterb

Member
TimeKillr said:
Bullshit calls like this happen VERY rarely, if anything.

You gotta realize that this was due to ONE idiot lodging a complaint with the OPLFQ and they then had to send an inspector. Said inspector applied the law a bit too strictly, apologized because even him felt it was a bit too much, and they retracted the decision.

While I understand that if you're not from here, this looks completely retarded, but all these laws are made to protect the French language from disappearing (specifically from Montreal, it's at no risk anywhere else in the province, really). Some of it is dumb (requiring that French be the prominent language) but the fact remains that the law states that French must be present everywhere, which is A-OK with me and most people. Nobody's gonna bitch that French and English are on a menu, for example. NOBODY (except complete anti-english retards, who are about the same as the anti-spanish retards in the states).
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My mother, and all of her family is all from montreal and Quebec city.
My brother in law is currently at McGill.
Most of my friends are québécois who have left the province.


Shit like this happens all the time.
 
W

WARCOCK

Banned
funkmasterb said:
My mother, and all of her family is all from montreal and Quebec city.
My brother in law is currently at McGill.
Most of my friends are québécois who have left the province.


Shit like this happens all the time.
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I know rite. I'm not excusing this sort of behavior or action, it's so petty even if arguably understandable. But i feel americans and non-quebec anglophones get so much more pissed and offended at this type of shit than the resident anglos. The education laws sound fucking retarded though.
 
G

Gannd

Banned
Lyphen said:
Language police's general goal is to preserve culture and prevent assimilation by the rest of North America. Sometimes, like any political entity, they lose sight of what's sane.
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it's little fascists trying to hang on to the past. Culture moves on. It's never meant to stay the same.
 
W

Winterfang

Banned
I understand France having a language police. Is a beautiful but increasingly outdated language that will either adapt or disappear.
 
Y

You Are Viewtiful

Member
Black Door said:
Is there oil in Quebec or some other reason why the rest of Canada doesn't just cut them loose?
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There might be in Northern Quebec (amongst other resourceS) but we'll probably never know since mostly First Nations/Natives live there in poverty, and the government would rather exploit the land to give the profits to private corporations at their expense.
 
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