[mea] Re: "Honourary" Mahatma Gandhi Walkway at The Forks
- From: Karen McElrea <karenmcelrea@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "mea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <mea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 15:33:20 -0500
Mmmmm... yellow jam... And what do they call gophers in those places?
I wish I'd seen Katherine's presentation - I'd like to rescind a little of my
vitriol, then, knowing she was just outvoted on that one. But geez.
And thanks for the vote on the sign, Cheri; I'm hounoured!
To: mea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [mea] Re: "Honourary" Mahatma Gandhi Walkway at The Forks
From: cheri.frazer@xxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 15:08:52 -0500
I wish we could bring Katherine back for
another speech. She was fascinating. She talked about how dictionaries
used to be prescriptive but then made the move to purely descriptive, capturing
what's happening with language as it evolves rather than trying to pin
it down. If I remember correctly she didn't like honourary either but was
out-voted. One of the funnier parts of her speech had to do with slang
for doughnuts! She said there are huge regional variations for the meanings
of jam buster, Boston creme, Bismark, jelly doughnut, and others I can't
think of. A city somewhere in Ontario refers to a Boston creme as a "yellow
jam buster." Oh, the horror. But it's not as bad as some regions of
the US that call a turtle a gopher and an elastic band a "gum band".
People are goofy.
I vote for Ye Olde Honourary Mahatma
Gandhi Way!
From:
Karen McElrea <karenmcelrea@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To:
"mea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <mea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date:
2013-08-15 02:50 PM
Subject:
[mea] Re: "Honourary" Mahatma
Gandhi Walkway at The Forks
Sent by:
mea-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
They should have spelled it "honorary,"
though, I agree - it looks odd!
Someone from Belfast writing on a forum
on this question says that "the OED mentions that 'honourary'
was an alternative spelling in the 18th/19th centuries." So maybe
the sign should read "Ye Olde Honourary Mahatma Gandhi Way."
Public Works and Government Services Canada's
Translation Bureau site states that "In Canada, honour not
honor is the preferred spelling for the noun and the verb. Both
honorary and honourary are widespread in Canada [really?],
although honourary is rarely used in the rest of the world."
But the real Canadian authority, Katherine
Barber, says on her Wordlady site, "A recent Facebook poll
I conducted about the spelling of this word had 39 well-educated Canadians
opting for "honourary" versus 22 for 'honorary,' similar to the
results we found when we conducted a survey for the Canadian Oxford
Dictionary, as a result of which it is possibly the only dictionary
of current English to include "honourary" as a spelling variant."
So popular vote rules our dictionary. In
what field were these people well-educated, exactly? Were the 22 also
well-educated?
Was such a small sample also the basis for its inclusion in the dictionary?
How would this same group of people have answered the same question for
"humourously"?
To: mea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [mea] "Honourary" Mahatma Gandhi Walkway at The Forks
From: cheri.frazer@xxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 13:14:13 -0500
An Alert Reader (stole that term from Dave Barry!) has pointed out that
the new signs at The Forks spell honorary incorrectly.
You can register your concern at 311@xxxxxxxxxxx and/or contact CTV News;
their crews were filming the signs today. Where are the Raging Grammarians
when you need them?!
-C.
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