Je ne parle pas blogue
: Maciej Ceglowski at Idle Words tells a remarkable story of a Quebec language cop going after a French-language weblog for publishing too much English, apparently threatening prosecution under the province’s law that legislates the use of French. The idiocy of the threat was immediately apparent and the bureacrat and his boss soon retracted and apologized. But still, it’s remarkable that anyone could even consider such a thing. It’s one matter to legislate that Mister Donut has to put up big Monsieur Beignet; it’s quite another to consider telling your citizens how and in what language they may express themselves. Wacky. I covered the start of these laws for the Chicago Tribune almost 30 years ago and though I understood the problem, I’ll also say that it has taken all the time for Montreal to recover from the linguistic witchhunt and exodus. Sad.
Headshot
Social
