Thursday, April 30, 2020

Not So Cunning Linguists

“But we would certainly prefer that this not happen because our linguistic duality is not just a question of our Canadian identity, it’s also a question of safety for consumers.” [More]
So does clinging to prejudiced binary exclusivity mean that immigrant lives don't matter?

As I once speculated about warnings on guns:
In their lawsuit, backed by CPHV, Dix's parents maintained, among other charges, that the chamber indicator was inadequate because the gun was not inscribed with a warning as well. Presumably, were Beretta to do so, they would still be deemed negligent for not including such warnings in Spanish, French, Mandarin Chinese and Tagalog.
If Frostback Frogs can't figure out you're not supposed to drink Lysol, perhaps Monsieur Darwin is trying to tell everybody something.

[Via Steve T

2 comments:

  1. Time to update the old joke!

    Q. If a person who speaks two languages is bilingual, and a person who speak three languages is trilingual, what do you call a person who speaks one language?

    A. French Canadian!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm reminded of a "60 Minutes" piece that discussed with, among others, a maker of ladders,, the disappearance from the marketplace of the 3 foot stepladder.

    Bottom line, he said that when you added up the minimum sizes of all the mandated warning labels, a 3 foot stepladder didn't have enough surface area to post them all.

    And then there's one of my personal favorites:

    “There’s no system foolproof enough to defeat a sufficiently great fool.” — Edward Teller

    ReplyDelete

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