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I just wanted to add, that the use of lorry, knickers etc is NOT the same as not using STOP on a a sign.
Not to use STOP was a calculated choice, the other just a natural difference in terms and language. No one sat down and said " in North America we shall use the word truck for lorry, so make it so "
But using STOP in countries where that word is not part of the language is indeed a choice. It's a choice to conform to a certain international zeitgeist. Read into it what you want, but not all countries in the world use STOP, and it's not even true that all countries use a red octogon for this purpose. Most do, but not all.
There is nothing "natural" about the word STOP in most non-anglophone countries. It is an adopted usage that's all.
"don't forget that Quebec was fairly isolated from European French influences for much of the 20th century."
Yes, but by the time the bilingual STOP signs were being replaced, it was not so isolated. Also I'm not saying that Quebec should be " compelled " to put STOP on their signs. I'm just pointing out the irony. As you have mentioned, STOP is becoming more acceptable, which in itself reveals that perhaps in the overzealousness of enforcing language laws, silly things happen.
I think you might be reading a bit too much into it. At the time, the zeitgeist was towards making road signage predominantly French as opposed to bilingual as it had tended to be. So they looked at the stop signs, saw one word that looked French and one word that looked English, and decided that just the word that looked French was good enough to keep on the signs.
Another thing I should mention is that stop signs aren't really that common in France to begin with. Most intersections observe a priority system (priority to the main road) and so they are unsigned/uncontrolled it's understood that you stop or yield to traffic on the main road when you approach. And main intersections tend to have roundabouts.
Also funny, or ironic if you will, is that stop signs in the UK I believe said HALT until the 1950s or 60s.
Smart letter-writter here. Comparing French Canadians, who found the society we live in four centuries ago, and had been there for almost two centuries when the British took over... to recently-arrived immigrants who freely chose to move here from their homelands!
Interesting....and Britain did enough apparently not to have the Canadiens to link up with the 'Americans' at the time. Who knows? If diplomacy wasn't so deft between the English and the French things today could be alot different today.
Interesting....and Britain did enough apparently not to have the Canadiens to link up with the 'Americans' at the time. Who knows? If diplomacy wasn't so deft between the English and the French things today could be alot different today.
It's also a popular storyline that the British (and later the English Canadians) basically saved French in Canada/Quebec from the assimilationist tendencies of the U.S. and any other perils that might have threatened it.
I draw a distinction between Quebec bashing and criticism of separatist and French-first ideology. If you're proud of being a Quebecker, you shouldn't let these ideologies represent the entire province. When I think of Quebec, these are not the things that first come to mind. I think of the natural beauty, the friendly people, the history and above all I see Quebec as an integral part of Canada that is very proud to be such.
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