Thursday, January 14, 2010

Ignatieff Meets Conservative Protesters


...and they can't even spell "Carbon". If politics is a battle of wits, Iggy should be reserving the hall for his victory banquet.

27 comments:

Top Can said...

Uh, yeah....why don't you go back to grammar school before you try duking it out with a Harvard professor?

Big Winnie said...

Unlike the Conservatives, the Liberals, aren't bothered by protesters.

Definitely they should go back to school to learn how to spell (it's label NOT lable).

Terrence C. Watson said...

I've often wondered...

How the hell does somebody end up in front of a camera with such blatantly misspelled signs?

Isn't there someone to take the poor illiterate protesters aside for some constructive criticism before the protest even begins?

RuralSandi said...

The Cons hate education and educated people - it shows.

Andrew P. said...

this picture seems oddly appropriate

http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/moran.jpg

Ti-Guy said...

Imagine a "Yankee Go Home" sign (I'm assuming it was spelled correctly; I can't see the entire sign) at any protest involving the Opposition.

Greg said...

Maybe this is like those really religious pregnant teenagers. The pregnancy is actually a good sign, because it means they didn't use protection (which is much more evil than accidentally giving in to sin).

Having a misspelled sign at a protest ... it's a signal to everyone that you didn't get edumucated from no book.

Mark Richard Francis said...

If Iggy was PM, and prorogued Parliament in order to avoid Parliament's will, I wonder what those signs would instead read?

I'm assuming they'd be sufficiently readable, of course. Maybe something like "Igatief dickpotator!"

Tof KW said...

The Cons hate education and educated people - it shows.

That’s because the conservative movement in this country became infected by the populist bullshit of the US Republican party when Reagan was president, and is now terminally ill since the merg …I mean takeover of the Progressive Conservatives by the Reform yahoos. The more reflective Tory-conservatives have all jumped ship, either to the Liberals (Scott Brison, David Orchard, Belinda Stronach, Garth Turner, etc), or a few moved over to the Greens (more so when Jim Harris was leader), or have involved themselves more with provincial and municipal politics to be able to make a difference. There is very little left of traditional conservatism within the current Conservative Party of Canada, unless you think social conservative dogma (to keep the family-values crowd in line) alone makes you conservative. The more people become educated the more they see this, and their base is gone. Incidentally I write this as someone who still considers themselves to be a conservative, in the traditional Disraeli-Churchill mould that is.

Ti-Guy said...

"Caron" is really just a typo. It's astonishing how easily those things creep in at precisely the time you don't want them to, but that's usually because one is distracted. And there's nothing more distracted than an over-excited, nubile Conservative catamite getting ready to stick it to the older, more stylish, more accomplished fellow who's threatening the status of his Daddy.

"Label" is a genuine manifestation of poor spelling though.

Ti-Guy said...

That’s because the conservative movement in this country became infected by the populist bullshit of the US Republican party when Reagan was president, and is now terminally ill since the merg …I mean takeover of the Progressive Conservatives by the Reform yahoos.

It's even more cynical, since the Western Canadian conservative base is much better-educated than its American homologue. In a sense, the high degree of awareness among that elite of how it is pandering to *a* base, but also the degree of awareness among the so-called "rank and file" of how they pander to their own (educated Conservatives like Stephen Taylor "Joanne True Blue," Sandy Crux and a few others come to mind) makes the whole embrace of "populism" by Canadian Conservatives that much more of a sham than it is in the States, which has a long and often venerable tradition of populist activism.

The only venerable traditions we have of populist activism arose from the CCF in Western Canada and the movement that led to the Parti Québécois both of which managed to transform Canadian politics, I'd argue, in a mostly positive manner. I don't see this happening with the current Conservatives, whose legacy will probably be like that of "Common Sense Revolution" in Ontario: a period characterised by divisiveness and acrimony that most people (including Ontarian Conservatives themselves) would rather forget.

Shiner said...

How strange is it that Taylor doesn't even mention the spelling mistakes?

buckets said...

I think you've all misunderstood the sign and its message. This guy is really protesting against a secret plan to impose on Canadians foreign diacritics such as these ǎ, ě, ǐ, ǒ, or ǔ. According to the Society against the Balkanization of Canadian English (of which this guy is clearly a member), this is part of Ignatieff's secret agenda to turn us all into Slavs.

Tof KW said...

"...this is part of Ignatieff's secret agenda to turn us all into Slavs.

Damn it, someone's figured out our master plan.

славянин унаследуют землю!!!

Ti-Guy said...

Stop, stop, Buckets. My sides are splitting! ;)

Did you know, the Poles wouldn't adopt the caron and opted for complicated digraphs like rz and sz because the Catholic Church insisted it looked like the Devil's horns?

Sorry...it's the only caron anecdote I have.

Tof KW said...

...because the Catholic Church insisted it looked like the Devil's horns

To jest prawda!
Poles use dots or slashes to modify a sound, not those evil carons. And yes Ti, I have an 'sz' in my name ...a slash for that matter too :)

Doubt the Flogging Bories ever have this much fun in their debates.

Brian Busby said...

It seems Canada's right-wing protesters have the same spelling problems as their American counterparts. Whether north or south of the border, what is most mysterious is that it seems not one fellow protester can offer a correction. Do they not notice... or is it that they, too, can't spell?

Jingles said...

Misspelled and misspoke are words used by the educated lazy. If people are going to critize other people for their spelling mistakes then lets use the correct form. It ought to be carbon is spelled incorrectly or to be most correct, carbon is incorrectly spelled. Public figures in this country are using incorrect English form all the time. For example, just recently, a radio announcer said she was "curiouser and curiouser". I almost drove into the car in front of me. Pronunciation is especially bad. An example: it'sa quarter past fur (four).

Ti-Guy said...

Poles use dots or slashes to modify a sound, not those evil carons

Yeah, well those slashes are pretty evocative too.

Face it. All languages with diacritics condemn its speakers to Hell. That's why Jesus spoke English.

Gerrard787 said...

"...and they can't even spell "Carbon"." -BCL

They?

Surprised the long-out-of-power Liberal's leader didn't choke the protestor half-to-death out of frustration though.

Gerrard787 said...

"Unlike the Conservatives, the Liberals, aren't bothered by protesters." -Big Winnie

Of course. Nobody protests against an old, tired, out-of-power party.

Ti-Guy said...

Surprised the long-out-of-power Liberal's (sic) leader...

Your grammar/spelling has really become atrocious.

Gene Rayburn said...

become? Paul S is hardly shakespearean when it comes to his output of drivel.

Gerrard787 said...

"Your grammar/spelling has really become atrocious.

Actually it's improving Ti as I can always rely on you to nitpick my grammar while simultaneously ignoring the powerful counterargument I've made. ;)

Brian Busby said...

Paul S, you question BCL's use of the word "they".

Yes, "they". After all, it seems no protester noticed the misspelling.

That said, your comment does lead me to wonder just how many protesters turned up. The picture seems to capture three. The Gazette doesn't mention any, nor does the Concordia Journal.

Unknown said...

Arguing that nobody protests against Liberals, in a post about people protesting against Liberals is indeed a powerful argument, Paul S - a powerful argument that you're irredeemably stupid.

Ti-Guy said...

become? Paul S is hardly shakespearean when it comes to his output of drivel.

He once made reference to Robert Louis Stevenson after appreciating a supremely witty and erudite (naturally) reference I made to the Irish writer Nuala O'Faolain.

In Conservative circles, that doesn't make him Shakespearean. That makes him the reincarnation of William Shakespeare himself.