Need another reason not to shop at Wal-Mart? Here you go.....

Yup.

 

American companies don't need to "frenchify" their names in Quebec.  "Burger King" didn't have to become "Le Roi des Burgers".  However, "Eaton's" had to become "Chez Eaton".  The most famous case was "Mark's Work Wearhouse" which changed it's name to "L'Auerousse" (sp?) until someone finally realized that it was a nonsense word that had no meaning in French but sounded like "Wearhouse" when pronounced properly.  After court battles, they were forced to become "L'Equippeur".

I lived in Montreal for four years.  Don't get me started.  :

 

Zut alors!
Go on, s'il vous plait.

 

Quebec sucks. Just saying.

 

"Group three, group three. Time to find the bomb. Group three."

 

Wonder if they had to do the Wal-Mart cheer before embarking on this monumental adventure?

En Francais, s'il vous plait.

 

Hey, there are a lot of things about Quebec and Montreal that I like. It's just the language thing that got nuts. The French traditionally rename everything anyway, including proper names. Michelangelo is "Michel-Ange".

Mountain Street was renamed "Rue de la Montagne" despite that fact that is was named for a person - Bishop Mountain.

 

I thought the letter W didn't exist in native French.

That's why Braille didn't have W originally; they had to reverse the dots for "R" to make the letter.

I can see the Frenchies trying to do a Wal-Mart cheer.

"Give a W ... Double ... uh ... WTF?"

 

Oh, they have a W. But they call it "double vee".

Go figure.

 

The language thing is out of hand and has been for a long time. I have no problem with people who want their children to learn French. More power to you. But I have a big problem with it being forced down the throats of children in Ontario while kids in Quebec do not have to learn how to speak English.

Scandals aside, it was also an utter embarrassment to have Jean Chretien as our prime minister -- illiterate in both official languages, is he. Gack, give me Brian Mulroney any day.

 

Sorry, I'll take the gimp from Shawinigan over that Spawn of Satan, Mulroney.

If the language thing in Quebec has been "out of hand" you can take that all the way back to 1759.

After the English beat the French on the Plains of Abraham, they allowed them to keep their language, their schools and their religion. The Brits knew that the priests would keep everybody in line and it'd be helluva lot more efficient than establish garrisons or forcing English down their throats.

Or you can blame Rocket Richard--it was the Richard Riot that was a spark for Quebec nationalism back in the 50's.

 

Maybe, just maybe, this story made the paper because the Wal-Mart employees were forced to search for the bomb instead of being told to evacuate.