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Category: Countries
Frenchville, PA: a distinct dialect of North American French
This is not about Quebec or Acadia, but this is where my North American French stuff goes, so: in reading a book on Prince Edward Island French, King, Ruth. 2000. The Lexical Basis of Grammatical Borrowing: A Prince Edward Island French Case Study . Amsterdam: John Benjamins. —I’ve come across a mention of Frenchville, PA, […]
Redwood City #2
Just to give confirmation I’m still alive: I CANNOT WAIT to get to New Orleans. (Or more to the point, get out of NorCal suburbia.) The three-hour stop over in Houston at 6 AM, not so much. It never rains in Southern California (with some recent exceptions); it sure does in Northern California (though not […]
Redwood City #1
So, what have I learned in my first day in Redwood City, CA? Oracle HQ is full of buildings that look like hard drives. Or artists’ impressions thereof. Oracle HQ is full of lakes. No wonder lions drowned here, when it used to be a safari theme park. Duck shit is green. I have visual […]
Arrived in USA
I am in the US. I have celebrated my arrival as is my custom, by having a tub of Cherry Garcia ice cream. It was mehlicious. I hope that means I’m over ice cream. I forgot to pack my camera into my camera case. That severely sucks. Several-wise. I’m to dinner, and then I’ll upload […]
Itinerary Stateside
So, I’m taking off for the States on Sunday, and this is my itinerary: 18-22 Oct: Oracle HQ, attending IMS Workshop, and doing overtime with boss on the side 23 Oct: Because I announced I’d be in the States, and had a friend say “So, coming to Seattle?” — Seattle 24-27 Oct: Gutter in New […]
October in North America
I’ve booked my accommodation, so I might as well un-embargo the news. Work takes me in three weeks’ time to San Francisco (actually, the erstwhile theme park outside San Francisco that is Oracle HQ, for the IMS Quarterly Meeting), and then to Irvine CA and the TLG. In between, I will visit a place on […]
Shōgun
Three weeks ago (I’m that far behind in my blogging), I went away for the weekend, to spend my birthday in Bendigo. As I alerted readers here. Two days spent offline; yes, I did get the shakes, and I did propose to pop over to MacDonald’s to check my email, and it’s a good thing […]
Weekend Acadians
I’ve left this post so long (a month!), it’s funny; funnier still that I’ve already said much of what I was going to say in it, in the preamble that ended up as a separate posting. Still, I’m reaching the end of my current backlog of Canadiana—and I’m not finding Angry French Guy’s latest inspiring […]
Acado-Russian Dolls
It’s true, the initial obsession with Franco-Canada is somewhat wearing off; it was remarked at the pub last week that I went a full 20 minutes without mentioning Quebec. Because my downtime has been taken up with adventures in the language of War of Troy and Chalcocondyles (of which more at The Other Place), I […]
Spokesblogger for a Nation
Montreal airport has the same Canadiana as Toronto airport. Airports sell humorous quirky takes on the local culture to inform the curious tourist—The Undutchables was all over Amsterdam airport. Toronto surtitled its Canadiana “Like Maple Syrup for the soul”. Montreal surtitled it “Comme sirop d’érable pour l’âme”. But it was the same English-language Canadiana in […]