Excuse me for a moment while I yield to the temptation to act like a bratty five-year-old:
Pettiness doesn’t pay. That was the message a Quebec Court judge sent to the Office de la langue française yesterday.
[ . . . ]
Central Microsystems 4000 had been working with the language police since 1999 on a French version of its online computer store, but a few English words continued to appear in some product descriptions.
The Office considered that a violation of the French Language Charter and sent the matter to the Quebec attorney-general, who in February 2002 fined the LaSalle company $604.
The company contested the fine. Judge Maximilien Polak yesterday upheld the defence’s argument although the company might have technically contravened the charter, the violation was so trivial it did not warrant the full force of the law.
The OLF’s decision to pursue the matter even after Central Microsystems repeatedly showed its willingness to make corrections went against the language police’s own stated objective, which was to correct charter violations, not to punish them, the judge found.
Ok, it’s out of my system now. But it’s about time that somebody called the ruler-wielding OLF on its anal-retentiveness…
Agreed, and its not the only example. Remember that Westmount dog who had to be retrained because the neighbour was offended that it didn’t obey French commands?(!!!) Yep, and we’re all paying for that.
Okay, pull the other one…
….you were’nt joking?
Geez, in Vancouver you’d be lucky if it understood English let alone obeyed you.