Language Follies 23 (With what language do you address trees?)

We are happy to report that the busses in Montreal are now permitted in hockey season to urge on the Canadiens with “Go! Habs! Go!” signs. (1) 

 

Quebec’s mercurial and controversial language police have decided that using the word “go” is a legitimate way to cheer on sports teams in the province, paving the way for excited fans – and Montreal’s transit agency - to celebrate without fear of recrimination. (2)

If that was one step forward in the cause of multilingualism, there was one step back across the Atlantic. 

A complaint against a Belgian ticket inspector who gave passengers a bilingual greeting in Dutch-speaking Flanders has been upheld, shedding light on the country’s strict language laws.

The conductor, Ilyass Alba, said Belgium’s Permanent Commission for Linguistic Control had upheld a complaint made by a commuter in 2024. The passenger had objected to Alba’s use of the French word “bonjour” while the train was in Dutch-speaking Flanders.

Alba said he had greeted the carriage with “Goeiedag, bonjour” (good day in Dutch and French), as the train approached Vilvoorde (Vilvorde), near the outskirts of Brussels, which is officially bilingual. 

The commission upheld the passenger’s complaint that Alba should not have used French in the Dutch-speaking part of the country, unless approached by a passenger speaking French. (3)

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Marriage Misery—Then and Now

The New Yorker 1942:

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Circuitously, we have learned of a wistful note received by one of the local draft boards. "I just heard that you have classified John K— in 3-A, because he is living with his wife," the note said. "I believe he should be reclassified and put into 1-A, because he isn't living with his wife. He is living with my wife.”

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yahoo.com 2025:

My husband moved his mistress into our house. Can our marriage be saved?

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On the Commercial Front

True North frozen Patagonian sea scallops

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Do you like babka?

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Are you smart enough to play a musical instrument?

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When having too much money goes to your head:

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Summer's Lease Hath All Too Short a Date:

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Implement of Destruction

There was also the Trump, a hollow tube packed with explosives and fixed to a lance. ‘When you light the Trump, it continues a long time snorting and belching vivid, furious flames ... several yards long.’ (4)

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And if it’s sport you’re after:

World Axe Throwing League

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Arboreal Cupid

And finally, to make you all feel better, Jim at Slate reported that Trump’s pick for Surgeon General (who no longer holds a medical license), Casey Means, “has a newsletter in which she discusses topics such as how she used to go on solo hikes and ask the trees to help her find a romantic partner.”

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1. We reported on the dispute here: https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2025/04/no-go.html
2. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/04/quebec-canada-english-language
3. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/16/complaint-upheld-against-belgian-ticket-inspector-who-said-bonjour-in-flanders
4. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n06/ferdinand-mount/this-is-the-day

 

Cause Or Effect

Quick Quiz

Who said?

A—“It’s like one of those raging rivers that sometimes rise and flood the plain, tearing down trees and buildings, dragging soil from one place and dumping it down in another. Everybody runs for safety, no one can resist the rush, there’s no way you can stop it. Still, the fact that a river is like this doesn’t prevent us from preparing for trouble when levels are low, building banks and dykes, so that when the water rises the next time it can be contained in a single channel and the rush of the river in flood is not uncontrolled and destructive.”

B—“Argentina’s lessons for the current moment are multiple: When tyrants threaten, more people and institutions may cower than resist; the loss of checks on state violence can be catastrophic; and no one knows who the next victim will be. This much is clear: Recovering from the damage will be even messier and more difficult than preventing it in the first place.” 

C—“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

D—“You pay for the causes or you pay for the effects.”

(Answers: A—Niccolò Machiavelli, translated by Tim Parks; B—Julia M. Klein, in The Atlantic (1); C—Benjamin Franklin; D—Me)

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Somehow the lesson doesn’t stick. And the world has to learn over and over again the dire consequences of not “preparing for trouble when [river] levels are low.” In a word, “Texas.”

But even if the world has risen to the task and installed the necessary defenses against impending harm, internal destroyers will arise to undermine the figurative “banks and dykes.” Think Robert Kennedy, Jr. and the anti-vaxxers. Polio was defeated; measles destroyed. They are welcomed back. The harm unleashed is not as picturesque as the heaped rubble of a flooding’s onslaught, but it is real nonetheless. Children died in Texas; children are dying in adjacent states. 

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But not only is the present administration not willing to pay for the causes, it isn’t willing to pay for the effects. 

[Trump] is pushing to eliminate FEMA, which distributes disaster-relief funding, meaning that states might have to spend more on disaster response than they do on preparedness. (2)

 

And even if FEMA funds are available, where do they sometimes go?

Florida is turning an abandoned airport in the Everglades into the newest — and scariest-sounding — local prison to detain migrants. The remote facility, nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz,” will cost the state around $450 million a year to run, but Florida can request some reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. (3)

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I think, in summing up, we can say that a society is defined by the defenses it chooses to build and the defenses it chooses not to build.

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(1) https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2025/07/how-recover-state-terror-argentina-dirty-war-lessons/683497/

(2) Stephanie Bai, Atlantic Daily newsletter

(3) https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/23/us/politics/florida-alligator-alcatraz-migrant-detention-center.html