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Canadiana

August 13th, 2001

Blackholebrain personifies his currency.

…just cost me about 3 Ben Franklins…

I take it Ben’s on the US $100 bill. It reminds me of cinema noir scenes, bribing stool pigeons with images of Andrew Jackson.

I’d like to see a this in a Canadian movie:

Flatfoot: So ya won’t talk to me, willya, wise guy? Say, maybe you’ll talk to my friend William Lyon Mackenzie King…?

Stoolie: Listen copper, I don’t know no Mackenzie King, see. Mebbe’s you got another friend called Borden – Robert L. Borden? Yeah, sure, I could see myself singin’ like a boidy to Mister Borden, and his twin sisters Liz and Elizabeth…


From the Canada Post site:

Note: Canadian postal codes are always formatted in the same sequence: alphabetic character / numeral / alpha /numeral / alpha / numeral (e.g. K1A0B1).

Would it really have been less precise to say:

Note: Canadian postal codes always use the following format: letter / number / letter / number / letter / number (e.g. K1A0B1).

Humans never say in conversation “alphabetic character” and “numeral” when they mean “letter” and “number”. Corporations shouldn’t either.

Funny how they get it exactly right on the French page:

Remarque: Au Canada, le code postal se présente toujours de la façon suivante :lettre-chiffre-lettre-chiffre-lettre-chiffre (p. ex. K1A0B1)

Newcomers to the country have a hard enough time learning new languages in which to do business without us further burdening them with understanding the vocabulary, intentional vagueness and semantic nuances of business-speak.

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