Terrace Bay Public Library Digital Collections

Terrace Bay News, 17 Sep 1991, p. 4

The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Page 4, News, Tuesday, September 17 1991 . Editorial The Terrace Bay - Schreiber News is published every Tuesday by Laurentian Publishing Ltd, Box 579, 13 Simcoe Plaza, Terrace Bay, Ont., POT 2W0 Tel.: 807-825-3747. Publisher's Mail Registration No. 2264. Member of the Ontario Community Newspaper Association and the Canadian Community Newspaper Association Tel.: 825-3747 Single copies 50 cents incl. PUDIISHEF...........-+--s0ee0 Sandy Harbinson &CN A a pean Advertising Mgr............... Linda Harbinson per year / senio Iisa $20 bor your (out of pohor Bp a ee Robert Cotton a 40 mile radius) $38 in U.S. Sales Representative.............. Lisa LeClair =) Add GST to yearly subs. Admin. ASSt...........::cese Gayle Fournier One last word before | leave This is the last time I will have to fill this particular bit of blank space. After nearly a year as editor of The News I am off to Sudbury to seek new experiences in a different part of Northern Ontario. I believe the quality of The News has increased during the past year due to the co-operation I have received from the people of both communities. A community newspaper does not cover Par- liament, the White House or the United Nations. It covers the neighbourhood, the community and without the assistance and input of the community, one individual, the editor, cannot possi- ble be aware of everything that goes on. The readers of community newspapers generate the material that goes into the paper - the editor attempts to put it into some sort of concise order and make sure everyone gets their turn. It is easy to see by the interest shown by many readers that they feel The News is their paper. After a year of working and living here, I too have developed a strong sense of ownership regarding what goes into The News and how it will appear. It will not be easy to give up 'my paper' to somebody else. However, the new editor, Darren MacDonald, will bring a new outlook and new ideas. What will not change is the contribution the readers of the News will continue to make. Of this I am sure. I could easily fill this space with a list of individuals and orga- nizations I would like to thank for their friendship, help and encouragement over the past year. Take care everyone and thank you for a most interesting year. Robert A. Cotton If you carry it in, carry it out Dear Editor, I had the opportunity this summer to experience fishing and camping on several inland lakes in our area. The scenery was breathtaking! The wildlife exciting! The fishing plentiful! The reason for this letter is to voice my shock, to say the least, at what I observed in some of these remote areas. Garbage! That's right, garbage in all shapes and forms in the middle of nowhere. This letter is not being written to point the blame at anyone. The people who have done this know who they are. The cans, jars, bags, etc. were obviously carried into these areas full. I fail -to see the reason why they are left behind when the weight would be less than half when they are empty. Inland lakes of our area have been enjoyed, for the reasons I previously stated, for years. Generations to come will learn from our woodlands, appreciate the beauty, experience the fishing - but only if we leave them something to enjoy. A. Collins Schreiber ECOLOGIST$ LZ G2 Za CO HALT. WE DON'T NEED | you YET /" Ay Grammar ain't grea Here is a letter from a grumpy reader which begins "I have been several times surprised at your careless use of English, but you have outdone yourself in this.,.".- and the letter goes... on to flay me for an alleged linguistic misdemeanor. All I can say to Grumpy Reader is for God's sake sir, obtain a life. If you have nothing better to do than pore over my poor prose winowing out grammatical offenses, then you are a man in serious need of a hobby. Have you considered tatting" Mind you, he has a point. English grammar and I have had little more. than a nodding acquaintance since those dreary, dreadful days of Grade 7 English Composition when a merciless Miss Swinson lashed. the class with volley upon volley of English Grammar Rules and Regs. It made me the pathetic unlettered wretch I am today. Even now, I shamble around with my participles dangling obscenely, tripping over misplaced modifiers, slapping ineffectively at insubordinate nouns, averting my eyes shyly from those brazen copulative conjunctions that don't even have the common decency to wear a set of brackets... It's a situation up with which no one should have to put. And sometimes I can't - put up with it, I mean. When that happens I have a failsafe cure. I reach for my Fractured English file. This is where I keep my collection of people who mangle the English language evefi more grievously than I (do). More often than not, these folks are labouring under a disadvantage - namely that English is clearly not their first language. Such as whoever wrote this brochure I have for a Japanese car rental firm. Some advice it offers: "When a passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet at him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigor." Arthur Black Or these assembly instructions that came with an Italian-made baby carriage: "Insert the blushing for blocking in the proper split, push it deeply and. wheel in.anti.time.sense.tilLit stops. Oh yes, and buona fortuna. 1 believe that's Italian for 'good luck'. A polite reminder on the back of a Japanese hotel room door is, I think, appropriately Zen- like: "is forbitten to steal the hotel towels please. If you are not person to do such thing, is please not to read notis." In the Scandinavian countries, English is often spoken, but not always flawlesslly. Witness the Oslo : cocktail lounge which sports a sign reading: "Ladies are 'requested not to have : children in the bar." | Riding in elevators can be f unnerving in the most cosmopolitan of cities, but © there's one lift in Belgrade, 4 Yugoslavia that I intend to avoid for the rest of my life. It carries a sign that reads in (sort of) English: "To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order." Under which some wag has crayoned:"Or you could take the stairs." Sometimes overseas English isn't merely mangled - it's fraught with menace. Look at this advertisement in a Hong Kong dentists window. It reads: "Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists." Or the sign in a Jordanian tailor shop that advises: "Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation." Or the notice on the wall of an Acapulco hotel dining room: "The management has personally passed all the water served here." No wonder they warn turistas not to drink the water.

Powered by / Alimenté par VITA Toolkit
Privacy Policy