At 12:58 AM -0400 7/7/10, Christopher Smith wrote:
And most anglophone Canadians who speak French too are not stuck up, they are just trying to get along with their fellow citizens. Some might take exception to your position.
And they would be quite correct to, so my apologies in advance. I was taking it as being an example of "conspicuous education," something that was definitely used to differentiate England's stratified social classes. Kind of like Jackie Kennedy's showing off her facility in French, which she had simply because she was raised in a wealthy Northeast family. In Canada it's a necessary social skill.
Of course the guy who managed my quartet for a while grew up in Canada and was fluent in French (his father was a famous chef on the Canadian-Pacific Railroad), and he acted as a liaison with the French military right after WW II, but they made fun of him and told him his French was from the 16th century!
John -- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:john.how...@vt.edu) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html "We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition of jazz musicians. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
