For Sure Read online

  29.2.4

  Colours

  He was a smash hit with Étienne and Marianne. The two kids were hypnotized by their dad, who had gone from warbling while he prepared the meal to suddenly belting out a song in a voice they did not recognize and mysterious words whose meanings they could only guess thanks to Terry’s gestures and facial expressions, which helped to make the meaning clear. The two children were dimly aware of witnessing something new being created before their eyes. At the end of this première presentation, Étienne stood agape, having never expected Terry to reply in such grand fashion to the simple question:

  “Wot’re you singin’, Dad?”

  With his Captain Haddock apron tied around his waist, Terry had seized the moment. He’d turned down the heat under the hamburger steak sizzling in the pan, raised the wooden spoon to capture the kids’ attention, opened the floodgates and sang: I sing to pass the time / What little of it remains to me / The way we draw on a frosted window / The way we gladden our heart . . . which pleased him because these opening lines immediately invoked pleasant things like drawing, a glad heart, and skipping stones across a pond. He also liked the word petit at the beginning of the next verse, because it allowed him to reply more directly to his son’s question.

  30.1.3

  Chansons

  AUBURN ’c:ben, -be:n adjective. IME. Orig., of a yellowish- or brownish-white colour. Now, of a golden- or reddish-brown colour. (Used esp. of a person’s hair.)

  ORIGIN: Old French albome, auborne, from medieval Latin albumus whitish, from Latin albus white: later assoc. with brown by false etymology (through forms with metathesis).

  MAHOGANY me;hogeni adjective. Of the colour of polished mahogany: rich reddish-­brown. Origin unknown. Excerpt from Oxford English Dictionary.

  31.11.4

  Appropriations

  Terry had wanted to hang a large artistic poster of various styles of type at the entrance to the bookstore, by the cash register. The poster was meant to refer to the origin of the bookstore’s name: Didot.

  “Wot does you tink, den? Does she come across too . . . intellectual? Wouldn’ want folks to tink we was full o’ ourselves, or de like.”

  “Naw, she’s fine. A whole lot o’ class. Folks’ll like her, fer sure.”

  Terry knew he could trust Zed’s opinion.

  “I likes where de letters is all piled up in de corner down der.”

  Terry was particularly proud of the poster, especially the way the graphic designer — a fellow named Babin from Dieppe — had taken up his suggestions. Zed confirmed his opinion:

  “Naw, I’m tellin’ ya, she’s right proper.”

  32.8.1

  Didot Books

  In her novel 1953: Chronicle of a Birth Foretold, the Acadian author France Daigle makes no mention of that year’s publication of the first edition of the Dictionnaire Robert by a small publishing house founded by Paul Robert, with an inheritance from his family, who’d owned an orange plantation.

  33.45.5

  Useless Details

  “Wot was ee wantin’ den?”

  “He was askin’ if we eats chiard every day.”

  “Wot fer? Are dey in de habit of eatin’ potato hash every day, den?”

  “Naw. Dey never even seen chiard ’fore now.”

  “I figured. Gumbo’s wot dey eats.”

  “Every day?”

  “Dunno, do I. Go an’ ask ’em, why dontcha.”

  34.30.4

  Chiac

  A quick overview of the chromatic dictionary of the web site pourpre.com yielded 33 names of colours that, like auburn, begin with the letter a. In French, 12 percent of the 281 colours listed in that dictionary begin with the letter a. Only the letter c accounts for more: the 48 colours beginning with the third letter of the alphabet amount to 17 percent of the entries in this dictionary. By contrast, the English Wikipedia site lists 36 names of colours beginning with the letter a. This amounts to slightly more than 4 percent of the 869 colours listed. This number is surpassed by 9 letters including the c which, just as in French, accounts for the most names of colours: 91 or slightly more than 10 percent of the total.

  35.2.3

  Colours

  “Well, if dem’s useless details like she says, why does dey have to keep goin’ on about ’em, I’d like to know.”

  “Proper question.”

  . . .

  “Probably because, in absolute terms, useless don’t exist.”

  “Now yer pullin’ me leg.”

  36.45.9

  Useless Details

  Cited without permission from Webster’s Third New International Dictionary©:

  PLAGIARIST n: (lat. plagiarus, from the gr.). one who plagiarizes: one guilty of literary or artistic theft.

  PLAGIARISM n.: an act or instance of plagiarizing.

  PLAGIARIZE v. t.: to steal and pass off as one’s own (the ideas or words of another).

  37.11.10

  Appropriations

  It was quite late by the time Terry could finally relax and review the events of his day. He wondered if Étienne’s desire to put off sleep as long as possible wasn’t a sign of some sort of existential anxiety. Now he regretted not having had a father’s reflex to take up the issue more closely and on the spot. Was he already becoming one of those blasé parents?

  38.13.1

  Paternity

  With the emergence of typography in the middle of the fifteenth century, the trades of printer, typographer, editor, bookseller, and stationer became intertwined and interelated with other vocations, such as philosopher, author, and lexicographer. Geoffroy Tory, who was born in Bourges around 1480 and died in Paris in 1533, was at once a humanist, author, professor, bookseller-editor, printer, designer, theorist of typography, and a linguist. He was a strong advocate for the use of the apostrophe and added the cedilla to the French c when pronounced as s, a distinction he found both useful and appealing. Not content with perfecting the shapes of typefaces, Geoffroy Tory also weighed in on their correct pronunciation, thereby contributing to the standardisation of a hitherto highly diversified French language.

  39.10.4

  Typography

  “Dad, did you change yer time?”

  “My time fer wot?”

  “Not yer time fer sometin’, just yer time.”

  Terry looked up from his newspaper, struck by what his son had said.

  “Yer right! Naw, I never did change it, good ting yer remindin’ me!”

  Terry immediately started fiddling with his watch.

  “Is it true den dat everybody does it?”

  “Change de time? Well, I can’t say if everybody in de ‘ole wide world does it, but fer sure a whole lot of folks do. All the folks in Canada anyhow.”

  “But why? Is de time we’ve got no good no more?”

  “Well we got to line up wid de sun, don’t we. See, in summer, de sun comes up earlier, so dat’s good fer de gardens. In winter, gets dark long about supper time, and dat’s de time folks come in fer de night, ’cause it’s too cold. Not like summer evenin’s when it’s nice to stay outdoors.”

  Étienne nodded; then he looked outside.

  “Well den, today, is it winter or summer?”

  40.93.7

  Time

  The inventor Butts (1900–1993) decided on the value and quantity of each letter in his game based on an in-depth study of letters found on the front page of the New York Times.

  41.7.6

  Useful Details

  Even though Terry does fairly well with his children, fatherhood remains something of a puzzle to him. Sure, he followed Carmen’s pregnancies closely, and he was there by her side through both births, but even doing his part in all the housework,
including bringing up the kids, Terry feels fatherhood is not so easily achieved.

  “Lucky fer me you gives me a part to play, you make out like I’s important.”

  “You are important!”

  “I know, I knows it. Dat’s not what I was meaning to say. Only it’s like fer you it comes automatic like. Being yer de mudder, ’tis like magic. Whereas in my case, well . . .”

  Carmen, uncomfortable with this apparent lack of balance, sought to encourage Terry.

  “Sure it looks easier fer me. Sometimes just my being the mother seems like enough. Only kids need more dan dat, don’t dey. You take ’em all sorts of places out in de world, and you explain dem all kinds of things. Me, well sometimes I can’t be boddered, or I don’t even think to do it.”

  Carmen’s words went some way toward reassuring Terry.

  “Well, you know how it used to be: dads just standin’ there and decidin’ what was good fer de family. They never did take de time to care fer each child, did dey. Nowadays things are different. An’ aren’t you de perfect example of how they’ve changed for de better?”

  “We’ve a couple books ’bout dat at de bookstore. I’ve not really looked at ’em doh.”

  And with that, Terry slipped between the sheets, and Carmen completed her thought:

  “Don’t forget, really all that yer doing now’ll add up later on.”

  “So long as it adds up sometime, I suppose.”

  42.13.2

  Paternity

  A hodge-podge of seventeenth century and modern French, of English words pronounced in an English accent, English words pronounced in a French accent, and a syntactical mix drawn from both languages, Chiac is predominantly the lingua franca of the Acadians of southeastern New Brunswick. In spite of its echos of First Nation speech (Shediac, Kouchibougouac, Tabusintac) nothing is less certain than the origin of the word Chiac. And still today, to speak Chiac evokes a kind of dishonour.

  43.30.1

  Chiac

  “You don’t remember the X-3X-X3-X test?”

  Marianne had to admit she had no idea what her brother was talking about.

  “De story of Souricette! You knows it, souris sept: mouse number seven? Wid all dose mice dat died in de warm half of de labyrinth!”

  Marianne wanted very much to please her brother, but she had absolutely no memory of his story.

  “Ee told us dat story I don’t know how many times! I can’t believe you’ve gone and forgot it!”

  44.133.5

  The Future

  The letter b might very well blush with pride at the number of colours that begin with b in pourpre.com’s chromatic dictionary: 26, or 9 percent, of the names of colours defined as real on the site. Together, the letters a, b, and c begin 107 of the 281 colours in this dictionary. Which amounts to saying that, in French, 38 percent of the colours listed in that particular dictionary begin with 12 percent of the letters of the alphabet. According to Wikipedia, a, b, and c are the first letters of 200 out of 869 names of colours in English, or 23 percent. Thus, in English, it appears the first three letters of the alphabet carry 15 percent less weight in introducing colours than in French.

  45.3.3

  Statistics

  The second time Terry sang for his children happened one evening while he was scribbling something at the kitchen table, waiting for the kids’ bedtime. When Étienne approached him to ask what he was doing, Louis Aragon’s Blues sprang to mind. Hearing the first notes of the song, Marianne joined her brother, and as Terry got to the bit We can’t all be Cézanne / We’ll settle for much less, he could feel his children were as enthralled as they’d been the first time. He delivered the lines Young man what do you fear / You’ll grow old no matter what…in the benevolent tone of a father instructing his offspring, and carried that attitude through to the end of the song.

  “Youse like it when yer dad sings, don’t ya?”

  The two kids stood wide-eyed and waiting for more.

  “Well, it’s our secret, OK? A secret just fer de tree of us, right?”

  And to make sure the children had understood him, he kneeled down to their height to explain again how it was their secret and that they couldn’t tell anyone about how he sang for them.

  “Sometime soon, I’ll be singin’ to surprise yer mum, see, but in the meanwhile, it’ll be our secret, right?”

  Marianne signalled her agreement by hopping up and down. Étienne, for his part, did not seem to want to commit himself one way or the other. Terry leaned closer:

  “It’s on account of me wanting to learn a special song just for yer mum, see. One dat’s not a bad bit nice . . .”

  This seemed to satisfy Étienne, who allowed the secret to take root within.

  46.1.5

  Chansons

  According to the web site of the Department of Statistics and Computer Data Processing, University Institute of Technology of the Pays de l’Adour — at Pau in France — statisticians are indispendable collaborators of decision makers in any modern economy. Statisticians apply their mathematical expertise to analyze problems and propose solutions to real situations, as well as create models and digital analyses of these solutions, which are then used to produce reports accessible to the layman.

  47.11.2

  Appropriations

  “Take de word good. Bugs me the way dey writes the Chiac for bien as b-e-n. Why don’t dey spell it b-e-i-n? Dat’s de way we says it? And dat way it’d match up wid rein or kidney, what sounds jus’ like ben.”

  “I suppose it’s on account of ben spelled b-e-n is what’s in de dictionary.”

  “Ben spelled b-e-n: dat’s in de dictionary?”

  “Well, sort of. Nowadays dey calls it an old slang expression, but back in de old days ben was a real word. Comes from de Latin bene don’t it, like in benefit, benevolent . . .”

  . . .

  “Anyways, even rein for kidney used to be written r-e-n. Wot makes good sense, on account of de adjective’s rénal, isn’t it?”

  48.33.8

  Chiac Lesson

  Francis Thibaudeau’s classification of typefaces opened the way to several other systems, including, in 1954, a classification devised by Maximilien Vox, which was adopted by the Association typographique internationale (International Typographic Association) or ATYPI. The Vox classification includes 11 categories of letters: Humanistic, Garaldic, Transitional, Didonic, Mechanistic, Lineal, Incised, Script, Manual, Black Letter, and Non-Latins.

  49.10.5

  Typography

  “Did ya see dis, Marianne? De potatoes is comin’ up.”

  Marianne was walking hand-in-hand with her dad. A pink line encircled her smile, while the lollipop she was transfering from one side of her mouth to the other occupied all her attention.

  “And o’er here in front, dose are beans.”

  Terry was not blind to Marianne’s lack of interest.

  “All along back der are de onions.”

  Marianne took a bite out of her lollipop.

  “Over on de udder side’re de animals. Let’s take a look what’s o’er der.”

  Marianne finished off her lollipop, and offered Terry the chewed up white stick.

  “You wants to plant lollipops? Good idea. Go ahead, den, and plant ’em.”

  Marianne buried the stick among the turnips, stood and, seeing that the stick was leaning to one side, bent over again to straighten it.

  “Der ya go! We’ll come ’round in a couple o’ weeks, an’ see what comes up.”

  50.134.8

  Marianne

  In fact, the innovation in printing we can attribute to Gutenberg was not moveable type per se — the Chinese had already invented that — but rather the lead letter melted in a mould designed to house all letters ranging from
the narrow l to the wide w. This particularity opened the door to the casting of raised metal type by melting soft metal, most commonly lead. Hence the invention of hot lead printing. Hence, also, the development of fonts or typefaces, that is, collections of melted type — letter, numerals, blanks, punctuation — all in the same style and body, assiduously distributed in the fixed order of the wooden case. Once all these elements were perfected, type-founders became distinct from printers. Eventually, cases of metal type were produced and delivered on demand to printers in a hurry to provide editors with copies of a given author’s work.

  51.10.7

  Typography

  “And like before, cte became c-t-apostrophe in front of any word what begins with a vowel or a silent h.”

  “So would ya say cte homard-icitte fer “dis here lobster” or ct’homard icitte?”

  “Cte homard-icitte, I figure.”

  “Well dat sounds right fine to me.”

  52.35.2

  The Detail within the Detail

  First coincidence. The goal of the survey conducted without the slightest preparation whatsoever among students at Université de Moncton was to determine their perception of the colours of vowels, but because it wasn’t properly designed, that goal was never clearly stated. The letter a is both the first vowel and the first letter of the alphabet. Admittedly, a weak coincidence, but a coincidence none the less.

  53.17.1

  Chance

  “Dad, what does ‘whatever’ll be ‘lbe’ mean?”

  “Will be. ‘Whatever will be will be’, not ‘lbe.’”

  “But you says ‘lbe.”

  “Well, it maybe sounds like I’m saying ‘lbe’, but really I’m sayin’ ‘will be.’ Whatever will be will be.

  . . .