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Yahoo! Threatens French-Language Site Over Parody
Morph3us writes "Here's some more info on the cease and desist letter from Yahoo! inc. to the French-language weblog pssst! Actually, what Yahoo! INC. doesn't like in this parody is the fact that it is using the actual logo of Yahoo!, with the single addition of the word "Québec" in a very similar font. Also, the search engine used in the parody was searching in a porn site database. Both of these facts could lure visitors into thinking that Yahoo! inc. was associated with the site and was offering a porn site search engine. Pssst doesn't have any power on the site Yahoo! Quebec and even on the link to it in Pssst, because it was posted by an anonymous contributor (although I guess they could delete it from the database). This contributor is also the author of the site and of the first message posted on Slashdot about this story. The author of the site sent me an e-mail today mentionning he had changed the search engine to seek in the Vatican's web site ("from one extreme to the other" as he told me!). He also plans to modify the logo to Youhou! instead of Yahoo! But there's no intention of removing the site at the moment. "
I am a Canadian. My ability to speak french is questionable. I visit relatives in Montreal often and do not experience mistreatment. In fact, I met two waitresses from rural quebec in Montreal for University in a bar (which was not in a tourist area), and was invited to a party, and was treated very well. No one talked down to me when I asked "What is" questions, and we all laughed when I stumbled through my words. Of course, people I get to know better are often more tolerant, as I tell them I also speak three other languages besides quebec localized french and english.
On the street, asking direction, and around quebec, there is the random person who gets pissed off if I try starting a conversation in english -- but most are very willing to speak if I make an effort to do so, even if I stumble over my words.
20 - 30 minutes out of Montreal, it is likely you will find communities where no one speaks english at all. I once stopped in a dunkin donuts next to a video store, and they did not know a word. Since I was lost, I asked a passerby directions, and they were happy to help, and not rude.
Despite what I have said in previous paragraphs, there are some who are very protectionist of their culture, and do not wish to let anglophone distortions seep in. Whether it be ignorance, plausible protectionism, or racist overtones, definitely has to do with the person. Just know that some are led to believe (whether true or not) that they are an opressed people, and that they believe their response is valid, given their history.
When Wierd Al started he did not ask for permission (WAYYYY back when.) however one record company told him "please ask next time" and since then he has gotten permission before doing any parody so as not to bet his *ss sued off.
Monolingual!! I know a brit who speaks Germany, Italy and English fluently, so there's one exception to your rule.
Cheers
Don't moderate the above post down; it's actually a very fair assessment of Quebec, which is an intolerant place. The majority of Quebecois are perfectly nice people, but the minority of out-and-out racists is much larger there, and even moderates don't regard behaviour as "intolerant" which would be thought so elsewhere. The historical rasons are obvious, but it is a real problem.
/. posters feel like denying it.
The poster is also right about France, a place where I was constantly shocked to find nice, middle-class families happily conversing over dinner about which suburbs had and had not been ruined by "les noirs" moving in. The French government admits that they have a race problem, so I don't know why
Monoglot, I think (the story also makes this mistake)
It's not to be taken seriously and people should not be offended by those jokes.
If people were not offended by those jokes, they wouldn't be jokes, surely? The whole point is that they are offensive. And, it's true, Belgian and French people are much less sensitive to nasty remarks about other races.
Both countries have a long and disgusting history of being horrible to people of other races, as well. I wonder if there is some connection
Well in the UK we usually refer to "!" as an exclamation mark. A period is "." We usually call a period a "full stop". You should never use both to end a sentence. Shall we move onto the apostophe?
If you need to boast about it, then I doubt your're sincere. Sounds like there could be some bitterness here heh heh
The site name has been changed to Youhou!, but the reference to Yahoo! is clear, and Yahoo!'s reaction legitimate. The site is in Quebec French, which is an expressive and flexible coloquial "cousin" variant of French based on old French and some English-rooted words. Most French people from Europe would have some difficulty understanding the words and expressions used on the site. The main page is pretty funny... And what's interesting is that Quebec - though a distinct society with its specific language and culture - does not have a Yahoo! Site of its own: it is covered either under yahoo.ca or yahoo.fr. May be the hidden message is that Yahoo! should build a Yahoo!Quebec site? Afterall, there might be more audience in Quebec than in France, or may be more connected PCs ;-)
The site name has been changed to Youhou!, but the reference to Yahoo! is clear, and Yahoo!'s reaction legitimate. The site is in Quebec French, which is an expressive and flexible coloquial "cousin" variant of French based on old French and some English-rooted words. Most French-speaking people from Europe would have some difficulty understanding the words and expressions used on the site. The main page is pretty funny... And what's interesting is that Quebec - though a distinct society with its specific language and culture - does not have a Yahoo! Site of its own: it is covered either under yahoo.ca or yahoo.fr. May be the hidden message is that Yahoo! should build a Yahoo!Quebec site? Afterall, there might be more audience in Quebec than in France, or may be more connected PCs ;-)
Jesus Christ. When people write here, they are often on a lunch hour maybe, or just spending a few mins at work. They don't have time for a full proof reading. If you submit work, or reports or a book, then your grammer SHOULD be checked. A small note like this expressing an opinion , need not. What's important is that someone else understands what your're trying to convey. I'm not submitting this post for any kind of evaluation after all, just to express a view. Fucking grow up the lot of you and get out and about more.
In fact 'Pakis' is not in the slightest bit racist in French, and simply means 'Pakistani'.
"Man bites dog" was the best thing to come out of belgium since beer and chocolate :) wicked film
Well I just hate all you niggers, wops, kykes, spics, frogs, honkys, polaks, nips, japs , pakis, krauts, and especially those most evil of all nations..... THE BELGIANS. Even in the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, the worst swear word in the galaxy was the word "Belgium". If Mel Brookes can make jokes about hitler and the jews, and get actors to actually make a film where some old woman says to them "Get lost nigger" then havent we learnt that its rather healthy to take the piss out of yourself once in a while? Brad - (btw I'm related to romany gypsies, and I'll steal your children)
Sorry, couldn't resist. :)
The Quebec government is stuck in the 1800's, when they decide to see that unity is more important and productive than building walls around there little plot of land. Then you wont be wasting taxpayer's money anymore.
nospan@yew.should.phear.on.ca
The word "experience" means EXPERIMENT. You've got it almost right. The gist of it is: "This is an experiment to see how long Yahoo will take to uphold their rights, like others have done before them." "Result: It's taken 70 days. Congratulations!"
According to the latest post on the pssst weblog (in English!) "We appreciate the speed with which you modified the web site in view of our client's concerns. Given the modifications as depicted on the enclosed copy of the web page, we consider this matter closed."
Even further down the page a Y2k (or is that Y2K) event... version 2.2 ; 12 janvier 19100
This coward comment does not even deserve an answer.
By the way, I happen to be French. But unfortunately, I can't understand your message, as I don't speak english.
Would you be kind enough to translate it into french, as it would allow me to access to the deep reflexion you wanted to share with us.
Sincerely,
A typical stupid french citizen.
You are confusing liguistic bigotry with ignorance. The French are highly multilingual as a populace. Certainly we all know they've been exposed to a lot of German, ( Why are the French replanting the elms along the Champs Elysees? So the nect time the Germans can march in the shade).
The French will, under certain circumstances stubornly refuse to acknowledge other languages, but that dosn't mean they don't speak it. That guy who's telling you he dosn't speak English when you rudely ask for directions may very well be Oxford educated.
-------------END STUPID THREAD BLOCK-----------
The much more cosmopolitan Continental French have much less excuse for the racism described in some of the other posts, but that's an issue for another day.
I'm not surprised. Quebec is a hotbed of racism, it is pretty much officially sanctioned by the ruling Parti Quebecois, which is an English- and immigrant-hating party with an unfortunately large backing from the French-speaking population of Quebec. They've been wanting to leave Canada so they can install even more racist laws (the Canadian Charter of Human Rights prohibits them from that right now), kinda like Le Pen's party has done in France in those cities where they've taken power (e.g. Arabic immigrants are not allowed to go to school, etc.)
just because the site doesn't explain in english that it is a parody means it violates u.s. laws. stupid americans
Fine. Allow me to translate it. FUCK YOU!
Parodies are protected by law in the US at least...
About the Asian links - just to clear things up, there's a French expression (c'est du chinois) that is often used when we encounter a statement that we don't understand; it may be something really complicated, or simply in another language. It means no offense to the chinese or anything, it's simply an expression. Now that this has been settled down, I can confirm that obviously, there was nothing racist with having all the asian sites labeled as chinese. I'm not the slightest bit racist, but should this prevent me from laughing at racist jokes I hear from other peoples? Those are *jokes* not to be taken seriously. The Partis Québecois isn't racist at all either, you prove that you don't know a **** about Québec. We want to leave Canada cuz we can't stand to be seen as mere tax payers anymore. If the Canada had any consideration for us, we wouldn't want to leave so bad. We don't want to install racist laws nor do we want to throw anyone out. Why don't you try to learn a bit about us before you label us as mindless racists losers?
Odds are, someone in Yahoo!'s legal department just called up their litigation attorney's and said "fix this". Just because Yahoo! is a big Internet company doesn't mean that everyone who works in every department there (and everyone that works for their partners, vendors, etc.) is the next Alan Cox.
I'm not wild about copmanies jumping to legal action over every little thing, but it seems like Yahoo! is in the right here.
--Brian
Please! Yes there is a need to defend your trademarks/copyright, particularly if someone is using it to compete against you or make some sort of profit, but this is a parody and for those of use that read french this is VERY clear from the content of the site. So what if the logo is the same. NOBODY is going to think this site is the real stuff.
What the fuck, this has nothing to do with censorship! I cant even believe thats how its categorized let alone people saying it has something to do with free speech. Whoever the hell made that page obviously violated quite a few Yahoo! copyrights. Good for Yahoo!, sue the bastards.
I heard that the Québécois slang comes from the french spoken in the 16th century when Québec was still a colony. During the french revolution, French took a different accent while Québécois kept the one that they inherited. So, quebecois slang is said to be french coming directly from another era, the same slang that kings are supposed to have spoken at that time.
---
Yeah, my english sucks but who cares ?
eille faut quand même pas pousser, bouchard ne se compare pas à ce gros con de le pen!
Jean-Hugues Roy, the author of the parody, is a complete idiot. Did you ever seen his TV show, he thinks Microsoft invented the internet. Put a computer in front of him, he wouldn't even know what it looked like.
I say, su him! His parody isn't even funny.
The links to the asian sites are all listed as Chinese because in Quebequois (Quebec French) there is an expression that translates to "its all chinese to me" for anything that is not understood. Subtle ... No? As to Toronto being more cosmopolitan than Montreal .. humbug!
I'm a french speaker, and even if some of the site use quebec-ized french i can tell you this was only a very simple joke! ie, this is a PARODY of originals Yahoo's site, all what this page contain, is the stric opposite a *normal* yahoo front page may contain. And looking to the whole links make me only laught ... ok, you may not speak french, so ask one that knows before putting cliche on peoples ... (cf racism and other goodies ... ) I can tell you that each countries got their cliche on others... and the states one's here in europe are quite funny :) In france such a site will be seen as "second degres" (second level), ie to find the message you must got lot of knowledge of the context of the joke. So just keep on smilin' ! = PC and Love make all ;)
Yo "Elvis Gratton" your about 10 years in the past with that sort of humour. Not a coincidence the mexican peoples used to call us the "tabarnacos". - X -
Laissez dont les Québécois s'amuser un peu à bitcher au lieu de se faire bitcher par tout le monde. Une fois de temps en temps ca fait du bien d'envoyer chier les autres et d'en rire! Pis Yahoo qui mangent d'la marde. Qu'ils engagent des avocats compétents pis on s'en reparlera!
I don't understand why they can't be polite. It is sooo easy to get an email contact first. The way commercial companies are perverting internet is frightening.
Look at it now. If Yahoo has a case, they don't anymore.
Oh, and check what search engine the page uses now. LOL!
Geez, did you people fail English class?
Or did you attend some liberal hippie public school where they taught atheism, perversion, and hatred rather than reading, writing, and mathematics?
The Partis Québecois is not racist at all? Interesting statement, considering statements made by their leaders about such things as Quebec women not having enough white babies, or blaming the loss of the referendum on the ethnic vote, general references to the "white Québecois race", and so on. If you missed all of these, you must be reading one of those Parti controlled newspapers...
"Toutes les nations sont bienvenue au Quebec. Ne laissez pas quelques idiots nous representer comme des racistes." "All nations are welcome in Quebec. Don't let some morons paint us as racists." Yeah but if you got to Quebec make sure you can speak French cause you will get dirty looks. They aren't racist in the sense of race but definitely in linguist. How do you think the U.S. would like if one of the south western states i.e New Mexico or Nevada decided that all signs had to have Spanish on them in a larger font size than english and that every official document in the US should be bilingual (english and spanish) even if there are more other languages and almost no spanish in the area. I think with Mr. Clinton coming up here and saying a speech in Quebec and telling them that if they left Canada that they would be left on their own hanging in the breeze kind of opened up some eyes there. As a resident of Montreal you should also notice that a lot of companies have moved out of Montreal because they don't want to deal with all this crap. Sure some software companies have moved in but when a company that gives 300 jobs to the community moves out and another company that gives 10 jobs, something is wrong. But at the same time thank god for Montreal in the last referendum. If they had voted no, life would be much different.
Yahoo dey 'ave no clue. It ees a parodie, tabarnaque. De constitution of de united state saying dat de first amendement give you a right to make de parodie.
Laissez dont les Québécois s'amuser un peu à bitcher au lieu de se faire bitcher par tout le monde. Une fois de temps en temps ca fait du bien d'envoyer chier les autres et d'en rire! Pis Yahoo qui mangent d'la marde. Qu'ils engagent des avocats compétents pis on s'en reparlera! Ironman!
Yeah but that was 20 years ago. Give a more recent example i.e circa 90's. Ever since the PC movement came in their hasn't been anything like that.
Look at Disney and the Lion King in that some group was saying that Scar was supposed to portray gays as evil and that all the jackals were minorities who were played by Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Marin, and (mumble) which portrayed bla-- Afro-Americans and Latin-Americans as dregs of society and scavengers. Now if you look at the guy who played Scar that is how he is. Plus at that time Whoopi was at her peak as a comedian. Plus Cheech and Whoopi's comedy style suit the jackals quite well. I can't imagine what it would be like if Paul Reiser or Woody Allen had played the jackels (shudder).
Laissez dont les Québécois s'amuser un peu à bitcher au lieu de se faire bitcher par tout le monde. Une fois de temps en temps ca fait du bien d'envoyer chier les autres et d'en rire! Pis Yahoo qui mangent d'la marde. Qu'ils engagent des avocats compétents pis on s'en reparlera! Ironman!
*g* good thoughts. I took 3 years of French and can only remember things like "Je suis formidable". The difference between French French and Quebec French is noticeable. Perhaps even funnier is when the Bloc Quebecois sought to gain the support of France to become a sovereign nation. Just look up J.R. Colombo's book about Canadian grafitti and limericks, and you will find many anti-Catholic and anti-pope sentiments in there...
pssst, this site is an experiment to see how long would put Yahoo!, to prevail itself of its rights a little as others did it before it. Result: setting in original line (November 3, 1999) with the formal warning (January 12 2000), it ran out 70 days. Cheer!
Is there any expletive that has a rough translation "ran out"? So many peoples have translated the original to say "it (expletive) 70 days."
Just curious.
These were the best of times, these were the worst of times.
HELLO FUCKNUTS...Frank Rizzo here with my last slashdot post. Yep, I gave my account away and I've got my things packed and I'm moving on. But don't fear, Frank Rizzo isn't going to retire from the "Free Speech" Freedom fighter business just yet. I'm going to fire up my free AOL CDROM and go straighten out things over there. Yeah the moderating system on slashdot can be fucked up and oppressive, but nothing like those nazis over at AOL.
SO WISH ME LUCK YOU LITTLE BUTTFUCKS CAUSE FRANK IS GOING TO NEED IT TO TAKE ON THOSE DIPSHITS AT AOL.
I want to thank Commander Taco and Hemos and all of the douchebags who run this place, even though the moderation system is fucked up it's still a pretty cool site.
AND TO YOU SHORSIGHTED CLOSED MINDED STUPID MODERATOR DUMFUCKS WHO HAVE A FUCKING PEA BRAIN, FRANK RIZZO WANTS TO TELL YOU TO JUST FUCK OFF AND GET A CLUE.
Just because someone swears and yells doesn't automatically make a post a troll or flamebait. THINK before you moderate. We need to look past all of this politically correct crap and start being human beings again.
Adios,
Frank
Sure, I read a lot of bullsh*t here, kindda one that recalls me that USA has been founded by puritans in a runaway. Now we got political correctness to initiate prosecution and burn whiches (wishes? wiches? i dunno)...I mean, dya remember what lenny bruce said ? "i wait for the day when kidz will be named "nigger" ('sorry for the offended by the word') in the street, and wont feel ashamed, but proud."
Sure, racism is not that good, and the average US citizen is more aware of the fact that words may hurt members of a community than the average french citizen. The average french is sure quite rude when he speaks, and quite racist when he think, and the Front National made 20% a few years ago ; but, wait, france is still a kinda democratic country.
Someone wrote that cities rulled by the FN dont allow arabic(read 'sunburnt', for the FN there is a very little difference btween a morocco's citizen and a palestinian one) to go to school. In fact, the french law don't allow this. School there is free (like beer) and every child has to go to school at least untill he/she's 16.
What the FN city halls do to prosecute the islamic community is to stop subventioning (is it that? I meant, give money) association (often religious or cultural ones), and to try to ban religious items from school in the name of laïcity (i meant 'no religion') (be aware that theses items are often their clothes).
In fact, FN has to fight a HUGE opposition, and the average politicalized guy/gal in france is sure *far* more antifascist than his/her american equivalent. I know that for most of slashdot's readers, WWII started in 40/41, but in fact, when in june 40 a french fascist government were formed to deal with the Nazies (wich invaded the contry), the french people went into civil war. A civil war that lasted 4 years.
When the FreeFrench/US/polish/commonwealth troups wiped the nazis out, a new french government, very left-winged cuz the right wing was almost with the bad guys, were formed. It gave to france a large part of its political structure.
I speak bout history to stress on the fact that the french populace is settled on a 50 years old gap, and the collabo/resistant distinction is still in the minds.
I think that if the french constitution, for example, were altered by a fascist party, there would be a lot of people that would go live in the countryside, the finger on the trigger. And they would fight.
Hope i wouldn't be the last one to go.
(you guessed right, im a bloddy frenchman)
sorry for the spelling
Well, telling that ALL Quebec citizens are racists stupid farmer is like saying that all American people are living in ghettos, killing each other in gangs wars, that you don't get out the night because you fear getting a bullet in the head. It would also be like telling the whole world that there are psychopaths kids that kills everyday in every school of USAs. If people have been opened to other cultures lately, it's certainly Quebecers. You won't see any other culture in the world that is willing to get so opened. You see, we all learn english, we all know French, more over, there are countless ethnic rendez-vous in many many cities. Just think of Montreal, and the Chineese Fregate contest, or even Trois-Rivieres, wich is a quite small city (you see, we don't have to be a huge city to get opened) that hosts every year a cultural rendez-vous, with Asian, African, europeans... People from all over the world. You see, we were from the first to welcome that (i cant remember her name) Mexican painter. Beside, previous post had major mistakes in it... First, the National Front is something that doesn't exist in our political scene, I can't see why you make a link between that political organisation and ours. I suggest the previous post to be moderated, and his author to get a Quebec History handbook. Maybe he'll get less stupid when'll go to bed. Btw: All those that have been "shocked" by the sense of humor of the page are probably "politicaly correct" puppies...
english, hebrew, french, greek, cypriot, and some swear words in arabic, cantonese and mandarin
Or American, or French
By A.A. Milne
Everything was rather quiet in the hundred acre wood. The trees whispered to each other as the wind rustled their leaves. Under
a large oak tree, there lived Pooh bear. From inside Pooh's house, there came a steady bang...bang... bang!, that was making
his honey jars rattle on the sideboard. The light came through the window, and in the evening sun Pooh raised the axe once more
and brought it down on the tattered remains of Christopher Robin. "Why...won't... he...fit..." puffed Pooh to himself as the
axe came down once more. There was a small pile of earth, and a hole next to it, which Pooh had hidden with his favourite rug.
Christopher Robin, selfish prat that he was, didn't quite fit in the hole Pooh had dug, so instead of making it wider he had
decided to hack Christopher Robin's legs off. "A far more sensible idea", thought Pooh, and hummed a little song to himself as
he cut the last tendon and rammed the rest of the body in the hole, finally covering it up with the rug. "Always too bossy",
thought Pooh, "Always too bossy, always grabbing me by the paw and saying 'Come on Pooh lets have an adventure' or 'Pooh you
are silly!' in that affected cutesy spoilt brat voice, and his stupid little shorts - bastard!"
Pooh had waited all afternoon for Christopher Robin to come round, humming a little tuneless song to himself whilst gazing
blankly into the fire and fondling the oaken handle of the axe. When C.R. had finally turned up, squeaking in his child-actor
voice "Come on Pooh! Open Up!", Pooh had answered the door normal as anything, talked about the weather, and then went to the
cupboard and fetched the axe. While C.R. had sat there, prattling on about what a silly bear Pooh was and how he had very
little brain (which wound Pooh up no end) Pooh had raised the axe high and brought it down with a satisfying thud on
Christopher Robin's skull, cleaving it virtually in two, with just some muscle fibre in place to keep the pieces upright, and
freezing C.R's eyes wide in horror that Pooh, lovable Pooh, could do such a thing! Pooh giggled a little and wiped some saliva
from his mouth with a shaky paw. Then Pooh, calm as anything, had mopped up the blood, washed the axe and begun to dig the
hole.
Piglet had wondered why Pooh had not called for him that morning, to have his tea and biscuits, and so he decided to visit Pooh
instead. He admired the evening sun, blood red, and listened to the birds singing. Pooh watched him get nearer and nearer, and
plugged in the drill.
Piglet had no time to realise what had happened - the drill pierced his skull, sending a beautiful fountain of blood all over
Pooh's orange hide. He rubbed the blood in and all over himself, licking, licking, always licking. Then he pulled Piglet inside
and put him in the cupboard. The syringe lay on the sideboard, and Pooh picked it up, paws shaking and sweating, and filled it
full of solution of the funny white powder that had been given to him by a strangely spaced-out Rabbit. It was a strange effect
at first, and Pooh thought he had seen many strange things, but then experienced a euphoric feeling of power. It made him
irritable, and C.R. and Piglet had everything that was coming to them, no doubt at all. When night had fully fallen, Pooh
dragged the bodies out and buried them in a makeshift grave.
"Adios, dear 'friends'", Pooh giggled, "Things are going to change around the 100-acre wood now I'm in charge" he laughed
hysterically and went indoors.
The next day Tigger and Roo made their way happily to Pooh's house, to see if he knew where C.R. and Piglet were, as no-one had
seen them since yesterday. They were sure Pooh would know, as he had had tea with Piglet yesterday and was meant to be playing
Pooh-sticks with C.R. in the morning.
When they reached Pooh's house the door was wide open and Pooh was nowhere to be seen. Tigger and Roo looked inside Pooh's
house and noticed a large hole in Pooh's floor and a notice was stuck on the wall with a large blob of congealing honey "OWT
CHAGIG THE DRAGGN" (spelling had never been one of Pooh's strong points). "That's odd", though Tigger, "there are no dragons in
the 100-acre wood only heffalumps. What _is_ that silly bear up to now?"
Not even Tigger would have imagined what Pooh was up to at that moment. That morning Pooh had woken with a splitting headache
and a rather snotty nose. So he had taken a large dose of the white powder and a little while later had a brilliant idea! He
left the house with a container marked INSECTICIDE in big red letters. He took the container and went to Eeyor's favourite
patch of thistles. "This will serve that manic depressive donkey right" laughed Pooh aloud, "always cheating at Pooh-sticks,
cheats never prosper", Pooh said to himself. Then he hid behind a tree to watch the unsuspecting Eeyor eat himself to death -
sheer poetic justice thought Pooh as he dumped the nearly dead body of Eeyor in the same grave as C.R. and Piglet - "Shouldn't
cheat should you?", shouted Pooh as Eeyor's eyes stared with disbelief - "You're lucky I didn't chop you up into little bits
and feed you to Tigger!", laughed Pooh manically, before he covered the makeshift grave over.
Pooh didn't return to the house until dinner time as he was totally spaced out ll morning. So when he returned to his house he
was in an awful mood and all he needed to make him absolutely mad was the sight of Tigger and Roo bouncing up and down outside
his house singing "bouncy, bouncy, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, the wonderful....". "'Wonderful'?", thought Pooh aloud, "My foot,
you'd think the writer of this shitty story could think up better lyrics for a song than that, and to think, they released the
soundtrack album on cassette and CD; a lot of people are going to get ripped off." This lightened Pooh's mood somewhat, but the
respite was brief.
"What was that you said?", asked Roo. "God does he never stop asking pathetic questions?", Pooh thought furiously, "I'm going
to have to deal with these prats as well. Is there no-one in this place with intelligence apart from me?" Pooh asked
despairingly."
Pooh felt himself extremely lucky as Roo had to go home for his afternoon sleep and that left Tigger at his mercy. Even better,
Tigger suggested that himself and Pooh go and play Pooh-sticks; Pooh had smiled slyly as an idea formed in his overactive
brain, and agreed - "What an opportunity", Pooh whispered to himself as he followed the innocent Tigger to the bridge.
Once on the bridge, and the rather pointless game of Pooh-sticks was under way, Pooh thought he'd much rather push his stick up
Tigger's arse, rather than throwing it into the stream. Tigger was leaning over the side of the bridge looking for his stick.
So he did not see Pooh's wide horrific grin as he outstretched his arms and moved toward Tigger with the intent of pushing the
stupid cat into the stream - "Cats hate water, tee hee, he'll drown."
There was a loud splash as Tigger hit the water and started to struggle as his head was covered by water, he gulped and choked.
Pooh was holding on to the rail of the bridge and jumping up and down with excitement and was joyously shouting at the drowning
Tigger.
"Why?", spluttered Tigger as he slowly started to turn blue with the cold, which Pooh found hysterical, after all a blue
Tigger?? How absolutely silly. "I'll tell you why you bastard", screamed Pooh, "It serves you right, hiding behind doors and
jumping out, and scaring the shit out of people." But Tigger did not hear Pooh's answer as he was already floating downstream
face down in the water, dead - "Good riddance", laughed Pooh, and looked at his watch, "Still time to get that little dick head
Roo before he wakes up."
Pooh sneaked to the sleeping form of Roo's mum and saw Roo's ear poking out of her pouch - "Now I've got you, you little git",
Pooh thought, smiling, as he threaded a needle with extra strong cotton. He was jolly grateful for Piglet's sewing lessons now,
because he would be able to sew up Roo nice and tightly, so he would not be able to get out and his mum would not be able to
rescue him. So very slowly and carefully Pooh began to sew Roo into his pouch and thereby suffocating the annoying idiotic
twit. After the deed was done Pooh made his way back to his house wondering how Roo's mum would take the death of Roo. Badly,
hoped Pooh, as he began to cough uncontrollably and felt general nausea overcome him.
By the time Pooh got home he had puked up several times and was very desperate for some more of the white solution. He trembled
as he picked up the syringe and gave himself the remaining amount. An awfully large amount, one might say, for a small little
bear like Pooh. In fact too much, Pooh died of an overdose, but he died with a smile on his face: he was dreaming that he was
the only teddy bear made with a willy and dreamed how he surprised Eeyor one day - but that's a story for another day.
THE END
=================================================
Written by an anonymous PUE working at IBM, Warwick, in 1987.
There goes my karma
I have to return some videotapes...
There are numerous other topics on which to base your humour. Racist humour is cheap, and it stems from and leads to prejudice. Frankly, I find racist humour half-witted.
I well and truly believe in free speech. It is my right. /*cliche*/ However, I also believe that with rights, come responsibilities. /*end cliche*/ We have the responsibility to foster racial harmony. I come from a multi-racial country, plagued by ethnic tension. This ethnic tension was created because of the lack of understanding, and because of political bungling.
Racist jokes just inculcates the racial hatred that is prevalent in the society. /*cliche*/What we should do is laugh with people of different races, not laugh at them./* end cliche*/
A rainbow is different because it is made of many colours. Same goes for humanity. Different races, different religions and different languages, can create a vibrant society, if people learn to co-exist in harmony.
No parody? Simply by trying a few link you can tell that "Youhou! Québec" *is* a parody.. to find a link to the main site of Québec's Casinos under "personnal finance" and to find a tv guide under culture sure is a proof the webmaster's trying to be funny.. Also, some of the political links sure are funny for someone in Québec. However, I have to admit that http://altern.org/groov3/yahoo/index2.html IS a lame attemp to copy yahoo's design.
everyone hates the french.
My french isn't too hot, but all the links to the other worldwide Yahoo! sites have more or less racist names. Ranging from fairly mild (like "people who speak french badly" for the French site), to offensive - "pakis" for the Pakistani site. I'm sure that Yahoo weren't too happy about that
Here: http://datahit.com/yahoo.txt.
It doesn't hurt to start there. I maintain a Porsche-oriented web site. We had, in one of our sections, the Porsche crest being 'tightened' by a crescent wrench.
The offended logo had been on that page since 1997, but when I received a nice letter (no sarcasm, it was a 'please do this or call if you have questions' sort), I altered the logo. He sent me a thank you letter and everyone went about their day.
And for the legal people out there, since it was on a page (which at several long stretches of times has been the most popular Porsche web site out there with several Porsche executives being regular viewers) for over 2 years before they noticed it, we might've had an argument. But it was such a reasonable request. He wasn't impolite, why should we be?
-Derek
I happen not only to be a linguist, but also one whose roommate is a French Canadian linguist. So although I'm by no means an expert on Québec French, here's a few characteristics. (Many of these I have represented orthographically, copying the way I see them written down in lyrics from French Canadian records).
There's a few more function words in Québec that are used differently.
There's a lot other differences, including for example, vocabulary. But when it comes to the syntax, Québecois is not very different from other spoken French varieties.
My roommate has told me that, in his experience, it takes a Frenchperson about 2 weeks to get used to the pronunciation.
As for other things, Québecois rock music is really good. Anyone curious should try Les Colocs, or Mara Tremblay, or Fred Fortin.
---
I really think that the theoretical status of the language/dialect distinction in linguistics in nowhere near solid. It is not uncommon at all to find a language gradating into others. If you start at Paris, go through the local French dialects, pass over the non-French languages of France (Franco-Provençal, Occitan), into the Romance dialects of western Switzerland and northeastern Italy, and then go further south in Italy, you will find that there is actually a gradation from French into Italian; that is, that people from adjacent regions speak mutually intelligible, yet somewhat different, language systems, and at the ends of the scale you find what we take to be entirely different lanaguage. The same can be said of Dutch and German, IIRC. So I'd go with the old linguists' joke about a language being a dialect with an army and a navy...
Also, from first person reports I've been told (my roommate is a French Canadian linguist), the French, when initially confronted with Québecois, do not understand it well at all. However, one gives them two weeks, and they adapt.
---
Why exactly should there be a law saying when one can and cannot use a particular language in the first place?
\\'
...one who isn't from a state that doesn't border Canada, and say:
Out and about in a boat
When the American stops laughing, ask him if he can tell that you have an accent.
:^)
Totally different situations anyway, IMO.
i live in québec so i know this site, they stated at the bottom of the page that this was an experience to see how much time yahoo will respond to this, the site went online Nov 3rd, and they received the email from yahoo's lawyers Jan 12th, so it took 70 days before yahoo make something.
--
http://www.beroute.tzo.com
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
I would have to agree with you on that one. Having spent the last 7 years in exile from La Belle Province, this was a delightfully refreshing dose of humour, and it made my morning.
Yahoo needs to get a clue.
eille faut quand même pas pousser, bouchard ne se compare pas à ce gros con de le pen!
-------
j'ai jamais vu une thread aussi bizarre sur slashdot! ahahaha!
and now, for those who claims that parti quebecois is racist, etc.. oh boy. we often get the label of "racist" society.. it's true that there is racism in our society, but i would say that we are much more tolerant than the usa or france..
i am a separatist, that doesn't make me an english-hater. not at all, it's only about the simple fact that we are different people so we want to run our buisness our way. we want to protect our culture. fuck, we're only 2% of the north american population! and it's decreasing slowly year after year..
one of the reason why i am a separatist, is that the english canada doesn't even make a bit of effort to undersand us. for example, i'm sure most of the english canadians are quite supportive of the irish opposed to the brittish, or the tibetans versus the chinese.. but hey, how do you think our situation is different?
in 1990, there was a canadian referendum about a new federal constitution propososal (l'entente de charlottetown). the result was that quebec said "no, that's not enough for us" and english-canada answered "no, it's too much for them"..
canada just doesn't work for us, we would be better on our own, and they would be better on their own too. all those fights will end when a) we will be separated or b) we will be assimilated. i personally prefer a).
i very much understand the fear of the english-speaking population of quebec (they're mainly in montreal) about what would happen if we separate.
but, i am personally very glad to have english friends. i am very happy to see all the nice english girls when i get drunk at the mad hatter (pub on maisonneuve ouest).
but those that don't even want to learn a bit of french, those that want to start fights by calling us fucking frogs, well they're better leaving for ontario.
vive le quebec libre!
YouHou is an expression to call someone's
attention. In English you would say "Wake up"
or "Look here"
I fail to see the connection with Yahoo except
from an ignorant who has no clue about other
languages.
The folks at Yahoo will end up looking like
complete idiots.
For those of you would would like to check
some other French Canadian humor check my
web site under the humor section. I made
a French Canadian adaptation of the
site of "The dumb sons of America"
It's called "Les tatas d'Amérique"
It got the attention of the Swiss Radio and TV
a while back, perhaps because of the fact that
it is in French and in the United States.
Here is my Home page
This is good old American humor with a bit
of French Canadian humor.
I do provide a link to the original site hosted
by a friend of mine.
yep, seems reasonable to ask that the logo/brand should be altered somewhat. Yahoo still goofed up and sent its letter to the wrong person, though.
bah, "cease & desist letter" is the right translation for "mise en demeure"... not "threatening letter" :) I did say "qnd".
http://search.vatican.va
(No, "VA" isn't for Virginia!!!)
-- ----------------------------------------------
Vive le logiciel... Libre!!!
Merci.
Notice: psst managers got a cease-and-desist bla bla bla. A copy has been sent to the author.
Psst cannot do anything since they don't control the site, hosted at ALTERN.ORG. The only thing Psst did was to link to the parody.
This will be signified to Yahoo lawyers by official channels. No more comment will be made.
-- ----------------------------------------------
Vive le logiciel... Libre!!!
Here's my friend's translation. He says it's not perfect, but should'nt be too bad. You can email him at: cfarivar@020.co.uk
-------------
Montreal January 12, 2000 - The Quebecan web page psst! was told to cease and desist by the american company, Yahoo! For having pretentously been the author of the parody Yahoo Québec! The head writer of Multimédium, Dominic Fugère, and one named Mathieu, whose names appear on the bottom of the parody, have also been cited in the cease and desist.
The Yahoo! Québec site, a parody of the famous american portal Yahoo!, was created several months ago by Jean-Hugues Roy, an animator of the show Branché for Radio-Canada. As soon as the site was put up, psst! had put a link in its direction.
Shockingly, this was not discussed in the cease and desist and still was not up to date as we have seen this evening. "I will start by reading the cease and desist [letter] and going to review the laws on cybersquatting and other laws on trademarks beeefore deciding if I'm going to take down the site." He said. "I might modify the search engine and the logo graphics."
In his parody, Jean Hugues Roy used the exact logo of Yahoo! To which he added the word "Québec". The search engine of the parody page, he changed the database with a list of pornographic sites. These are two details which have truly excacerbated the susceptibility of Yahoo! Inc. Excepts of the cease and desist, sent by the law firm, Smart & Biggar of Ottawa, confirm this.
"I thought that Yahoo! would be the last important company to have a sense of humor," affirms Jean-Hugues Roy. "There are many parodies of Yahoo! Some of them even use the same search engine!"
Clément Laberge, who is responsible for the psst! web page, to whom the cease and desist was sent to primarily, has until next Monday, the 17th of January, to tell Yahoo's lawyers that he has taken down the site, something that he cannot do himself, as he has absolutely no control over the site.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
More little corrections:
I don't know these "!" are called in Canada, but in poor back-assward America we refer to them as "exclamation marks" not "periods". If you would like to terminate a sentance it is advisable to use the "period".
BTW, is your country still run by giant, crack-smoking rabbits? I miss Toronto.
Babel Fish is going to have a hard time getting the message across with this site, partly because the is a lot of Quebecois slang in there. Babel Fish is more atuned to 'proper' French.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Gee... Yes, the Quebec government are intolerant bastards and wish to wipe english out of existence. That must be why english is a MANDATORY class in Quebec schools from the 3rd grade to the end of high school (this is a Quebec provincial law, by the way), why, in places where there is a significant percentage of anglophones, signs can be in english and french (again, Quebec law (bill 101, amended by bill 178)), why Tele-Quebec, the TV network owned by the Quebec governement, has a lot of english educational programming in english. Oh, one more thing:The Parti Quebecois is either responsible for many of these laws, or has been wise enough to leave them as is.
You're right; all these signs point to a place intolerant of anything non-french/quebecois.
De gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum
"has a lot of english educational programming in english."
I really have to learn to use the preview button. Sorry about that.
De gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum
Actually, the page acknowledges to be a parody, at the very bottom and with a font size="-3". For the linguistically challenged:
pssst, this site is a test to find out how long it will take Yahoo! to exercise its rights, as others did before.
Results: from the original publication (3/11/99) to the legal threats (12/1/00), it took 70 days. Bravo!
There was a poll (or survey) done a few months back in Canada, and the result was that Vancouver is the most tolerant city in the country, not Montreal.
I do hear and read it's a nice city, though.
This kind of grammatical nitpicking, along with all the millenium/millennium 2000/2001 crap we've had recently, has convinced me that slashdot needs a (-1, Pedantic) moderation category.
specially the ones that no automated translator would be able to...
-Plus catholique que ...
Unterminated local expression (plus catholique que le pape)(more catholic then the pope) meaning being too stiff, too by the book then logic calls.
-Enwouaille!
Hurry Up, Go, Do something, wake-up!
-Des Cossins en masse!...
More stuff then you need.
-Reguines
stuff
-Patentes a Gosses
stuff that you can't make anything out of...
Nains de jardins
lawn dwarf (in plaster), the summum of kitsh stuff.
Alouette
Making reference to a child song.... meaning something like "Again and again"
Placotage avec du monde
babling with people
Kesse
What
Check tes bidous
Check your bucks (money)
Espionne tes voisins
Spy on your neighbors (it is good french, but it's too funny so I translated anyway)
Magasinage
Shopping
Rumeurs et bitcheries
Rumors and bitching
Demetan
Reference to a 20 years old saturday morning dull animated serie where every story was a sad one.
Fait-tu beau?
Is it sunny outside?
Allez hop! Cascade
a reference to a publicity that itself made a reference to an actor (Belmondo)
Estie que ca va mal
the (nasty word) hit the fan
Shirley Theroux contre-attaque
A local hasbeen (oftenly parodized) counter attack!
I can't pretend anymore that I'm working while doing this..... at least you have a couple of jokes translated...
Little Corrections :
"Branche" is a TV show, Radio-Canada is the name of the station wich is owned by the "state"(in a matter of speaking). They also own an english version of the channel CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Channel), and several Radio stations accross canada!!
Strangely enough, he WASNT mentionned in the threatening letter from Yahoo!.
And he said, I thought Yahoo! was the FIRST(not last) company around with a sense fo humour.
The rest is a pretty accurate translation!!
French and english might be really close to eacdh other, but most things cant be translated litteraly or else you'll come up with opposites!!
" Microsoft Integration = Inbread software! " SpIcEz
The distinction between Québec French and France French, I think, is identical to the distinction between American English and British English. In both cases, you have a nearly identical syntax with a lot of regional slang and expressions. In many cases, you also have different definitions for words. Both in American English and Québec French, the language has evolved by being separated geographically, but still kept in contact, with the country of origin.
A Parisian will give a blank stare to a Québecois if the Québecois speaks fast and uses a lot of slang, the same way a Brit would probably double-take if he heard a Texan spitting out words filled with colloquial expressions.
Hope this clears it up... I certainly don't think Québec French is a Creole. For starters, Québec French evolved from the whole France French, just in parallel. I hadn't thought about the Québecois/American English parallel before, but I think it fits the distinction perfectly.
Of course, the Brits are well-aware of American expressions and accents, whereas the French don't know Québec that well. The other distinction is that American English is considered proper, whereas Québec French is considered vulgar, and France French is taught in schools and used in movies. It's rather pathetic, really; I wish Québec would obsess a little less on its language.
Sorry, didn't expect the nitpicks. One day, I will learn. :)
What I should have meant is, the dilemma in Québec is whether the usage of Québecois is legitimate and should be allowed and perhaps enforced by public schools, or banned and fought. There's a lot of people who say that people speaking in Québecois come across as having a poor education and low intellect. Sad, but true. And it's not uncommon to see people who went to private colleges speak with a faux Parisian accent (for instance, without any diphtongs - 'tsip' vs 'tip'), trying to show off as having a better education.
On the business front, people will use Québecois among themselves in a company, but if they're meeting with important people, they will be careful of how they speak, and try to convey a more 'international' (translation: understandable by the Parisians) French.
So: yeah, I know it's a dialect. Whether it should be accepted as such, or fought against, is the question. I personally think it's totally ridiculous to link use of slang to education, and that people who combat Québecois so vehemently can only be called 'anal retentive'.
Rather, it's due to the fact that Québec French and France French evolved in parallel for a few hundred years. As such, they both evolved in different directions, and retained different aspects of Middle French. You'll find some aspects of Middle French in Québec French, such as the use of 'toé' and 'moé' instead of 'toi' and 'moi'. That's typically Medieval. But to say Québec French is identical to Middle French spoken in the 16th Century isn't true.
I would say, under that approach, that Québecois is definitely a dialect and not a creole. Québecois is definitely a direct descendent of French, and French and Québecois can communicate perfectly. Sure, there is a bit of that going on since Québec is part of a majorly English-speaking country, and right next to the US. That comes in the form of anglicisms, where either 1) English words are used in a perfectly French context, or 2) perfectly French words are used with an American twist.
Example 1: To say somebody is weird, Québecois from Montréal will say 'Il est fucké'. Literally, 'He is fucked', but 'fucké' is used to mean 'weird'.
Example 2: Québecois say 'Tomber en amour', literally, 'To fall in love'. The French say, 'Être en amour', but not 'Tomber en amour', which is a direct theft from the English, and the French give us a weird look.
Still, I'd say Québecois is definitely a dialect.
How much more of this anal retentiveness do we have to put up with? Oh wait... considering how fast buisness is to changes in legal habits, we'll probably have to put up with it for a long time.
My god they act like children. "No, you can't use that URL, thats my name! I'm gonna go tell the patent office!"
Shit, get a grip, you couldn't posibly lose as much money if these people keep their name's and URL's as you are spending on courts and blood-sucking lawers (offense meant to all the lawers out there) trying to make them stop. I'm not bitter...Really I'm not:)
It's interesting you mention this, because all the sources I have read, plus personal observation, indicate that there is very little that would allow a casual English speaker to differentiate the standard western Canadian dialect(s) from SAE. Personally, as a native of the prairies, I find it difficult to notice any phonological differences (register excepted) between my dialect and that preferred of American television anchors. The only thing that comes to mind is that most SAE speakers I've heard tend to pronounce "catch" as /k&tS/, whereas most (though not all) speakers from Regina say /kEtS/. Perhaps, as someone with a background in dialectology, you are able to more readily pick up on such differences; I still maintain that the average American speaker would not be able to identify most Canadians from west of Ottawa based on their speech patterns alone.
Regards,
Actually, the difference between the two has nothing to do with diphthongs. In Québecois, [ts] is an affricate allophone of /t/ which is substituted for the predominant allophone, [t], when it occurs before /i/ (and possibly other vowels; it's been a long time since I've watched the French CBC). At the same time, /i/ is lowered to /I/ (a transformation I had neglected to mention in my original post but which, thankfully, another gentleman corrected in a reply). How's that for nitpicking? ;)
Regarding your main point, though, yes, I do believe it is ridiculous that some dialects among many of a language must be looked down upon as vulgar. This goes double for Quebec; if the sovereigntists are so adamant that they are special and unique because they have their own language, why are they so reluctant to speak it? Language is not immutable; even if the powers that be were successful in forcing everyone in Quebec to use Parisian French, it wouldn't stay that way for long. Besides, Parisian French, I'm led to believe, has a lot more English loan words than does Québecois. Lucien Bouchard and the language police probably wouldn't be too happy. "Monsieur, you are under arrest for using English too prominently on your storefront sign." "That's not English; it's Parisian French! :P"
Regards,
Speaking as a theoretical linguist, Québecois is not a language, but a dialect of French. Parisian French is also a dialect of French. The two dialects, while they have somewhat different pronunciation and vocabulary, are still mutually intelligible.
The origin of Québecois has absolutely no bearing on whether or not it is a "true" language, whatever you mean by that. The next time some Parisian language snob tries to tell you otherwise, perhaps you'd like to counter with the argument that European French dialects are obiously bastardized versions of Latin born of lack of rigor and education. (Ditto for Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and a host of lesser-known languages.)
All this talk of language prestige, though, has me wondering why the elementary schools in Canada teach the children Parisian French rather than Québecois. (At least, it happened to me... I distinctly remember being told that "type" was pronounced as /tip/, as it is in France, and not /tsip/, as in Quebec.) Even if Québecois is less dignified, wouldn't it be more advantageous to the children to teach them to speak as the locals rather than the foreigners? In English, England's RP dialect ("received pronunciation" or Queen's English) generally carries more prestige than Canada's SAE ("standard American English"), yet the Canadian schools never taught me to speak with an English accent.
Note to South Park fans: By and large, English-speaking Canadians don't have accents which are perceptably different from the common dialect of Americans (SAE). The vowel raising ("aboat" or "aboot" instead of "about") is a phenomenon unique to the east coast, and is indicative of that region's Scottish origins.
Regards,
Somehow, I don't think Tim Koogle would approve of the use of his image in the manner that it is
incorporated...
YAHOO AND DESPAIR ANNOUNCE PLANS TO LAUNCH BOOHOO!, A SPECIALIZED PORTAL AND BRAND FOR THE MISERABLE
SANTA CLARA, CA - August 13, 1999 - Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO), the world's most popular internet portal, and Despair, Inc., the world's worst Internet company, today announced a joint-venture agreement to launch a specialized portal and brand for the miserable.
The specialty portal, called BooHoo! (http://www.boohoo.com), would offer a branded network of comprehensive information, communication and shopping services to congenitally unhappy Internet users.
FULL ARTICLE
This is yet another example of the holders of intellectual property rights attempting to expand those rights beyond their original scope. The courts need to step in a make perfectly clear that commentary, parody, criticism have nothing to do with trademarks or copyright. Further, some form of deterant (perhaps SLAPP suits) has to be in place to prevent frivolous cease-and-desist letters and lawsuits.
Trademarks grant nothing more than a right to operate a buisness under that name. If you're scared about the ever lengthening copyright term, follow this link.
It summarizes a case about The Three Stooges. The copyright has expired on the Stooges long ago and they are in the public domain, but the former copyright holders are attempting to go after anyone using the Three Stooges for trademark violation! Luckily, a 30-second clip appearing in a movie was deemed not infringe on the trademark. However, whether those selling Stooges T-shirts are violating trademark laws has yet to be decided. Believe it or not, the lawyers interviewed are split on whether placing these public domain characters on T-shirts is legal!
I think Yahoo! has a case here. Pretty much the only thing that differs between Yahoo's site and the parody (other than the content itself) is the added Qubec logo. I'm sure that Yahoo feels threatened, as it has invested serious money into starting up a whole chain of international sites and, if you look at Yahoo Asia, for example, the similarity is quite clear.
The question for me is: Did Yahoo go overboard? A cease and dissist order seems a bit strong for an inital contact (if this it what it was)... Maybe they should've contacted the site first via more civilized channels.
Jay
Dear AC,
I would really like to know what kind of "long and disgusting history of being horrible to people of other races" does Belgium have...
Indeed Belgium had its Congo... And any other European nation had colonies back then ! Its not like we were the only ones. Not to say it was right to do it, but the connection you're trying to imply doesn't hold when any country has the same kind of history.
And let me remind you that Belgium didn't put Indians into reservations. Neither did we have slaves in our coton fields !
And finally, there's one thing I think can be said about Begium and Belgians, but not about many others : we know how to make fun of ourselves, we have a lot of self-humor. Unlike, e.g., the Americans and the French.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Well, I'd just like to say that Europeans are much less conservative than Americans when it comes to things like humor. I've lived in both sides (Arizona and Belgium) and I think I'm qualified to make that sort of comments.
In europe people will more easily make fun of other folks, including jokes based on "race" (there are no such things as human "racex" anyway), sex, age, country... We see it as second degree, and there's no big deal with that. Just like the other Belgian guy, I LOVE it !
Now I think that avoiding this humor but not doing anything to solve the problems that hide behing is hypocrisy (spell?). There ARE misunderstandings and tensions between different ethinc groups living together. Humor is a way to let the pressure go.
Once you're really comfortable with people, then you'll start making jokes about them with no offense intended. The best "negro" jokes I know come from a Congolese friend of mine, and I know of a Jew who'd tell you the most funny things about Jews.
To conclude, the kind of humor I like best is auto- (or self-)derision. Making fun of yourself is actually quite funny...
Ceci n'est pas une signature
I meant to say:
;)
je crois bien que je ne pourrais pas faire aussi bien si j'essayais d'en faire une...
It's been a while, my French is getting rusty
A little correction of your translation:
:)
psst, this site is an experiment to see how long it will be before Yahoo takes advantage of its rights like others have done before them.
Results:From the original posting [to the Web] (Nov. 3, 1999) to the actual cease and desist letter (Jan. 12, 2000) it took them 70 days Bravo!
Neanmoins, votre traduction etait pas mal... je crois bien que je ne pouvais pas faire aussi bien si j'essayerais d'en faire une d'anglais en francais
NB:pas d'accents sur ces clavier americans...
The UK education system really doesn't put much emphasis on foreign languages at school, and you get very complacent when all the media you are exposed (pop music, tv, computer stuff) is in English. On the one hand it's a great and easy advantage (you never have to try and learn another language until once in a blue moon you are confronted with something like the Yahoo-Quebec joke) but on the other hand this English dominance makes English speakers a lot more lazy than other people who are forced to deal with the English language dominance.
It's quite funny how upset some people in the UK have got now that Mac has decided not to support UK English anymore but only go with "International" (i.e. USA ) English...
Or would it be fine for white people in America to call Afro-Americans 'niggers' because the white name-calling people thought it was funny?
(I am not suggesting all the language used in the parody is racist, just some is not exactly going to win friends and I find some of it offensive).
I agree completely. Despite the fact that the only french I speak comes from Monty Python, this still looks like a parody to me. Look under the "Sciences" section - They have UFOlogy, astronomy, and calculus. (At least I think that's what those words mean.) Whether a parody site should be ripping off Yahoo's graphics is a completely different argument.
I speak german, french, english, and a little of an arab dialect and japanese
:-)
How many languages do YOU speak?
(Hmm, why do I think i won't get an answer on this post
As he said (quoting gods-only-know-who), a language is just a dialect with an army and a navy.
: Fruitbat :
I have discovered a truly remarkable
Here's my understanding of creoles, pidgins and dialects.
Suppose you kidnap a hundred Texans, a hundred Parisians (that's Paris in France, not Paris in Texas) and a hundred Klingons, and put them all to work in the chocolate mines on Planet X. Presuming there are none among the kidnapees who speak any language but their own, sooner or later you will find they develop a pidgin -- the Texan learns to say "merde" and the Parisian learns to say "Qu'vatlh", and so on.
So, a Klingon lad trying to pick up a Parisian lass may suggest "Soir - me - tu - sleep-a?" (Night (Fr) me (Eng) you (Fr) sleep (Eng) [question-suffix] (Kl)?) It's nothing much more than a string of words with a tiny bit of grammar. That's a pidgin.
Eventually the slaves interbreed (this being a Star Trek universe, it's almost inevitable!). Their children are taught a bit of their parents' language(s) and a lot of the pidgin that's grown up.
So, a Klingon-Parisian lad of the second generation trying to pick up a Texan-Parisian lass may suggest "Ce soir me-DaQ tu sleep-a?" (This night (Fr) with (Kl) me (Eng) you (Fr) sleep (Eng) [question-suffix] (Kl)?) Note how the grammar has evolved; this is no longer a string of words, but actually has a structure. That's what a creole is.
Please note, I Am Not A Linguist, but that's what I understand from Stephen Pinker's _The Language Instinct_ on this subject.
: Fruitbat :
I have discovered a truly remarkable
First of all, who are are you to judge of the quebequer's humour! I'm a french from quebec and nothing in that page as a racist meaning, it's just normal quebequer's humor, that i use with my black yellow and spanish friends. It's when i read stuff like that that i start to understand better the joke that people from France tell about Belgian.
"Failure is not an option, it come bundled with the software"
What does the purpose of the site have to do with the abuse of the trademarks? Nothing. If they had altered the trademarks from the original significantly, then, sure. The question isn't whether it will fool people into thinking it's Yahoo! or not. The question is whether they are using Yahoo!'s trademarks. And they are.
If a corporation is a personhood, is owning stock slavery?
There is also a Jewish Yahoo parody which lists famous Jewish celebrities, (www.jewhoo.com) I wonder if they are next in the scope of Yahoo's lawyer's guns?
It's a fine line between what's ok and what's racist. Some of the content of the parody will offend some people, but i don't think that was the intent.
I was trying to explain some of the cultural background of this parody and in no way making an apology of it.
It's hard to judge something when you don't know the context and it is harder on the internet because local content is often judged by international standards. Some of the posts here have been very harsh on quebec in terms of racism etc. I wanted to put a little balance in all this chaos.
Anyways, it's good reading some moderate comments on sensitive topics like this one.
PedroReish
I won't say i'm the best or portray that role, but i'm up to top two and my father's getting old.
Well some of the slashdot readers have been making a fuss about "racist" jokes being on this parody web site. I think a little bit of quebec pop culure is in order here. To put the record straight i am a french-speaking montrealer.
Most of those "racist" comments are in the yahoo's of the world section. All the links pointing to Asia saying "chinois" (chinese) and the links pointing to european countries have names like "maudit francais" (damn french), boches (germans), blokes (english), wops (italian?) and more. At first glance this may seem quite racist, but this is a parody people. Most of these racist comments are from a quebec movie from the 80's called "Elvis Gratton". This movie is a parody of the "average" (more like mediocre) Quebecer. It makes fun of our bad habits. Always looking up to the Americans for economic success (eux autres ils l'ont l'affaire les Amaricains!), feeling inferior to the French (France), our "colourful" spoken french, our political indecision, our habit of putting down "successful" Quebecers and the anti-intellectualism that permeates some levels of our society. "Elvis Gratton" is a parody of the french-speaking population of Quebec and it has become a cult movie in the 90's.
In light of this movie and in the context of Quebec (pop) culture, the "racist" comments have been written so we can laugh of ourselves. An example is the link "tabarnacos". Tabarnacos is the name we give to the flock of quebecers that travel to Florida (or any other sunny destination) to escape winter. It comes from "tabarnak" (f*** is a good first level translation) and the preconceived idea that every spanish word ends in o.
The rest of the topics are quite funny. Under miscellaneous you get "unite canadienne" wich translates into Candian Unity and points to a site dedicated to Quebec independance.At least it's funny for Quebecers and Canadians!
PedroReish
Ain't nobody saying my nick is racist!
I won't say i'm the best or portray that role, but i'm up to top two and my father's getting old.
(French spoken here.)
... The site may not be hosted at pssst.qc.ca, but Pssst's certainly behind it. Or one of their users.
At the bottom of the index page, the text "collaborez à Youhou! Québec" links to groov3@membres.pssst.qc.ca
Anyway, in one minute's examination, that's the first link I found. Actually, the site is quite funny, with many highly Quebec-ized French bits.
((Almost anything counts as a dialect, whenever there is an objectively measureable difference in the dominant speech of one area or socio-economic group compared to another. ))
:)
I was under the impression that the distinctions had to be _easily_ measured, ie the blank stares Enoch said they get from Parisian French speakers. More than that, I believed it had to evolve naturally - creoles being an 'unnatural' form of evolution.
((Guadeloupe, Martinique, Haiti, Reunion, Mauritius and many other places have creoles, Quebec French is unquestionably French))
This is the kind of information I was looking for, actually. I don't know French, or the history of Quebec's version. I don't know just how different it is (or isn't).
((Quebec French has not adopted any grammatical structure from English, nor does the grammar of Quebec French vary in any important way from the standard model of French))
Interesting. So it's just pronounciations and word definitions that differentiate it? Or is there more?
((Furthermore, "Ebonics" (Or Black American English or whatever term you like) has few aspects of a creole.))
I am under the distinct impression that it is one. English forced on immigrants (in this case, black slaves) caused them to learn the basics, but they were still using it in the context in which they knew language. A new form sprung up as a result.
((Although there are still some people who believe that black English grammar comes from West African Bantu roots, there are very few linguists who believe this.))
I must have friends in all the wrong places, then, as most of the linguaphiles I know agree with this one. There are examples, like the lack of conjugation of the verb 'to be' - 'I be at the store', depending on context, could mean I am, I will be, or I was at the store. Many of the grammatical rules of ebonics do seem to have stemmed this way... Incidentally, I know some distinctly NON-lower-income people who speak it as their birth-language. So it isn't restricted to those of the lower class or those without an education.
Since you say the people you know disagree, could you tell me why? If you know more on the subject than I, I'd like to know what you think. What are the differences between the grammar of the language and the grammar of ebonics? Have you truly examined it, or are you contradicting me just so you can say ebonics is for uneducated losers (I'm not saying that to be inflammatory, I actually have been confronted by those who wanted only to say just that and had no logical backing for it). If need be, we can take this off slashdot - I'd be glad to email about it, so as not to continue an off-topic discussion.
-Elthia
Check yer email.
>:)
-Elthia
((There's a whole debate about Québecois slang. Is it a true language? Or is it a deformation brought about by lack of rigor and education? The snobs and well-bred try to mimic Parisian French, but otherwise, you'll hear Québecois everywhere you go. ))
I don't _think_ it counts as a dialect, but it definitely counts as a creole of the original language. Much as (many will hate me for this) ebonics is a creole of English, a combination of English words and West African grammar (I think it's west african). Misunderstood by many to be a bastardization of the 'original' language, it is spoken as a birth-language by many, much as a dialect would be.
In trying to remember the difference between a creole and a dialect, I wound up having to look them up. Here's what I found (the relevant definition anyway, ignoring what they say about europeans in the West Indies and Louisiana):
creole:
"not capitalized : a language that has evolved from a pidgin but serves as the native language of a speech community "
A pidgin is defined as:
" a simplified speech used for communication between people with different languages"
Looking up dialect, I found:
"1 a : a regional variety of language distinguished by features of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation from other regional varieties and constituting together with them a single language"
Do you know the history of Quebecois? Seems to me that, if it was pidginized in the immigration process, it would count as a creole at least, even if it doesn't qualify as a dialect. It isn't bad education, it's a natural part of the evolution of language.
Oh, I just had to - languages are a hobby of mine. *smile*
-Elthia
Maybe this applies more to a couple of countries in Europe which feel their mother tonge should be the lingua franca.
In DOS you had the option to choose from many date formats (e.g. MM-DD-YYYY). There was a "British" (er, UK) format and a "French" format. Both were identical, but I don't think users of either country would stand using the format named after the land across the channel.
No flamebait here, just an example on how software should take differences into account, which Apple seems not to do in this case.
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"People ask FAQs all the time". - David Allen
A French-language Slashdot-style weblog called pssst...
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"People ask FAQs all the time". - David Allen
Here is a great site linked by Youhou quebec
"it (expletive deleted) 70 days"
Wouldn't that be more "took"? I don't see any naughty words here.
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
1) It's in English. Does anyone else see a problem sending an English letter from a Quebec law firm to the (supposedly) French-speaking author of a French language website in a French province?
2) Yahoo! seems to imply in its letter that they have a trademark on their website. Can this really be true? ... permanently cease use of ... its well-known web page design."
"Your company's unauthorized use of the YAHOO! trade-mark and the design of its web sites"(emphasis mine)
"... our client must insist that you immediately
So my question is, setting aside everything else about the site, would Yahoo! really have a case here if this was just an issue on page design? Or would this just be like they Etoys/etoy thing where they add in stuff to sway everyone's opinion in their favour, even if it's irrelevant?
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
(BTW: If any of you remember the Usenet Oracle, there's a web version of it at Yahoot! http://www.yahoot.com/oracle.html)
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See who's a dork today! Check out dork.to
I can pretty much understand where yahoo is coming from on this one. Usually when a parody is done they always alter the brand name a little so that you still know who the joke is on but no copywrites are infringed. roche
roche
Bah Humbug!
I can speak C, FORTRAN, BASIC, Pascal, VB and English, well some people might disagree with the last one.
After reading the article on multimedium, I think that Yahoo!'s lawyers were a bit hasty in their decision to throw a cease and desist at the web site that only had a link, submitted by a user. They did not even contact the author of the site.
It is just one more way to suppress free speech. If a site wants to post links to parody sites, it should be allowed, no matter how much plagerism is involved in the sites it links to. If a company has a problem with a parody site, it should contact the author of the site.
Well, I feel the limits of that spirit have been tested today.
That point being made, in good faith (having never received any cease and desist letter myself) and understanding the legal Yahoos' points, I've changed the parody site on the 2 points offensive to Yahoo! :-)
And asked it to be included in Yahoo!'s "Website_Parodies/Yahoo_/" category
Yahoo! is happy. We now return to our regular programming.
# groov3
1. This is one of the funniest things I've seen for a while. And I don't even speak french!
2. http://www.worldwidescam.com/parody.htm says "L.L. Bean Inc. v. Drake Publishers Inc." involved a parody of the well-known L.L. Bean catalogue of outdoor goods published in High Society, an adult magazine devoted to erotic entertainment. The parody was entitled "L.L Beam's Back-to-School-Sex-Catalog" and displayed a facsimile of Bean's trademark. It featured sexually explicit photographs using "products" that were described in a crudely humorous fashion. The article was labeled on the magazine's contents page as "humor" and "parody." After L.L. Bean sought injunctive relief on trademark infringement and trademark dilution theories, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine granted summary judgment to Bean on the dilution claim under Maine law. The First Circuit reversed, citing first amendment considerations. The court stated that the rights of a trademark owner extent only to prevent injurious unauthorized commercial uses of the mark by another, and that such rights to not entitle the owner to quash an unauthorized use of the mark by one who is communicating ideas or expressing points of view. In this framework, the court found that the dilution statute was inapplicable in this non-commercial context. There could be no "tarnishment," as required for one form of dilution, based solely on the presence of an unwholesome context in which a trademark is used without authorization when that context is non-commercial. Here, Drake Publishers never did use L.L. Bean's mark to identify or promote actual goods or services.
To those from less French places, this is somewhat analagous to Australians playing up that they're transported convicts, treating the "theoretically better born" English as inferior.
It's definitely very politically incorrect, and will be quite offensive to anyone sensitive to terms like "wop" or "paki." It's too bad that it's so offensive, as it's otherwise quite funny. The only upside is that it's pretty much going to be offensive to everyone, including Quebecois.
I guess it's funny in a sort of "South Park" way...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Almost anything counts as a dialect, whenever there is an objectively measureable difference in the dominant speech of one area or socio-economic group compared to another.
Quebec French is objectively and legitimately different than French spoken elsewhere. The same can be said of Paris, Marseilles, Toulouse, Wallonia or for that matter Vietnam, Haiti, Louisiana or Reunion. Ergo, calling it a dialect is legitimate, so long as we all understand that all types of French are dialects.
Quebec French shows relatively little creolisation, and calling it a creole is certainly a misnomer. All languages adopt words from other languages, but a creole, as you point out, evolves from a pidgin generally. There is no history of pidgin in mainstream Canadian French. Only the Micmacs and the Michif used genuine creoles as far as I can recall, and neither group much influenced Canadian French.
Guadeloupe, Martinique, Haiti, Reunion, Mauritius and many other places have creoles, Quebec French is unquestionably French - it has only a smattering of foreign terms, no more really than Paris French and less than any modern variant of English. Quebec French has not adopted any grammatical structure from English, nor does the grammar of Quebec French vary in any important way from the standard model of French. Quebec French is, in many respects, very conservative compared to other variants - which is mildly surprising considering the history of poor literacy in Quebec.
There have been some changes in pronunciation, but the same can be said of France - the French spoken today in Europe is not the same as that spoken 300 years ago. There is some variety in vocabulary, but nearly all of it comes from French terms that have shifted in meaning, or retained meanings lost elsewhere. Again, that happens to all languages everywhere.
Furthermore, "Ebonics" (Or Black American English or whatever term you like) has few aspects of a creole. Although there are still some people who believe that black English grammar comes from West African Bantu roots, there are very few linguists who believe this. Black English bears very little (or no) relationship with the English and French creoles of Lousiana, the Carolinas and the Carribean. It is a language that has evolved from the English imposed on African slaves - there is no consistent link between its grammar and the features of any African language. Most likely, it's evolution is just as natural as that separating the varieties of British English from American English, but lack of literacy and education tend to exacerbate the drift.
Ebonics can probably best be characterised as a group of dialects limited primarily to lower income blacks and groups in direct contact with them.
...there used to be a notice, part of Yahoo's copyright notice, saying they would tolerate reasonable parodies. Now that Yahoo is in the big leagues, I guess the lawyers are running things.
I remember a Weird Al Yankovic fan site that parodied Yahoo, and a joke on Isreali PM Benjamin Netanyahu called Net'an'Yahoo. Did Yahoo take action in those cases? No. Why the sudden change of policy? Does having your stock go up 8000% in three years mean one has to start acting like some dumb, litigious conglomerate?
I don't know how a case like this would play out in a Quebec court. Public opinion is likely to favour the local francophone over a big foreign Anglo company, but the judge may not see it that way.
The commentary in French on the page with Yahoo's letter is worth the trouble of reading, if you're French-compatible. This law firm can't even get the domain name right (pssst.qc.ca vs pssst.gc.ca).
Furthermore, the HTML source of http://altern.org/groov3/yahoo/ has been modified with the follwing embedded comment:
Youhou, avocats de Yahoo, l'auteur de ce site est dans le lien de courriel ci-dessous
Yoohoo! Yahoo lawyers, the author of this site is in the link below
C'est quioute, ça. C'est ben quioute.
Anyway, good luck with Yahoo, d'un québécois en exile.
...but with some background in dialectology, most of what you're saying is true. There is nothing less inherently correct or inherently French about the language of Montreal than the language of Paris. There is no one true French.
/tsIp/ vs /tip/), but most of my Manitoban and Northern Ontario students spoke like Canadians. Students from N.B. usually seemed to pick up some Acadian usages (which I confess, with shame, to having a hard time understanding.)
Whether you get something that could be passed off as Parisian French in school or something more legitimately Canadian depends on where you live and how much of the population is French there. My former students from Alberta and BC tended to to have illusions about the correctness of Paris French and often refused to use standard Canadian pronunciations (e.g
Vowel raising is common in Ontario and throughout the prairies - I hear it everytime I visit my family in Winnipeg. Most Canadians only hear it when speaking to people from the Maritimes because their accent is pronounced in other ways as well. Most Canadians do have a perceptibily different accent, but are much easier for most Americans to understand than people from other regions of their own country.
I'd like to say that's because there are so many Canadians on American TV, but that's not actually true.
Apparently the British version of MacOS differed from the US one in a few things, such as "Trash" being labelled "Wastebasket", as well as text in menus and dialogs. Nothing that some hacker with a copy of ResEdit couldn't put right.
Commonwealth English appears to be in decline, and has been for decades. Though at least now, with the Net (a bidirectional medium, unlike Hollywood and MTV), it goes both ways. The new international English won't be just American-minus-obscure-regionalisms, but will contain pithy Commonwealthisms. For example, how many Americans have you seen using the adjective/adverb "bloody" lately?
And the hardcore Americophobes can use RiscOS; which is so British it even comes in a Welsh version.
The rest of the joke is really just the ironic link targets, like a the a link to "Ottawa" (capital of Canada) pointing to a site about the semi-terroristic separatist group FLQ (now demised, as far as I know).
If you do consider writing down joual racist, I'm not really the butt of the joke being an anglo (English-speaking Québecer don't get me started), but I don't think any Québecer with any detectable sense of humour would find this offensive.
Steve 'Nephtes' Freeland | Okay, so maybe I'm a tiny itty
If you follow the link at the bottom of the page, you arrive on the same site, v1.0. And (most) of the links on that page do indeed point to real-looking but non-existing Yahoo url's. So they just stole the real Yahoo front page and put it up on their site. That's just lame, IMHO. And the parody notice at the bottom is much more concise, and it points to pssss. So I think Yahoo's mistake in sending legal threats to the wrong people is understandable here. I bet Andover's lawyers would do the same if someone just stole Slashdot's frontpage to attract more hits.
superblog.org: all your favourite blogs on o
The site may not be hosted at pssst.qc.ca, but Pssst's certainly behind it. Or one of their users.
Houby.
One of their users, definitely. But that doesn't make pssst responsible for it. It's a simple matter to look up the name of the person who registered the domain, and start there, rather than finding a site that is recommended to visit while waiting for searches to complete. The lawyers fsck'ed up, period.
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"Go Metallica. Die RIAA." -- Linus Torvalds
This may help you 'get' some of the jokes: http://www.hostie.net /hostie/glossaire/glossdex/glossdex.html
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When it's english it's parody, when it's quebecese it's infringement. WTF?!?
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If you look closely to the Pssst.qc.ca web page, they mention slashdot a little lower!! Talking aboot the Guiness Beer article!!!
Im from Quebec and didint know about this site. I'll probably be checking it out now, to see what it has to offer, I mean, cant be that bad if they know about slashdot and post the GOOD articles ( like that one aboot beer bubbles!!
Here is where they mentione it!!
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1017 - 2000-01-12 12:03:38 société | fulltet
Slashdot nous informe sur les travaux d'une équipe de scientifiques australiens qui a percé un des mystères du 21e siècle. Celui des bulles dans la Guiness; pourquoi descendent-elles plutôt que de remonter? À voir ; il y a même une animation digne de mention...
Translation :
Slashdot informes us of the works of an australian scientific team who have pierced the mistery of the 21st Century. The mistery about the Guiness beer bubbles; Why to they seem to fall to the bottom instead of floating to the top; there is even an animation which is worth mentionning!
" Microsoft Integration = Inbread software! " SpIcEz
Most interesting. I stand corrected. But don't defendants/respondants have choice of language?
-- Robert
Some years ago I was crossing the Detroit/Windsor border on the Ambassador bridge occasionally. There was a Macdonalds at the end of the bridge. It looked JUST like a US Macdonald's except for a little red maple leaf logo at the intersection of the two arches.
Turns out there was a story behind it...
It seems that when Macdonald's got their trademark, they only got it for the USA and somehow neglected Canada. Somebody in Canada checked - and then trademarked it. Then he cloned the ENTIRE Macdonald's Speedy Service System, including every last menu item (which were also not trademarked in Canada) and started opening franchises all over - including the one at the end of the Ambassador Bridge.
Well after some months a Macdonald's executive noticed, and a a company official was duly dispatched to order them to cease and desist. The owner laughed, pointed in the direction of the bridge, and asked the official if he had noticed the line across the bridge, right at the middle. Then he explained in small words that the line marked the boundary between the US and Canada, and he was in Canada now, and that Canada was a different country, and Macdonald's USA didn't own the trademark there, but HE did, and that they could go whistle.
So Macdonald's Speedy Service System sued (in Canadian court, of course). And lost. And the guy operated his restaurants for quite a while. Meanwhile Macdonald's began adding new food items and were careful to get the Canadian trademark on them. Macdonald's Canada couldn't clone them, of course, or at leaset not with the US names. But that didn't hurt them particularly.
Eventually Macdonald's US broke down and bought the guy out for some non-trivial number of megabux.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I seem to remember YaHooka.com having some kind of run-in with Yahoo a while ago. Since they are still online I guess things were worked out. Some very educational links on their site btw |-)
numb
This is indeed a parody, as is evident by the entries on the page - not being awake enough to translate the whole lot, suffice to say the various main links down the page that usually link to other parts of yahoo, are quite different, very ironic, and link to different sites. it is pretty obvious to a frenchspeaker, on viewing the contents of the page, that this is not a serious yahoo page.
though i think this sort of thing is protected by the laws on parody, that's not something i'm entirely clear on, nor is that the point of this post.
a typical example of this humour is in this little section at the bottom of the site:
pssst, ce site est une expérience
pour voir combien de temps mettrait Yahoo!, à se prévaloir de ses droits
un peu comme d'autres l'ont fait avant elle.
Résultat: de la mise en ligne originelle (3 novembre 1999) à la mise en demeure (12 janvier 2000), il s'est écoulé 70 jours. Bravo!
which translates to:
hey, this site is a test to see how long it takes Yahoo! to exercise its rights (in an ironic way, i presume), much as other have done before it. The result: from the beginning (3rd november 1999) to its demise 912 january 2000) it (expletive deleted) 70 days. Well done!
hope that helps
Fross
This is a parody, not a good one, put a parody. Most words come either from bad French (quebec version) or from our culture (politics, arts, ...) Most of the categories made me smile. This page can't be confused with a real Yahoo page because of the words used.
Just my 2 cents,
Benoit Potvin
Interestingly enough, the disclaimer page is a broken link. Never had one???
I'm going to take the words of the French-speakers in the forum here, and go against my initial feelings. It certainly doesn't LOOK like a parody to me, but then, I can't tell what the hell they're saying...
A couple of questions spring to mind, however... Is the addition of the word "Quebec" enough to keep Yahoo from having too much to gripe about? I thought that there were rules concerning parody and satire, and that you could "loosely" use logos as such, but I've always seen them modified to achieve some humorous effect. Yes, the Yahoo logo in this instance is modified, but only by addition. The actual Yahoo! logo is used fully intact, without modification otherwise.
I dunno how tech the laws are, and how such distinguishments are made, but it definately seems like Yahoo has a valid concern here. (Then again, the French-speakers are telling me it's obviously a parody.
Also, without the disclaimer being available (not that I would have been able to read it), there's really know way to know for someone who might not have ever been to the original Yahoo site. If you ask me, they're just trying to reap the rewards of the already established Yahoo.
Maybe it's me, but I really wasn't expecting to see that close a duplicate when I clicked on the link.
Another note, contrary to what was posted in the story, I DO feel that pssst has something to do with this.
Thank God this is over, If I had to type Yah...Doh!!!. Nevermind.
I'm belgian and speaks french, that's why i think i can contribute to this discussion. I'm not quite sure what kind of help Rob requested on the home page but if it's about the content of the yahoo quebec site here is my point:
The site is quite rude, using racist and "non-politically correct" terms to point to countries and topics.
This is a kind of humor usual in europe (specially belgium - see "man bites dog") and i LOVE it. It's not to be taken seriously and people should not be offended by those jokes.
The search engine was pointing to a XXX search engine; this should be why yahoo is upset. As a result of their actions the search engine now links to the Vatican's search engine (small country in Roma where the pope lives).
It looks like the lawyers that wrote the cease and desist letter did a lot of mistakes in the letter: the name of the recipient is false and that recipient is not the one that did the site, etc...
At the bottom of the site they say it's an experience to see if yahoo was going to react like others (link to a scientology article in english) did before. they say it took 70 days from the lauching of the site to the cease and desist letter and do not comment on that lenght.
There is also a second page with more links and no search engines.
They also insist about the differences between france-french and quebec-french which is a great joke subject in french speaking countries in europe (they include a link to yahoo france on quebec. Looks to me like a revenge.
Conclusion: Yahoo is upset cause of the racist and sexual content of the site. They did not a lot of research on who operated the site and the guys react quick.
Yahoo has no problem adding a link in their own directory for legit parodies, here
Well the lawyers have really goofed up by targeting the wrong people. :)
Its a bit like when slashdot was named as a defendant in the DeCSS saga
I have visited the website and I find it very very similar to a yahoo homepage and I could not find something like "This site is a parody and is in no way affiliated nor endorsed by Yahoo!"
Moreover, the Yahoo! wording is used and no attempt has been made to change it so that it could mean a parody, like YaHooka! had done in the past.
Well, a co-worker believed it was a Yahoo! site.
I would too, at first sight if I had not followed this story on slashdot.
I think Yahoo! has a valid case here but alas, they have knocked at the wrong door.
pssst, ce site est une expérience pour voir combien de temps mettrait Yahoo!, à se prévaloir de ses droits un peu comme d'autres l'ont fait avant elle.
Résultat: de la mise en ligne originelle (3 novembre 1999) à la mise en demeure (12 janvier 2000), il s'est écoulé 70 jours. Bravo!"
translation: (in a rush)
psst(link to psst'sites), this site is an experience to see how long Yahoo! will take to make his rights play a bit like others have done before them.
results: from the original cease and desist letter ( november, 3th, 1999 ) to the actual cease and desist letter, it took them 70 days. Bravo!"
I'm wondering what the connection is between psst and the authors of the site... it's quite unclear when reading this as it sounds like the authors received the letter..
. . . . . . .
may u!sh 2 sm!le at dz!z bad nn.!m!tat!ion
Others have touched on important issues, and I will add some: Quebec doesn't use common law, it uses civil code (moreso than Louisiana). Furthermore, it has restrictive (and highly controversial) language laws. I'm surprised the letter was in english. Must be from Toronto lawyers.
IANAL, but I don't see why the "Cease and Desist" letter shouldn't be ignored completely. It's written in english to an obviously french-language site. I don't believe anyone in quebec is legally presumed to be able to read english unless they have given indications they can.
Beyond the protection offered parody (and it is obviously such), the fact that Yahoo doesn't have a Quebec site (it does have a section for french language in
If this went to court, it would probably have to be in Quebec civil court. There civil code applies, the chief difference being the judge is not bound by precedents. AFAIK, defendants have choice of language anywhere in Canada, and certainly in Quebec. I doubt an action would succeed and better[worse], Yahoo could well be ordered to pay the defandants legal costs.
-- Robert
The sites' name isn't "Yahoo Quebec" but "Youhou Quebec", but it still uses the Yahoo banner. Also, it doesn't make fun out of Yahoo, but simply plagiarizes it's design and function as a moderated link-list.
Since this page would be listed in search-engines under the term 'yahoo' and most people won't see the difference immediately, quite a few would believe that they got on a page produced by the well known Yahoo!
And since quite a few links on the Quebec page lead to sites which contain sexual references or even p0rn (most of it has already been pulled by their respective hosting companies, i guess also because of Yahoo!), Yahoo may indeed get into some troubles with concerned parents.
Even though i don't agree with the cybersquatting laws, which will doubtless be applied here, taking a name of a well known site just to attract more visitors is extremely lame and certainly deserves to be taken action again.
As background, I am an articling student (i.e. graduated from law school and am now in the process of passing the bar) and I am specializing in IP matters (patents, trade-marks and copyright). I also used to work as a summer student for the law firm which sent the cease and desist letter - and they're one of the top IP law firms in Canada, no dummies usually.
The first legal misapprehension in this post is that the Quebec Civil Code applies to this matter. Copyright and trade-marks are Federal matters, and therefore the Civil Code does not apply. The Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act, which are Federal Acts, do apply. As such, you can use any of the official languages of Canada in a legal proceeding (which includes English).
The other biggy that people might not understand is that Parody is not a defence in Canada to copyright or trade-mark infringement.
The Perrier and the Michelin cases (trade-marks and copyright respectively) show that in Canada, as opposed to the U.S.A., if you parody someone and it harms the goodwill associated with their trade-mark, then that is actionable and you can be sued for it. The Perrier case involved a mock Perrier bottle dressed-up as a "Pierre-Eh?" bottle (mocking Pierre Trudeau, a famous prime-minister of Canada), and the Michelin case involved a uninionization dispute at a Michelin plant where the Michelin Man was depicted as crushing workers or something like that. In both cases the people sued were forced to stop using the trade-marks (and copyrighted images).
So be careful with your parodies!
the website "yahoo quebec", a parody of the famous american portal Yahoo!, has been created a few months ago by JH Roy, who does the radio show "Branché" at Radio Canada.
Strangely enough, he was mentioned in the threatening letter from Yahoo!, and hadn't even heard of it when we talked to him in the evening. ``I'll start by reading the letter and looking at the laws on cybersquatting and commerce brands, before I see if I take the site down'', he says. ``maybe i'll change the search engine and the logo''.
In his parody, JH Roy used Yahoo!'s logo, with the word "Quebec" added. The search engine searches in the database of a porn site; it's presumably these 2 details that annoyed Yahoo! the most. The letter seems to confirm this.
JH Roy says, ``I thought Yahoo! was the last compay around with a sense of humour. There are several parodies of Yahoo!, some of them are even listed on Yahoo itself!''.
Clément Laberge, who maintains the weblog pssst!, and to whom Yahoo!'s threatenign letter is mostly addressed to, has up to next monday (17 jan) to tell Yahoo's lawyers that he has taken the site down. Which he can't do, since he has no control over the site.
Hi fellow Slashdotters ! Here is my humble translation of the mmdeium article. I'm French, so be kind to my English writing. Sorry if this someone already post a similar thing while I'm typing this.
pssst! formaly warned
Montreal (January 12 2000) - the pssst! website from Quebec has been formaly warned by the American company Yahoo! to have allegedly been the author of the Yahoo!Quebec parody!. The editor in chief of Multimédium, Dominic Fugère, and somenone called Mathieu, whose names appeared with the bottom of the parodied page, are also quoted in the formal warning.
The Yahoo!Quebec site, a parody of the famous American portal Yahoo!, was created a few months ago by Jean-Hugues Roy, organizer of the Branché emission in Radio-Canada.
Surprisingly, this one was not quoted in the formal warning and was thus not well-informed yet when we joined it in evening. " I will begin with carefully read the formal warning and will re-examine the laws on the cybersquatting and other laws on the marks of trade before deciding if I will withdraw the site, answers it. I perhaps will modify the search engine and the graphics of the logo. "
In his parody, Jean-Hugues Roy used the exact logo of Yahoo!, to which it added the word " Quebec ". As for the search engine of the parodied page, it searches the data base of a directory of porn sites. These are the two details which probably exacerbated the susceptibility of Yahoo! Inc. Extracts of the formal warning, sent by the lawyer company Smart & Biggar from Ottawa, seem to confirm this assertion.
" I believed that Yahoo! was the last big company to have the sens of humour, affirms Jean-Hugues Roy. There are several parodies of Yahoo!. Some are even indexed in their search engine! "
Clement Laberge, the person in charge of the pssst! website, to which the formal warning is mainly intended, has until next Monday, January 17, to inform the lawyers of Yahoo! that he withdrew the site, thing which he cannot do by himself because he doesn't have control on the site.
Thanx to Bablefish for the canvas.
Hope this helps
OffTopic addition : Any Linux/Free Software job in Toulouse, France ?
gdon
Here's the thing: spoken Québecois is a variation of France French. Technically, we write the same French (with a few "Canadianisms" thrown in) but our spoken French is radically different, filled with expressions and pronounciation variants that even the French have a lot of problem to understand. When we speak in Québecois before a French, it's not unusual to get a blank stare, followed by 'Pardon?'
There's a whole debate about Québecois slang. Is it a true language? Or is it a deformation brought about by lack of rigor and education? The snobs and well-bred try to mimic Parisian French, but otherwise, you'll hear Québecois everywhere you go. And so, even though everyone speaks it, Québecois is considered 'vulgar' or common by many people. (Some Québecois artists claim otherwise and sing in Québecois, but that's another story.)
So, most of Québec's search engines are coupled with French ones, because we have the same written language. But Yahoo! Québec's humour rests in this: it is written in an imitation of spoken Québecois, and belittles the small-town, close-minded Québecois mentality.
That's why, for instance, under the listing "Régions", you see the following headers: "Us", "Africans", "The South". Most small-minded Québecois without education would only recognise these three distinctions.
Under the news box, we see items such as, "René Simard enceint" ('René Simard [Québec artist, male] pregnant'; cheap joke.) "Gouverne Ment" means 'Government' but is a play on words of 'Govern' and 'lie'. And so on.
So, it's definitely a parody. It's funny, too. Just in case it wasn't obvious, tabarnak!