Why You Should Never Take Kate Carraway to IKEA
Subway Suicide Statistics Released
Street Heart
Newsstand: November 27, 2009
Molson Coors Canada is busy apologizing after promising to take down billboards displaying a slogan that had some Hogtown residents in a lather. Adam Moffat, brand marketing manager for Coors Light, said that, after receiving thirty to forty complaints yesterday, his company decided to remove the offending signage (with the tagline "Colder than most people from Toronto") that was originally scheduled to be up until September. According to some other sources, however, many residents seem to be taking it in stride—after all, Torontonians may be cold, but they're not humourless. We're not talking about people from Whitby or anything.*
Whilst we're on the topic of messes, the Office of the Prime Minister might want to invest in some baby wipes after a press release announcing a five-year, fifty-million-dollar program to drive federal initiatives and infrastructure programs in Northern Canada drew the ire of its target audience with an unfortunate spelling error. When spelled correctly, Iqaluit means "many fish" in Inuktitut but, when an extra "u" is added (as was the case in yesterday's release), the meaning changes to "people with unwiped bums," according to Sandra Inutiq from the office of the Languages Commissioner of Nunavut. "It's not exactly a nice term."
Considering how the NDP narrowly escaped changing their name on Sunday to an acronym that, when pronounced in French, closely resembles a homosexual slur in Quebec, it's frankly nonsensical that Liberal spokeswoman Jill Fairbrother isn't taking advantage of her opponents' gaffes—she's dismissing a recent story suggesting a planned motion of non-confidence in order to spur a November election as "pure speculation from unnamed sources." (Even Dalton McGuinty's decision to implement a harmonized sales tax can't kill this buzz!) Unless, of course, they're looking to complete this political hat trick of fail with their own delicious linguistic blunder. The week isn't over yet, after all…
And speaking of McGuinty, he's expected to call what the Toronto Sun is calling a "real dogfight of a by-election" today in the riding of St. Paul's that, according to the Toronto Star, could have "national implications." Consider our breaths officially bated.
Not to belabour the concept of poop but, though some of us might rather go on a dream date with Councillor Rob Ford than step foot in Lake Ontario, Toronto's beaches are apparently clean. If by "clean" they mean "not completely filled with nastiness," that's still an arguable point.
And in other crappy news, Toronto Hydro revealed yesterday that the stray voltage scare last winter, which shocked children and killed dogs, cost $14.3 million to address. Really. You had to whine about the price tag? Awesome.
Finally, if you were wondering why you were held up on the subway yesterday evening and haven't looked at a newspaper, television, nor computer screen since you arrived home, Coxwell Station was shut down because some genius fired a gun.
*The author of today's Newsstand is originally from Whitby and holds her hometown in the highest regard.
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I'm surprised there's a need for a word to describe "people with unwiped bums" in inuktitut or any other language...
The typo story annoyed me...apparently 50% of the correspondence received by the office of the Languages Commissioner of Nunvaut has the capital misspelled. I understand that typos occur but 50% seems excessive. Perhaps Iqaluit needs to combine a tourism campaign with a "How to spell 'Iqaluit'" guide.
The awesome thing is that, in an related story, a Harper spokesperson (to paraphrase) was all, "Yeah, well, The Canadian Press spelled it wrong in, like, December, so... shut up, you guys." [NOTE: not a direct quote.]
"The typo story annoyed me... apparently 50% of the correspondence received by the office of the Languages Commissioner of Nunvaut"
Personally, I think that clean-up of the water at many of Toronto's beaches is a tremendous achievement. While it remains a personal decision whether to swim in the lake or not, I think the sarcasm is misplaced and uncalled for.
Molson-Coors says sorry, but I'm sure deep down they're thrilled with the fact that whiny Torontonians are giving them national publicity for a local billboard.
Who cares, I say? People here ARE a bit cold.. It's part of our charm!
We may be cold, but at least we wipe our bums.
Who markets a beer as "cold"? Especially Coors; it sucks no matter what temperature it's served...
Also, I grew up in Whitby so I got a kick out of that last line.
Thanx lori!
re: Coors ads. These ads about people being cold in Toronto are probably the least annoying or 'offensive.' Most of the other ones are misogynistic to varying degrees, others make fun of students who don't take Business. What's most offensive, though, is the beer itself. Gah, who drinks that swill!?
For the record, it's essential that people in cities be a bit 'cold.' We'd all go nutters if everyone on the subway tried to strike up some small-talk, if everyone 'had' to say "Hello" to everyone they passed on the street, etc.
This.
"This." Huh!?
It just means I agree heartily and have nothing additional to say.
QFT
Personally I can't believe they got that many complaints. Who has time to be offended by something so trivial, which actually does have a touch of humour about it?
It appears "thirty to forty" people have that kind of time. Apparently thirty to forty people represents millions.
Coors, like they did with their beer, pussed out.
What they should have said is that Coors is like Ontario... flat and watery.
HA!!! Good one! I love wholesome jokes
Virtually all of the comments on the Coxwell shooting article confirm exactly what I expected of the Sun readership. Like this (representative) gem:
"Toronto was much like a beautiful, manicured garden that took about 130 years of blood, sweat, and tears to cultivate into a pleasant landscape admired by all. Then about 35 years ago, some inept gardener introduced foreign and "exotic" plants into our once beautiful garden that resulted in city that's now going to weed."
Sounds like soooomebody wants to be the gardener who shrieks "Put your mouth on the curb!" and shoots the errant, uh, dandelions.
I love you Torontoist and fellow commenters.
Good lord! I just spent five minutes over there that I'll never get back just shaking my head in wonderment. Oh, the insight!
I love the fact that, instead of reading the last comment left (yours) before chiming in with their own two cents, the hits just keep on coming: "Once again we have caribana followed by an increase in shootings. happens every year."
Yeah! It's like the Toronto Sun is just a front organization for Stormfront. Which doesn't surprise me at all. Just as Torontoist is a front organization for the Association of Canadian Advertisers (don't think I'm fooled, Lori, by your surreptitious coverage of Coors).
As someone who was delayed coming home yesterday, doesn't watch much TV and used to subscribe to the now dead TTC updates feed, I appreciate the update on what happened at Coxwell station. Here I thought I was the only one.
The Coors ad wasn't offensive so much as it was stupid, like most of the ads in that moronic campaign.
What does it say about a beer that you have to market it as "cold," an attribute in no way inherent to the product itself?
They aren't marketing the beer, they're marketing the lifestyle they want associated with their beer.
In this case the lifestyle is "being better than the people of Toronto", which is like shooting fish in a barrel because everyone hates Toronto.