The Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) is again at it with one other marketing campaign, and this time it includes hockey.
With the Montreal Canadiens kicking off their Japanese Convention Ultimate sequence in opposition to the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday, the province’s language authority took to social media to encourage followers to root for the workforce “within the language of Maurice Richard.” The put up pointed to a glossary of greater than 75 French hockey phrases the OQLF desires followers to place to make use of.
Not everyone seems to be within the temper to have fun in French, although, together with francophones, who voiced their distaste for the frequent over on X.
Stéphane Prud’homme, a verified person on X, pushed again with a bilingual declaration of his personal: “Go Habs Go! CH you are one of the best! We stay in a rustic with 2 official languages, now we have the proper to decide on.”
One other person was significantly much less measured: “We’ll do what we would like. The OQLF can go to hell. The language gestapo does not come into my dwelling.”
Maybe the sharpest critique got here from Jean Chouinard, who identified what he noticed as an apparent inconsistency within the marketing campaign: “So chanting Olé Olé Olé… that is OK, it isn’t in English, it is advantageous? The good geniuses of the OQLF.”
The backlash feels acquainted to Canadiens followers.
Final 12 months, the OQLF pressured the STM to replace “Go Habs Go!” on city buses with “Allez Canadiens Allez!” The transfer sparked rapid public outrage, and the province’s French-language minister in the end declared that “Go Habs Go” is a part of Quebec tradition. The buses switched the slogan back this previous winter.
The brand new glossary covers all the pieces from lancer frappé (slap shot) and échappée (breakaway) to tour du chapeau (hat trick). It additionally flags a couple of English borrowings the OQLF would like followers drop: puck is discouraged in favour of rondelle, and jeu de puissance is listed as an imprecise calque of “energy play,” with avantage numérique as the popular various.
Whether or not any of it sticks with followers driving the excessive of a Sport 1 win is one other query fully.
The total vocabulary information is offered on the OQLF’s website.