Comments on: Protests, corruption and poutine in sans-serif Montreal

By: MAR

MAR — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 03:10:24 +0000

It’s Montrealer or Montrealais (en francais).

Or at least that’s what everyone used when I lived there, and what I used to put in speeches when I wrote them in Canada. I’ve never heard Montrealean before, and neither has Wiktionary.

Great piece. I was sceptical about what someone would glean from the city in such a short time, but you’ve captured it very nicely, Guy.

By: Dogs breakfast

Dogs breakfast — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 07:17:19 +0000

Yes, wistful.

Not of montreal per se, just of another time, that probably never existed.

By: alexh

alexh — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 07:36:49 +0000

Great article! Having spent 2 years there, reading your article brought back a lot of memories and gave a few good laughs. The descriptions in the beginning were hilarious.

By: Doug

Doug — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 03:31:51 +0000

I love the fact that Canada is somehow a conversation between the French and the Scots, with the Americans on the sidelines. As a Scot who lived in Canada, and loves Paris, it sounds like heaven.

By: Pronto

Pronto — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:14:12 +0000

As an ex-Montrealais, I am impressed by how much you’ve absorbed about the place and the angles you’ve taken. One thing you’ve missed is that the strength of the state in Quebec has more to do with state as counter-weight to commerce than with social democracy. Historically, the English and Scots had the commerce, the Quebecois, the state. A strong state was the defender of French (and formerly Catholic) identity. This also partly explains the tradition of patronage and corruption.

By: Jaybee

Jaybee — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 19:58:04 +0000

Thanks Guy. You have made this country boy a true citizen of the world! Now I will be thinking of Montreal and Bremen at least once a day.

By: Guy Rundle

Guy Rundle — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 11:59:33 +0000

you repose your cas on LP? Yr going to be going to a lot of overrated nightclubs in foreign cities then

By: michael r james

michael r james — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 11:34:44 +0000

Hmm. If one Googles you can find lots of variants. Here is an example from a blog about Habitat-67:

“Tatyana: I have been asking similar questions of Montrealeans (ers?)”
.
It’s Montrealites, Torontassians and Ottawoons. We sound like Belgian aliens on Star Trek.
.
Ahem. “..ers”, actually.
Posted by: PatrickH on October 8, 2008 9:02 AM

Montrealeans seems a bit of a blog thing perhaps riffing off the bizarre Raëlian cult (founded by a French dude or is it Belgian?)?

Of course I used Wiki: (-ers) but actually French Wiki: Montréalais, Montréalaise

But surely this is the clincher: my 1994 edition of LP Canada: “Montrealer”.

Monsieur Rundle, je repose ma cas.

By: AR

AR — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 09:54:27 +0000

CoalT - I can’t recall ever meeting an Albertian (they’re not the ones in that SBS series set on a limitless plain in a roadhouse are they?) but, having never been across the altlantic river or sullied my boots with the muck of NA, unfortunately I’ve had the misfortune of meeting far too many Quebecois in Euroland (the french especially loathed them, despite, or because of, de Gaulle’s maniacal “vivre Quebec libre!” in 67, having just given OTAN the arse.

By: Michael Hughes

Michael Hughes — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 09:50:40 +0000

Ah Pierre; he of the fuddle duddle.

By: Coaltopia

Coaltopia — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 09:44:28 +0000

I think you mean the Albertanese AR.

By: AR

AR — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 09:31:23 +0000

Yeh, got it, but life is too short to read so much about so little. “Canada’s nice if you’re fond of ice” but Quebecois are the dumbest, craziest people currently polluting the planet, apart of course from the sui generis amerikans.

By: Microseris

Microseris — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 05:23:57 +0000

Your a wordsmith Guy.

By: Guy Rundle

Guy Rundle — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 05:10:17 +0000

michael

no, its montrealeans. i broke habit of a lifetime and looked it up.

it was the train station, not the airport. article context makes that clear

yes, greater area has that population. but the greater is very very great indeed

By: paddy

paddy — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 05:09:41 +0000

Guy Rundle and the fonts.
What a lovely rare, rich meal that was.
Ta.

By: michael r james

michael r james — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 05:06:24 +0000

Nice piece, and it is going to induce wistful musings for at least the rest of my day. (And maybe tonight watch my DVD of The Score, in which heist-supremo de Niro runs a jazz club, and lives in a to-die-for apartment in Old Montreal.) Like Saugoof at 1:24 pm, I have had the occasional desire to live there. And as a once-Parisian I promise not to make fun of Montrealers. It must be quite nice in late autumn, before the snow piles 2 m high on the sidewalks. (FYI, it is 32 degrees on east coast Australia today — Brisbane & Sydney, god knows probably 42 in Melbourne.)

Incidentally I reckon it is a bit unfair to pick on Montreal’s airport (or whatever) as a 70s relic because such things are littered all over north America: JFK, Dulles, LAX. Not to mention Paris’ CDG-T1 and its CBD of La Defense. (All of these are the 70s by way of the 50s imagination.)

Nitpicks:
Montrealeans: the correct demonym is Montrealers.
1.5 million population: greater Metro area is 3.8 million, it is in fact a very large city, 2nd largest French city in the world.

By: archibald

archibald — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 04:55:50 +0000

Interesting stuff Guy - not least on the college fees stuff. That idea, that university education does not merely benefit the direct recipient, seems to be one which is rarely articulated these days and yet it was the basis on which so much of the system was constructed. I had the misfortune to hear the current occupant of the chair ABC RN’s Counterpoint spouting the now conventional user pays line - as if there were no other conception of education but private gain.

By: Tom Cowie

Tom Cowie — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 04:34:52 +0000

Enjoyed this.

By: Mr Tank

Mr Tank — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 04:24:04 +0000

Saugoof, I’m gonna repeat your quote over and over until I remember it. Watch out Canucks I’ve finally got a decent line about Canada to throw at you! Thanks Mate.

By: Coaltopia

Coaltopia — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 04:07:10 +0000

Brilliant piece. I’m now going to find places to slip-in “righteous nihilism” here and there.

By: Matt Hardin

Matt Hardin — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 03:57:29 +0000

Great piece, any chance Crikey could move it to a sans serif font?

By: Nici

Nici — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 03:14:34 +0000

God, I miss the future.

By: Saugoof

Saugoof — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 02:24:44 +0000

Can’t remember who said it but there’s a quote about Canada that goes “Canada could have had French cuisine, US know-how and British government. Instead they got French government, British know-how and US cuisine”

That said, I absolutely love Montreal. I can’t even think of a specific reason why but I have never been in any other city that gave me that same instant feeling of “I want to live there” like I got the first time I went to Montreal. Even if the food is diabolical and the winters make Moscow look tropical.