A regular reader recommended this piece on The Conversation by the author of Montreal After Dark, about evolutions in the city’s nightlife.
Although the title and the book page discuss Montreal, The Conversation article doggedly writes “Montréal” which gets on my nerves. Maybe they have a house style. If they do, it is wrong.
A dollar store on Mont‑Royal East is closing, posting a sign blaming the city’s business tax. But then the owner also blames the summer pedestrianization of the street, and a coda brings in Peter Sergakis, although the item doesn’t say he’s the landlord.
I actually bought some wrapping paper from there a couple days ago and was sad to see it was closing. It was a bit more like a general store than a dollar store. The sign says it was taxes that did them in but it was probably more likely that it was the two big Dollaramas on either side of the store.
Montreal businesses need to get with the times and start thinking local. No one is coming from outside your neighbourhood to come shopping at your store – especially not a dollar store.
What CE said. As usual, failing businesses love to blame anyone but themselves. Blaming taxes or pedestrianized streets can seem sympathetic to some; blaming similar businesses that outcompeted you less so.
The city’s biggest sponge park is in limbo as Quebec delays its approval.
DisgruntledGoat 04:05 on 2025-12-21 Permalink
Ivory Coast is now Côte-d’Ivoire, no issue with that.
As anglos we don’t spell it correctly as Muntreal.
Kate 11:04 on 2025-12-21 Permalink
There are always going to be exonyms and endonyms and they often involve compromises. Where we draw these lines often has history or politics behind it. Here, putting the accent on Montreal when writing English is a political statement. Only French is correct.
What I’d like to know is whether these writers give the name its French pronunciation when speaking English. If you’re going to bend the knee, bend it all the way.
Goat, we don’t write “Paree” either – what’s your point?
p.s. I’m not the only one ruffled by orthography.
Ian 11:53 on 2025-12-21 Permalink
@goat
MAWNchree-ALL, surely
jeather 14:59 on 2025-12-21 Permalink
I see a lot of use of Türkiye instead of Turkey in English. I guess I just don’t care enough about the accent in Montreal whether it’s there or not.
But let’s not be silly, phonetic spellings are not “correct” in English. They are sometimes used to denote specific accents in writing, but usually only lower status ones.
jeather 16:29 on 2025-12-21 Permalink
To be very clear, I will never spell Montreal with an accent in English because I am way too lazy to fuck around with keyboards like that. It’s why I spell one friend’s name correctly on my phone, which has been fixed to autocorrect to the accent version, but never on my computer.
Josh 11:36 on 2025-12-22 Permalink
jeather, The Türkiye thing is as a result of a request by the Turkish government in 2022: https://globalnews.ca/news/8978180/canada-change-turkey-to-turkiye/
Ian 13:16 on 2025-12-22 Permalink
Even Kiev is now Kyiv
But of course I don’t spell Montreal phonetically haha, it’s just a cultural shibboleth. Much like telling what part of Canada people are from by how they pronounce Toronto.
jeather 13:50 on 2025-12-22 Permalink
I’m not saying it’s wrong to follow Turkiye’s preferred spelling, just that English often uses accents/diacritics for places that use them in their main language, and Montreal is officially a unilingual city.
I could tell that Heated Rivalry was done by a Montrealer because it had some random extra who had one line as a Boston airport employee pronounce the city name correctly.
Kate 14:24 on 2025-12-22 Permalink
I imagine enough Turks became aware that, in English, calling something a turkey – a movie, for example – was not a compliment…
dhomas 15:00 on 2025-12-22 Permalink
We travel to Italy, not Italia; Germany not Deutschland; Sweden, not Sverige. When writing in English, we use English spelling.