So what's all the flap this week?
Well, Justin Trudeau, spouse and kids raised a bit of a stir by posing for their Christmas card photo in real coyote fur coats, plus a fur blanket.
So of course the PETA people got all gaggled up and the fur started to fly.
I have a feeling that Justin, who might just be a little bit of a chip off the block on his father's side, was relishing the attention. After all, he's a politician first, just like the old man. He knew what he was doing.
He claimed he was just happy to be modelling clothes that come from the Canada Goose winter wear clothing line that his friend just happens to own.
So not only were his constituents getting a Christmas greeting from their MP, they were also getting an advertisement from Canada Goose. So it's a win-win situation for the Trudeaus who probably got to keep the furs and for Canada Goose that got the free ad.
Nice work.
That made me seek out the Christmas card that came from our premier, Brad Wall just to see what he and his crew were bedecked with and it was pretty pedestrian cloth coats which you might expect from a Saskatchewan boy. And they're posed on a bridge, probably near Swift Current. The bridge isn't washed out and it doesn't appear as if Brad is poised to jump off it so all is well with our Saskatchewan political and yuletide messages. It'll be tough for the NDP to find fault with that "Wall government decision."
What else did I learn this week?
I was informed the most irritating word for 2010 was the expression "whatever." The Marist pollsters stated 39 per cent of the survey respondents stated that this was the most irksome word in North America this year. It's not necessarily the word "whatever" that is so ignoble, it's the dismissive manner, and irritating tone in which it is usually delivered that make it so grating. The fact that it is now badly overused, just adds to the irritation.
The next most disliked was the word "like" as in "like I said to Sandra, and like she was soooo mean, and like Marvin had to butt in and add his two cents worth and like I was sooo mad at both of them and like I could just punch the two of them, like I really mean it, like I'm really, really mad."
Like, it's that kind of like, that gets like kinda under our skin, like you know!
A total of 28 per cent of respondents didn't like like.
The phrase "You know what I mean," got the disapproval rating from 15 per cent for third place.
I, like, sorta agree with those three and then I'll add my own personal dislikes to the mix.
The phrase that makes me cringe now is "at the end of the day." It seems every person attempting to conclude what they think is a vital point, inevitably will end it with the old "at the end of the day," phrase. Enough already.
Another irritant word is "basically." Again, half the statements made in today's society appear to be begin with the word basically. I don't know why, but it's annoying, just slightly more irritating than "the bottom line," statement that always seems to accompany the aforementioned "at the end of the day," phrase.
How do we make them quit doing that, though?
