Archive : 2011

Memorable moments from the world of sports

  In baseball, all that agitated stomping around in front of the umpire is good for a laugh. But have you ever wondered if a major league  manager or player has ever won an argument with the ump? Well, it tur...

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English and its crazy spellings

  Immediately following the column on “mic,” I heard from M. “When we start to spell ‘enough’ the way it sounds,” M wrote, “then I’ll worry about ‘mic’ a...

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Populist protests

  Capitalism as a villain, as portrayed by the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, which expanded to Canada, including Winnipeg, carries on a populist tradition in North America that occasionally arises to vent pent-up frustrat...

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Being old is being comfortable

  Have you ever been guilty of looking at others your own age and thinking, “surely I can’t look that old?” I guess that’s human nature — and denial!  Here’s a little story...

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Not everything scotch is Scottish

  In the suspense novel, Charley’s Web, by Canadian writer, Joy Fielding, one of the characters says, “As far as I could see ... he got off scot-free. What does that mean — scot-free?”  ...

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Remembering a forgotten war

  Canadians may know about Laura Secord — at least the chocolates — and Americans may know about The Battle of New Orleans, a  pop hit from the 1950s by Johnny Horton, but anything else about the War of 1812 r...

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