New Brunswick — Who needs to know how to correctly spell the name of New Brunswick’s capital city? Not someone running to represent that same city…apparently.
As reported by CBC on Tuesday afternoon, the People’s Alliance fixed a spelling mistake on signs posted all over Fredericton’s south side that advertised Dr. Bonnie M. Clark running as the Alliance’s candidate for Fredercton South, rather than Fredericton South. In response to the misspelling, Leader Kris Austin stated that correct spelling is much like duality in the province: it’s just not needed.
“We’re in a day and age where we don’t need to know how to spell or write coherently!” shouted Austin toward our reporter. “There’s basically spellcheck on everything: the computers, the phones, everything except giant-sign printers apparently. But spellcheck is a waste of government money anyway — just like French rights.”
The Manatee prodded Austin on whether he thinks this type of oversight could be a representation of the fact that he and his candidates may be too inexperienced to actually run a government and that a mistake like this could be indicative of future, more serious errors.
“That’s just stupid!” he continued to shout, insisting that he wasn’t shouting and it’s just how he communicates. “Just because someone makes a mistake doesn’t mean that they will always make mistakes, does it? And it wasn’t even us who made the mistake, we just didn’t notice the mistake. Is it really our responsibility to make sure that the signs we post promoting our own candidates have accurate information on them? I don’t think so.”
Austin continued arguing that typos like this are harmless and even if his government were riddled with typos it wouldn’t have any impact on New Brunswickers whatsoever.
“First of all, most of ’em can’t read anyway — so we’re safe there. And the ones who can read are the brightest ones here, so I’m sure they’ll be able to figure out what we mean, even if it isn’t spelled out correctly.”
Beyond simple spelling issues, the Alliance’s supporters seem unable to communicate with any kind of clarity. During CBC’s live debate last week, PANB fanboys turned out in droves to comment incomprehensible, run-on sentences supporting their Glorious Leader.
“time for a change vote panb this electin tired of red and blue well times up galant, chris austin is for the people vote purple!!!!!” typed angry Austin groupie Jeff Olden of Harvey.
“Wow ok seems like no one knows how to talk in a debate let kriss talk hes the best at talkin vote purple time for a change!!!!” commented another illiterate Austin fan, who at least came close to spelling Austin’s first name correctly.
New Brunswickers found several errors in the party’s published platform, as well as on other signs along our province’s highways.
“So one of these signs shows the colours red and blue, with the phrase ‘Had enough of these Two?’ — but what I don’t understand is why the ‘T’ in ‘two’ is capitalized. It makes no sense,” said perplexed Frederictonian Samantha Lowell. “This is mean, but it seems like they’re trying to instill this fear of a second language into people who can’t even speak their first language properly — and it’s working.
“God, this province…” she trailed off, shaking her head and sighing.
Austin told us that, if elected, he will do everything in his power to guarantee that New Brunswickers no longer have to deal with the anxiety that comes along with correct spelling and grammar, and will eliminate all spelling tests in schools — in both English and French.
Disagree, spelling and grammar are very important in either french or english. Thats one of the reasons our young children cannot read or write properly. Spellcheck is just a tool on a computer.
Ah, a sign to perfectly match their candidate’s competence, too.