Hazen Hansard a lifetime Montrealer, probably best known for winning the Christie vs. York case that greenlighted racial discrimination in Canada in 1939.
He was visiting Auckland New Zealand.
Hazen was chowing down on a sandwich at a posh function.
The hostess Marjorie Ellingham, 54, had, for reasons only she really knew, decided that it'd be fun if everybody got food poisoning from the affair.
Her plan was to kill herself. Everybody would get food poisoning but her extra-large dose would prove fatal.
So nobody would suspect that she killed herself, at least that was her plan.
But little did she know that one of the attendees would bring home a sandwich laced with strychnine and feed it to her son, who subsequently died.
Ellingham, was so distraught by the fact that her stupid prank had killed a little child that she then killed herself via this same means, with a poisoning sandwich 10 times as strong,
Hansard seems to have been entirely snubbed by the internets, barely a mention of his long and respectable law career.
In the mid 60s HH was President of the Canadian Bar Association and an Honorary lifetime membership in the American Bar Association. He suggested reforms of getting US prosecutors to eliminate the fifth amendment. He proposed changes to the bankruptcy act, the appointment of judges, supported breathalyzer tests, offshore Newfoundland mineral rights and denied that separatism was a real force.
He was on many corporate boards and was a member in the University Club. He died in 1985 at age 80, leaving a son Hugh and a daughter Pippa and six grandchildren.
He was visiting Auckland New Zealand.
Hazen was chowing down on a sandwich at a posh function.
The hostess Marjorie Ellingham, 54, had, for reasons only she really knew, decided that it'd be fun if everybody got food poisoning from the affair.
Her plan was to kill herself. Everybody would get food poisoning but her extra-large dose would prove fatal.
So nobody would suspect that she killed herself, at least that was her plan.
But little did she know that one of the attendees would bring home a sandwich laced with strychnine and feed it to her son, who subsequently died.
 |
| The young poisoning victim |
Hansard seems to have been entirely snubbed by the internets, barely a mention of his long and respectable law career.
In the mid 60s HH was President of the Canadian Bar Association and an Honorary lifetime membership in the American Bar Association. He suggested reforms of getting US prosecutors to eliminate the fifth amendment. He proposed changes to the bankruptcy act, the appointment of judges, supported breathalyzer tests, offshore Newfoundland mineral rights and denied that separatism was a real force.
He was on many corporate boards and was a member in the University Club. He died in 1985 at age 80, leaving a son Hugh and a daughter Pippa and six grandchildren.
Grosvenor Body shop on St. Remi comes by its name honestly. It migrated from Grosvenor and Sherbrooke (NW corner) in Westmount. It was a Champlain station.
ReplyDeleteMy French wife reacts as if slapped every time I say "Gene Tallin".
ReplyDeleteDespite our Blog Leader's humorous attempts at malapropisms (Gene Tallin, eh?), New Englanders are perhaps the most notorious at mangling correct French pronunciation, either deliberately or unintentionally.
ReplyDeleteEven I as an Anglo cringe whenever I hear Burlington and Plattsburgh TV ads and commentators mispronounce French names such as Benoit into "Ben-oyt", and Hebert as "Hee-burt". Arrgh!
Perhaps Quebec's notorious OLF ought to open an office south of the border. They might actually do some good for once! ;-)
One perhaps hapless "offender" is TV local yokel news reporter Jack LaDuke who evidently doesn't care or even know that the word duke is masculine. (It's Leduc, you old geezer!)
I could surely create an entire website on this topic, but for the moment, the floodgates are now open for you, dear readers, to add to my short list of such liguistic outrages--if you feel the urge to do so, that is.
Attention, Blog Moderator:
ReplyDeleteSince I notice you have changed the format of your "Leave your comment" page, the preview feature no longer pops up--as it should--, which has resulted in my having sent more than one post in the "Hazen Hansard's..." topic.
Therefore, will you kindly publish only my latest, re-written post, thank you.
@UrbanLegend
ReplyDeleteI went to high school in Massachusetts with tons of people with French surnames. The teachers often mispronounced them but sometimes the people themselves mispronounced their own names. Can you mispronounce your own name or is your name however you decide to say it??
My favorites were Boisvert, pronounced "Boys-vert" and "Arsenault" pronounced "Arse-A-nolt" or "Arse-not"
Yes, I suppose we could have a lot of "fun" exposing this "manglage"--with my apologies, bien sur, to my French friends.
ReplyDeleteBelanger "Americanized" as "Bell-injure"
Tanguay as "Tang-way"
Laverdiere as "La-virdy-er"
Gilles pronounced like the British name "Giles"
Gagnon as "Gag-non"
Durocher as "Dur-oh-sure"
Dussault as "Duss-salt"
Langlois as "Lang-loys"
And the list goes on.
Certainly One of the most memorably "cringeworthy" outrages I remember was some American TV-dinner commercial which pronounced Au Gratin as "Og-rotten". Seriously! And with a food product no less! Good grief! :-(
No doubt certain names and words of other languages besides French are routinely mispronounced out of sheer, non-malicious ignorance, and while it might be humourous to some, it must surely rankle others.
I can understand that someone in the U.S. born with a French name would feel it perfectly normal to pronounce it as they damn well please, while we Canadians are more conscious of their correct, historic origins--as well we should be.
If it's any consolation, I'll leave you with this link:
http://franceusa.blogspot.com/2008/01/french-place-names-in-united-states.html