Columnists 'Way too much time on their Hands"

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Norm (FL) Neil (RL) Barry (RR)

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uploaded by Barry ORegan

Ottawa Sun Columnist Mike Strobel and others like him seem to have "Way too much time on their hands" to focus an entire column on one innocuous word, leaves one to wonder the mindset of the Sun Media, what with stories a plenty to report on, such as the G-8 Summit, Wars, medical breakthroughs and to a lesser extent Paris Hilton in the media. This Sun Columnist leaves no stone unturned when contacting armchair linguists in targetting the Bell Canada Beaver's use of the word Zee or Zed, depending on which country you reside. Perhaps implying the Bell Beavers are not Canadian. Let me inform Now Public Readers, one of those Beavers is Canadian through and through, how would I know? Well his name is Norm, and his brother Neil, both childhood buddies and life long friends, their father a WWII Vet was our grade 6, 7 and 8 English and History teacher, a Scot, a Canadian. Norm, Neil and I were the Class Clowns and endured many a detention from their Dad for colourfully butchering the english language, especially the word Z. Their dad Percy, during our english lessons, offered one little idiom about this word "Z", stating the Canadian and US border officers would routinely slip a "Z" question as a security measure to returning US/Canadian visitors to see what nationality you truly were. Unfortunately in a Post 911 Society, Z is the last letter Border Officers rely on.