» Activists praise this cautious step forward Brittney MacDonald Life & Style Editor Benne January 1, 2019, retail pet stores in the state of California are banned from selling dogs, cats, or rabbits from private breeders. The law was originally passed in October 2017, after being presented by California State Assemblymember Patrick O’Donnell and signed by Governor Jerry Brown. The law itself is called “The Pet Rescue and Adoption Act” and it specifically limits the retail sale of privately-bred animals. Instead, pet stores are allowed to carry only animals that have been brought in from government-funded animal shelters or non-profit rescue organizations. Any business found in violation of this law, or unable to provide proper documentation pertaining to where the animal is from, will be fined $500 per animal. Individuals seeking to purchase privately bred animals will still be allowed to do so. For many animal activists, this is a major win. Pet stores are the largest source of revenue for illegal animal mills. If you are unsure what that term is, according to Avenson v. Zegart it is “a [animal] breeding operation in which the health of the [animal] is disregarded in order to maintain a low overhead and maximize profits.” This definition—which was originally presented in a 1984 US District Court case—referred to puppy mills and dogs, but the definition has been adapted by the ASPCA and its sister organizations to include a variety of animals. It is the hope of the California government that this will not only affect the number of mills in operation, but also the sheer number of homeless animals that the state is dealing with. In the past, California has spent over $250 million annually to house and euthanize various shelter animals, O’Donnell said in an October 2017 press release. In terms of seeing this sort of Canadian spelling » WTF bro, why you different? Bales GaQon|ic melhee Brittney MacDonald Life & Style Editor utocorrect is often under fire as being a detriment to the Millennial Generation. However, can Canadians really claim this? It’s no lie that the Canadian vernacular is different from our neighbours to the south. Unfortunately, because of the US's dominant media exposure, American English is often seen as the English standard and Canadian English is an afterthought—if it is considered at all. However, recognition of the difference doesn't explain why the divergence exists. For those of you who are curious, allow me to explain. First and foremost, let’s consider the existence of standardized spelling in general. In 1604 a schoolmaster by the name of Robert Cawdrey consolidated a series of word lists from various educational sources. Cawdrey’s publication is widely regarded as the first English dictionary and therefore stands as the sort of unofficial debut of standardized spelling. Prior to this, spelling was kind of all over the place and varied depending on context and region. I say context because if you've ever been made to look at Middle English literature, then you might have noticed that authors enjoyed using homonyms. An example of this is Geoffrey Chaucer describing one of his characters in the Canterbury Tales as being “hendi,” which is a portmanteau of the Middle English equivalent of “handy” and “handsy- The character was both useful to have around and also good at finger banging— and you thought medieval literature was chaste ! Since there was no standardized spelling, Chaucer was able to get away with this without making his little joke super obvious. Of course, vocabulary evolved from this point and words changed. However, England still remained the worldly example in terms of use of the English language. What I mean is that in Europe, the form of > Have an idea for a story? Mlifeandstyle@theotherpress.ca legislation come up to Canada, I would say it isn’t impossible. BC in particular has its own animal overcrowding issues, with places like Kelowna and 100 Mile English used in England is the standard— which makes sense. This means that English translations in places like Germany often source from a similar dialect to Canada, because Canadian English is closer to British/European English than American English. In North America, however, American pop culture and media are vastly more dominant than Canadian or British media. This is partially because of population density, but also because of distribution, funding, and gatekeeping by media moguls and outlets. Due to this, American English is the version with prime visibility and therefore it has become the standard within North America itself. That’s why there is discourse regarding the two varying English dialects—but why do two exist in the first place? The reason the two versions exist can be traced all the way back to our political existence. As Canadians, we are a member of the Commonwealth, which technically makes us a territory of the British Empire— year life & style // no. 9 ¢ Meatless Monday: Vegan Swiss chard hot salad ¢ Cheap, DIY self-care recipes for the new ..and more! zt Oo a Wn zt 8 > 9 BS 9 < oa House acting as havens for illegal breeding operations due to the amount of open land plots. Now that California has broken the ice, we will simply have to wait and see. Images made with Ransomizer.com something that the US is not. Hence, our vernacular is similar to England’s. However, we also have a very large French influence which affects certain vocabulary choices. Due to acculturation, we have adopted various French and Indigenous linguistic quirks, such as the use of “toboggan” instead of “sled” (which started as a Mi’kmagq word that was appropriated into the Canadian French term “tabaganne,” and finally became “toboggan”). The Francophone heritage also reinforces our use of French derived words such as “parlour” and “centre” maintaining their European spelling. However, we can’t ignore our proximity to the US, so we have also adopted some Americanisms. Fore example, we use “z” instead of “s” in words that end in “ize,” like “realize” and “stylize.” I guess you could say that Canadian English is kind of like Canada itself. It isa melting pot, but it’s a little guilty of taking on too much American cheese. EQceige o@-o8ffoh wo LiMe