A 09:31 2001-09-28 -0700, Michael \(michka\) Kaplan a �crit : >I tend to look up on the following site, where such info can always be found >tucked away: > >http://www.uselessknowledge.com/word/dollar.shtml
[Alain] Curiously enough, to add to even more useless and even misleading knowledge, I will add my two cents: in Qu�bec, we have a hero (during a certain marxist-leninist period in Qu�bec, some said he was a "bandit", that made him more proletarian [this idea of a few intellectuals to deprecate our heroes is now folklore]), Dollard des Ormeaux (Adam Dollard des Ormeaux was his complete name), whose first name is pronounced "Dollar" (it is usual in French that ending consonants are mute) and who was killed in the Long Sault battle by his own mistake (but that mistake generated an explosion so violent that the Iroquois abandoned their will to attack Montr�al). Needlesss to say, Qu�bec (which is not very monarchist, it's a euphemism) celebrates each year � la f�te de Dollard � (Dollard Day) the same day other Canadians celebrates Victoria Day, in May. I guess that in a few years, we'd rather celebrate � la f�te du dollar � (the dollar day) instead, as less and less people know their history. See http://www3.primary.net/~dollard/ormeaux.htm (English text). Of course we have other heroes like this entrenched in North-American history: Radisson (whose name is pronounced with a French ending nasal � on �, not with the English syllable � son �), indeed, is not only a hotel chain, but a Quebec hero who discovered upper Mississipi, but also sold his soul for a few "dollars" back and forth to the king of England and the king of France: Pierre-Esprit Radisson, a Frenchman born in 1651, was indeed at the origin of the British (now Canadian) Hudson Bay Company (Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson), which still makes many dollars... after having sold the North West Territories (and what is now Nunavut) to Canada... Alain LaBont� Toronto Airport
