Glebous & comicus
The Glebe according to Zeus
A guinea pig’s perspective on the Glebe
GiddyPigs’ Summer Human Intern Program under fire! GiddyPigs.com has won awards for running one of the most successful Summer Human Intern Programs (SHIP) in the Glebe. Past interns invariably develop into successful butlers, baristas or even reliable sales representatives. The program works. This year, however, SHIP has come under fire for allegedly having a bias against local interns. The controversy was sparked last week when GiddyPigs.com announced that Julian and Enzo from Lindenlea had won the two mailroom positions. Last year, the coveted spots were filled by youth from Hintonburg, and the year before that, Vanier, leading Glebe parents to launch a human rights complaint against the company. “This is ridiculous!” spouted Marwut, local poet and SHIP coordinator. “Human students are chosen based on an objective competency test that we have used for years, namely that they have thumbs and can manage the parsleyccino machine!” It was later verified that GiddyPigs does require all interviewees to make a parsleyc-
cino and to give chin scratches to executive pigs as part of the hiring process. However, Marwut was also later heard at Morala Café commenting that foreign students not only dress better but smell better too. Indeed, recent studies conducted by the Glebe Apothecary have shown that Glebe youth tend to smell overwhelmingly like greasy carnivores, which could create unconscious bias in herbivore business owners. “Using a representative sample from each neighbourhood, we blindfolded herbivores and had them smell test the biped youth. Overwhelmingly, Glebe students were found to smell of meat products, in particular McDonald’s and The Works burgers. Our hypothesis is that this is what’s causing them to perform unfavourably at job interviews.” Whether the bias is or isn’t occurring, it is recommended that students avoid all meat products for one week prior to any interviews, shower regularly using sweet grass soap and wear hemp clothing.
Glebe Report June 16, 2017
lost for words by Ash Abraham Coutu
And the password is… Is proper pronunciation Biblical? Probably not, but there is a strange story nestled in the Book of Judges where it’s of key importance. As the story goes, the Gileadites asked the warring tribe of Ephraim to pronounce the word shibboleth, before allowing them to cross the River Jordan. A true Gileadite would pronounce the “sh” at the front of the word, whereas an Ephraimite, speaking a different dialect, wouldn’t pronnounce the “sh” sound. When the Ephraimites were asked to say shibboleth, they responded with a word that sound like sibbolet and proved that they were not from the tribe of Gilead. This served as a linguistic password. Now, we use the word shibboleth to differentiate between outsiders and insiders. Of course, this leaves plenty of room for injustice; just ask the Ephramites who, according to the Book of Judges, were “seized and killed at the fords of the Jordan.” This makes my English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) oral exams look like a walk in the park! Violence doesn’t always follow the shibboleth. Growing up in Nashville, I remember being teased for mispronouncing the Tennessean city of Lebanon. “You mean Leb-Nun? Leh-ba-Non is a country in the Middle East,” my friends would laugh. City pronunciations can be a type of modern-day shibboleth. Here in Canada, I’ve learned how to say Mun-tree-al instead of Mon-tree-al, and
K-bec K-bec instead of Quuh-bek. Since people in the Glebe have been very kind in helping me learn the inside language, I thought I’d share four secret shibboleth passwords from my home state to help you sound like a local: • Lafayette – it’s not La-fay-ette àit’s La-Fayette • Milan – it’s not Mil-anà it’s MyLan • Louisville – it’s not Loo-ee-ville à it’s Luh-ville • Nashville – it’s not Nash-ville à it’s Nash-vull (except for during hockey season, when it’s Smashville.) Ash Abraham Coutu is a Nashville native who has lived in Egypt, South Korea and now Ottawa, where she helps out at the Catholic Immigration Centre and teaches ESL.
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Best Buddies Arlo is a big, goofy, wonderful dog. He’s also a puppy mill survivor with an intense fear of other dogs. Anyone who has walked a dog down Fifth has probably heard him freaking out inside the house or witnessed one of his giant sidewalk dramas. Arlo’s issues persist despite being in a secure home and having professional help, but we love him anyway and hope we’ll find a way to help him some day. Walter, a gentleman cat who enjoys extensive naps and British police procedurals, is however caught here with a Russian classic – a secret vice? Submitted by Marnie Wellar
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