I doesn't seem to matter how much evidence is presented, Canadians (and Times Colonist readers) will spell "tuque" however they want.
As the chart above illustrates, "toque" remains the preferred spelling among many who took the time to complete our very unscientific poll.
Fair enough, spell it however you want. Even the wrong way.
To tweet or un-tweet
Last week, there was a rollicking discussion on Twitter about content in the Times Colonist.
During the early stages of this discussion, readers were sent responses through the TC Twitter account, @timescolonist. (Spoiler alert: It was me.)
This is "Social Media 101" for newspapers: show readers you are hearing them by responding politely through the same medium. So I did.
In fact, one tweet from the TC account actually said that we were responding so that tweeters knew they were being heard.
However, it quickly became clear that the responses were not having the desired effect:
Was disappointed by @timescolonist racist cartoon today, now shocked they are attacking readers who are calling it what it is #raeside
— Dave Ferguson (@dtwferguson) December 11, 2014
This one in particular was a little discouraging:
Now looking at @timescolonist responses to racist ed cartoon it published today and wondering why they let the intern defend it.
— Michael Stewart (@Blindmanspistol) December 11, 2014
In the end, I decided to remove our tweets for two reasons:
- It was clear a response of more than 140 characters was required and we needed to clear the decks to allow that to happen.
- The tweets were being retweeted as proof of the newspaper's lack of understanding. We didn't want the context of our early-discussion responses to be further misunderstood. (See No. 1.)
I realize that removing the tweet doesn't remove its content. This isn't our first day on the Interweb.
Anyone who was an original recipient of the tweeted responses was still fully able to quote us.
Deleting the tweets was also being erroneously construed as a retraction:
@SettlerColonial Deleting those tweets does seem like admission that cartoon is indefensible, which it is. @timescolonist @araeside
— Daniel Rueck (@danrueck) December 11, 2014
We had some success in that the discussion did (mostly) move on from those early responses to more reasoned and thoughtful replies from those who took far more than 140 characters.
