I am enthusiastic about this region—something clearly shown by this website and blog. So, I am unenthusiastic about regional promoters who misrepresent us.
There seems to be streak of incompetence that runs through local tourism promoters. What else are you going to call it when they encourage people to visit all those nonexistent places: the many West Kootenays?
In a January posting, Plural ascending, I wrote about the roots of the plural form of our singular region. As far as I could tell at the time, the implication that there is more than one West Kootenay to be found on the map was largely confined to books written by sloppy authors.
Surely organizations that represent us to the world (sometimes with tax dollars) would hold themselves to a higher standard than do individual authors. Apparently not. Consider the first picture. Someone actually spent money to hang this in the terminal of the Castlegar airport (picture taken last March).
Quite a few tourism websites show equal incompetence. A website offered by West Kootenay Park Management welcomes people to the “Provincial Parks of the West Kootenays.” Kootenaysbc.com tells viewers about these phantom places three times and suggests that “About 100 years ago, prospectors came to the West Kootenays….” The International Selkirk Loop website offends so many times that it takes Google to list them all.
When it comes to touristic websites, my favourite abomination is Wikitravel which has a page devoted to all those many West Kootenays, but none for the one that actually exists: the West Kootenay. I attach a screen shot of the upper portion of that page. I particular enjoy the unidiomatic first sentence: plural subject, singular verb, missing preposition. (The same site has a page devoted to the East Kootenays).
Within all of this promotional nonsense, there does not appear to be any hint of purposeful deception—just incompetence.
Hi Alistair. I think we just have to chalk (sorry if I’m using the wrong form of the word here) it up to what people are used to hearing vs. what is correct. Believe me (just ask my wife), I’m a real stickler when it comes to this kind of thing. Remember the Hudson’s Bay Company? That one’s always stuck in my craw …
PS. The Osprey pair just east of the Harrop Ferry are back! We were out on the weekend and saw them … Beautiful weekend – wish we could be out more often …
Ian, of course you are right about how the first draft of a webpage or touristy sign arises. It is just writing what comes to mind. But, surely this industry has knowledgeable editors that critically read all drafts before they are approved for publication. These are organizations that represent us. I think they should be held accountable.
Wonderful news about the ospreys on the dolphin east of the Harrop ferry. I will try find a place where I can view them. As far as I can tell very few nests along the West Arm have been reestablished since the great blowdown.
I think it is just an idiom…..people from the Yukon hate it when you call it “the” Yukon!
Margo, possibly but the words, West Kootenays, do not fit the pattern we normally assign to an idiom. An idiom is a group of words having a meaning not deducible from the individual words. Consider the idiom: “it is raining cats and dogs.” We all know that it is actually raining water (but vigorously). When one speaks of the West Kootenays, we all understand that the person actually thinks of a kootenay as some discrete thing such as a forest or valley that is duplicated all over the region. And we are encouraged to believe just what was said, not something different.
As to “the Yukon”, that just represents a change in status. We use the direct article for a region or district (the Cariboo), but not for a territory, province or country (
theAlberta). Yukon evolved from one to the other and usage was slow to catch up. However, the West Kootenay has never evolved to become multiple.What an opportunity – create a phantom – other West Kootenay in a mythical valley!
Tom, That’s a cute idea.
It has always been my understanding that the Kootenays in the West Kootenays refers to the various mountains in the series of ranges in the area: The Selkirks, The Purcells, etc, therefore making “The West Kootenays” a description of the many mountain ranges and passes that are contained within.
Marcia, that is an interesting ex post facto justification, and one that in all my many years here, I had never heard before.
No, as explained in an earlier blog posting on the subject Plural ascending the plural form, West Kootenays, arose in fairly recent times as a mindless extension of the reasonable description of the East and West Kootenays (there being two, that is, one of each). Well, you read the posting.
Incidentally, the mountain ranges you mention, Selkirks and Purcells, along with the Cariboo, and Monashee ranges are collectively known as the Columbia Mountains, not the Kootenay or West Kootenay Mountains.