I Mean It

A Spelling Lesson From the Bay City Rollers

Champlain points out the river.

 

S-A   I-N-T   J-O-H   N!

S-A   I-N-T   J-O-H   N!

S-s-s Saint John New BrunsWICK!!! Saint John New BrunsWICK!!!

S-A   I-N-T   J-O-H   N!

S-A   I-N-T   J-O-H   N!

[Need clarification? Watch the original here. ]

Okay, here’s the scoop. When the great French explorer, Samuel de Champlain, landed here on a sunny June day in 1604, he named the river that flowed into the Bay of Fundy la rivière Saint-Jean, because it happened to be the feast day of Saint John the Baptist.

Sometime later, the English settlers here had other names for their spots on either side of the river, but finally in 1786 they decided on the collective name of Saint John, using the name of the river to represent both settlements. Saint John became the first incorporated city in North America.

Life went on. Sometimes people spelled it “Saint John”, and at other times “St. John”. Of course, being named after as popular a guy as Jesus’ first cousin and the patron saint of France, the New Brunswick town competed with Saint John, Quebec and St. John’s, Newfoundland for distinctiveness. In the early twentieth century, a movement was afoot to change this city’s name back to Parrtown, the earlier moniker for the community on the east side of the river.

I don’t know about you, but personally, if I were a west-sider, my nose would be out of joint at such a thought.

Possibly the city council and the newspaper saw the situation in a similar light.

In March of 1925, the Telegraph-Journal suggested that the road to distinction lay in consistently spelling the city’s name without abbreviation: “Saint John”. The newspaper further announced that it would itself do so, effective immediately. A mere six weeks later, the city council made it official. The river might be the “St. John”, but the city’s name would always be spelled out fully.

So there ya go.

Full statue, with E.g. and Sonny Boy, in Queen Square.

I will, in parentheses, add that in local publications it is acceptable to write “SJ”. But no “St. John”, please.

And don’t worry; it took numerous corrections on the part of E.g. before I got this fact drilled into my own head. I may be Canadian, but I’m definitely “from away”.

Thanks are due to this page for the facts behind the spelling of Saint John.