Friends of ours have recently moved back to the UK after about 25 years in Canada. We were talking about the situation here with wokery and people being nervous about making their opinions known. They said the UK is very liberal in that by comparison to Canada. That's a scary thought.
Are these the same friends who lived down Belleville/Kingston way here in Ontario? If so, these small town/city places have lots of "country bumpkins" who don't tolerate change of any kind. They are definitely not progressives by any means and your friends probably felt alienated to these old coot ways. The nice thing about those areas though is that you can buy a home for half the cost of one over my direction. A big bonus!
The reason I felt it was an odd collection is the UK has/had strong links with some places that are included, but weak links with others that are not, eg Mauritius.
@CanadianLori A friend in Toronto was telling me about Canada's reactions to Trump - tarriffs but also his desire to include Canada in the USA ( this was some weeks ago so he could have changed his mind on that issue ). She did say that her particular area of the borderland was full of "Redneck Hunters" who would readily shoot any migrants from the US. Apart from the fact I had always thought the term Rednecks was only used for some people of a certain persuasion in the SW states of the US, I don't really know whether she was kidding or not. She did say she knew some of them so perhaps some truth in it ?
Wokery is well imbedded in the UK IMO. Not quite sure what you are saying, Canada is more woke than UK or less.
For someone who has never really got to grips with modern phrases, nouns, verbs and adjectives, could somebody explain in words of one syllable what the standard English word for “woke” would be? Many thanks.
Just seen this rather sad news from my younger years. Ray Brooks, voice of Mr Benn, dies aged 86 This reminds me of the Radio 4 programme Week Ending's comment on the death of Sir Michael Hordern in 1995 when the show closed with the comment "Paddington has lost his voice".
@Tidemark according to Wikipedia, Woke is an adjective derived from African-American English used since the 1930s or earlier to refer to awareness of racial prejudice and discrimination Nowadays it seems to be a negative term the American right wing use for anyone who exhibits a social conscience and care for others of any sex, race or political persuasion tho I don't see why that should be a negative trait to have.
@Loofah, Brighton College has had Mandarin on the curriculum for a couple of decades. You'd struggle to get it to take off in a state school, I imagine.[/QUOTE] Lots of secondary state schools teach Mandarin, in my experience, and have done for some time. My niece, who started secondary in 2008, did it, and I was aware of other friends at other schools who also had that as an option even then, and more since. A friend's daughter has just graduated in Chinese Studies (including Mandarin) having attended a state school in Hackney. It wasn't offered at my children's school, but there was a Mandarin club run by the Head of Languages - I'm sure if there was enough demand they would have offered it too (and they might by now).
@Obelix-Vendée, I wouldn't define woke quite that way. I'd say it's used to describe people who try to insist that there is only one way to think about certain "hot" topics (race, gender, and so on) and anyone who disagrees with them is being "hateful" and must be shut down without discussion. This leads to dogmatic capture within institutions, especially educational ones, which is ironic given education ought to be about questioning what you are told and coming up with your own view. Thank you for that update re Mandarin teaching, @LG_ .
My friends were saying it's far worse in Canada than in the UK. For clarity, she is Canadian and lived there most of her life (father in the military). He lived there for about 25 years and never got used to the winters :-)
@Obelix-Vendée The definition outlined by @ViewAhead is certainly a better descrption of 'woke' in the UK.
