Johnny Cupcakes Essay

Johnny Cupcakes is a multi-million dollar clothing brand. The brand was founded in 2001 by Johnny Earle. One of Johnny’s acquired nicknames was Johnny cupcakes. He â€Å"thought it would be funny to make a couple random shirts that said ‘Johnny Cupcakes’ on them for the fun of it† (Earle, 2012). After massive interest in these shirts, he decided to continue to make more and change up the designs. In 2001, Johnny stated, â€Å"the band I was in, On Broken Wings, finally got signed to a record label and we began to tour full time† (Earle, 2012). This opened up Johnny and his t-shirts to a larger crowd of customers in different parts of the country. This boosted the brand’s popularity and Johnny decided to quit the band and focus all of his time, effort, and attention on his t-shirts. Johnny ended up going to trade shows in Las Vegas and eventually â€Å"ended up getting carried by shops in Japan, Europe, and Canada in addition to a few other US locations† (Earle, 2012). Johnny had a turning point moment at that very same trade show later on that year. He realized people didn’t like having the same things as others and that they enjoyed uniqueness. At this point Johnny made the decision to pull all his shirts from retail stores. Earle 2012 stated that he â€Å"decided to make all of his t-shirts limited edition and exclusive, only selling them through his website† and later on in his own retail stores. As the Johnny Cupcakes brand grew, Johnny opened up stores in Hull, MA; Boston, MA; Las Angeles, CA; and London, England. Johnny states that â€Å"Above all, I’ll continue to focus on enhancing my customers’ experiences through my stores, events, website, designs, and packaging. I will never ever sell my brand to investors for all the money in the world. I think you’ll find that things will only get more interesting from here†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Earle, 2012). The Johnny Cupcakes brand to some can be described as streetwear. Hundreds, 2011 defines streetwear as â€Å"a genre of contemporary apparel, united between sportswear and military looks, and is one that speaks to a spectrum of subcultures (skateboarding and hip-hop mostly).† Some of Johnny Cupcakes major competitors are also streetwear brands such as Us Versus Them, Reason, Benny Gold, Situationormal, Flying Coffin, Clot, Diamond, Fuct, Alife, The Hundreds, A Bathing Ape, Supreme, and Rebel8 among others. These companies not only produce unique designs and clothing, they have a fan base, and what some might call a cult following. They represent more than just a t-shirt. They differentiate themselves by their designs, material, limited edition collections, and the customer experience. Johnny Cupcakes top products are his limited edition t-shirts, but the company also sells sweatshirts, hats and accessories. One of the things that make JC stand out is their packaging. The suppl ies the company needs and uses are not just clothing/accessory based, but just as important is their packaging. Johnny Cupcakes uses bakery style boxes with their cupcake and crossbones logo on it. The company also uses specially made tissue paper to wrap the bought goodies up in. The tissue paper is also marked with the JC logo. The are two major external factors that greatly influence Johnny Cupcakes as a company and those are the economy and trends. Since Johnny Cupcakes offers â€Å"luxury† items (those items that consumers don’t need, but rather want), the economy can play a significant role in their profits. When times are tough, like in an economic recession, the majority of people watch their money more closely. These people may choose to only buy things out of necessity rather than splurge on things they want. Another big obstacle that JC has to stay on top of is the trends of their market. Clothing styles and designs come and go, therefore, Johnny Cupcakes needs to stay at the forefront of what their target market likes otherwise they could easily become extinct. One way JC battles these two external factors is making every shirt limited edition. The limited edition status gives the feel of exclusiveness. People not only crave exclusiveness, but will pay top dollar for it. â€Å"Because they’re collectibles and not just apparel, customers are willing to pay $60 for a Johnny Cupcakes shirt–and even stand in line for a new release like kids waiting for concert tickets† (Spaeder 2007). This exclusiveness plays off of our cultures social classes. Most Americans want to be in a better social class. Exclusiveness is a trait that is common in the highest of classes. The limited edition shirts not only sets the standards for someone’s social status, but also keeps inventory at a low, making sure the products that are produced are sold. Having limited edition shirts erases much of the risks and fears of the changing trends of JC’s market. Since there are only a handful of the shirts available, they are long gone befo re the design and style gets soggy. Also, this allows the company to be very flexible with the changing market. The two major internal factors that impact the organization are how they enhance the customer experience and their product packaging. These are two very important factors that help create the Johnny Cupcakes brand. They are part of the JC culture and without them, the brand wouldn’t be what it is today. Part of the customer experience lies in JC’s three retail store locations. â€Å"They’re set up just like bakeries, complete with glass display shelves, employees wearing aprons and the smell of vanilla frosting in the air† (Spaeder 2001). During big releases or setting up weekend pop-up stores, Johnny himself will be there to greet and talk with everyone of the customers that walk through his store. This again is part of the experience and connection he wants his fans to feel when they think of the Johnny Cupcakes brand. Johnny thinks â€Å"nice packaging sets an experience, a memory, or a safe-keeping that is sometimes just as important as the product it self. I’m a sucker for nice packaging† (Earle, 2012). When conducting a SWOT analysis of Johnny Cupcakes, some of the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats have already been discussed. JC’s major strengths are the exclusiveness it personifies by selling limited edition shirts and the customer experience it provides. One of its major weaknesses is the fact that it only has three retail stores and an online store. If it were to grow (and being a multi-million dollar business it has the resources to do this) it could reach more of a customer base and increase not only its fan following, but its sales as well. A huge opportunity that Johnny Cupcakes has is the fact that it has done several successful collaborations with other companies including Nickelodeon and Hello Kitty, which expands its customer and fan base. As with all companies, a threat is competition. If JC can stay authentic to its audience then it will overcome the competition. As stated earlier, since JC is a luxury brand, the economy and trends are another threat. Listening to their market will definitely help subdue these threats. One of Johnny Cupcakes biggest resources and assets are its customers. Johnny Cupcakes has not only been able to acquire customers, but also fans and audiences (which is much more powerful). The reason the JC brand has been able to do this is because of the experience a customer gets when going into a store or a pop-up shop. When a customer sees their Johnny Cupcakes shirt they remember an experience they had when purchasing the shirt. I personally have two JC shirts (one was given as a gift so I don’t have an experience to associate with that but my parents, who bought the shirt for me do). I do have a vivid recollection of an experience I had when purchasing my first Johnny Cupcakes t-shirt at a pop-up shop on Martha’s Vineyard. There was a line of people waiting at a small bakery for it to open its doors. Everyone was unsure of what the t-shirts would look like because the designs had not yet been released. Not knowing what shirts will be sold definitely gives a little sense of excitement and surprise; and being excited about a brand goes a long way with customer loyalty. The waiting fans were given diner-like menus to see what shirts would be available. This definitely embodies the Johnny Cupcakes culture and experience. Once the doors were open to the bakery only a few people were allowed in at a time. This also gave the impression of exclusiveness. The limited edition shirts available were all Martha’s Vineyard related. Not only is MV a huge tourist location, but being a resident of the island I had a sense of pride and being able to wear something relating to the island meant something to me, as I am sure it did to others, whether they were residents or tourists gaining a unique souvenir. After purchasing the shirt and leaving the bakery, I was greeting outside by Johnny Earle himself who not only took a picture with me, but also signed my shirt. My parents had a similar experience, telling me what a meaningful conversation they had with Johnny. Every time I pull out my JC t-shirt, I remember my unique experience of t-shirt buying. Johnny Cupcakes is a differentiation strategy user that sells an experience, along with his products. The way the business is run creates fans. JC leverages the company’s resources, the customer experience, to create fans and a following of the brand. There are a handful of such loyal fans that fly out to all his releases to be able to experience them and not miss out on any product or â€Å"show.† JC, on a smaller scale, reminds me of the cult following of The Grateful Dead. Deadheads knew each show was unique and didn’t want to miss out on any one of them. There are many Johnny Cupcakers who feel the same way. On March 24 of 2011, Johnny Cupcakes went international and opened up a store in London. Johnny had previously tested the waters in London by way of pop-up stores. His store in London was a huge hit, and he plans on a huge one-year celebration. Johnny opened up his store in London the same way he started is brand and opened up his other stores in the USA, with no investors, partnerships, or alliances. He started off small and threw his profits right back into his brand. One of the things Johnny Cupcakes prides itself on is not having to use investors or other companies to grow their brand. Part of this is what makes the brand who and what they are today. By staying authentic and listening to their market, Johnny Cupcakes will be continue to be successful in the years to come. With more years of success under his belt, Johnny may want to fur ther expand his brand in the global market. References Earle, J. (2012). Story. Retrieved from: http://www.johnnycupcakes.com Hundreds, B (2011). The 50 Greatest Streetwear Brands. Retrieved from: http://http://www.complex.com/style/2011/06/the-50-greatest-streetwear-brands Spaeder, K. (2007). By Popular Demand. Retrieved From: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/177912

Sample Questions on Management Essay Example

Sample Questions on Management Essay Example Sample Questions on Management Essay Sample Questions on Management Essay SOM 306 Sample Midterm Questions 1 . Operations management is the business function that plans, coordinates, and controls the resources needed to produce a companys a. Services and information b. Information and financial statements c. Financial statements and products d. Products and information e. Products and services 2. What is the Hawthorne effect? a. Workers responding to the attention they are given b. Stop watch time studies leading to time standards c. The use of quantitative methods for solving management problems f interchangeable parts e. More lighting increases pproduactivity d. The use 3. Which of the following is not considered one of the four broad categories of competitive priorities? a. Technology b. Cost c. Quality d. Flexibility e. Time 4. Suppose that in week 1 a company produced 1000 units using 60 labor hours. which of the following values in week 2 would labor pproduactivity decrease? = 2000, hours = 120 b. Units = 1500, hours c. Units = 1000, hours d. Units = 500, hours = 2000, hours = 100 For a. Units e. Units = 95 = 58 = 30 . I ne ease witn wnlcn a. Manufacturability b. Repeatability tne proa uct can De mace Is Its c. Readiness for manufacturing d. Reliability e. Accountability 6. Buying a competitors new product and studying its design features by disassembling it and analyzing its parts and features is a. Reengineering b. Disaggregation c. Redesign d. Benchmarking e. Reverse engineering 7. Birdie Par owns a company that makes golf gloves. She is thinking about introducing a new glove, which would require an additional fixed cost of $20,000 per ear. The variable costs for the new glove have been estimated to be $5 per glove. If she sells the new glove for $15, how many must she sell to break even? a. 1,000 gloves b. 2,000 gloves c. 3,000 gloves d. 4,000 gloves e. 5,000 gloves 8. Employees of the organization who receive goods or services from others in the company are a. Internal customers b. Ultimate customers c. Downstream customers d. Operators e. External customers 9. Under TQM, if suppliers meet preset quality standards a. They are given a bonus b.

Definition and Examples of Headlinese

Definition and Examples of Headlinese Headlinese is an informal term for the abbreviated style of newspaper headlines - a register characterized by short words, abbreviations, cliches, noun stacking,  word play,  present-tense verbs,  and ellipsis.   Headlinese combinations are not in themselves sentences, said linguist  Otto Jespersen, and often cannot be directly supplemented so as to form articulate sentences: they move, as it were, on the fringe of ordinary grammar (A Modern English Grammar, Vol. 7, 1949). Nonetheless, says British journalist Andy Bodle, [m]ost of the time the meaning of headlines is quite clear (to native English speakers, anyway). They generally achieve their aim of provoking interest without misrepresenting the facts too grievously (The Guardian [UK], December 4, 2014). Examples and Observations Perhaps a copy editors best test for headlinese is the question: How often do I hear this word used in ordinary conversation with its headline meaning? If hardly ever, the word is headlinese.(John Bremner, Words on Words. Columbia University  Press, 1980)In their quest for concision, writers of newspaper headlines are . . . inveterate sweepers away of little words, and the dust they kick up can lead to some amusing ambiguities. Legendary headlines from years past (some of which verge on the mythical) include Giant Waves Down Queen Mary’s Funnel, MacArthur Flies Back to Front and Eighth Army Push Bottles Up Germans. The Columbia Journalism Review even published two anthologies of ambiguous headlinese in the 1980s, with the classic titles Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim and Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge.(Ben Zimmer, Crash Blossoms. The New York Times, January 10, 2010)[W]hen the folks at Variety toss around insider lingo and cryptic headlinese like B.O. Sweet for Chocolat and Helmi ng Double for Soderbergh its hard to tell what the heck theyre talking about.(Scott Veale, Word for Word/Variety Slanguage. The New York Times, Feb. 25, 2001) Plane Too Low to the Ground, Crash Probe Told(Headline quoted by John Russial in Strategic Copy Editing. Guilford, 2004)Police: Middletown Man Hides Crack In His Buttocks(Headline in the Hartford Courant, March 8, 2013)Man Shoots Pictures of Wolf Chasing Him on Motorcycle in CanadaBANF, Alberta – A Canadian man says he was chased by a gray wolf while he was riding a motorcycle in British Columbia. . . .(Headline and lead at FoxNews.com, June 21, 2013)Short Words in Headlinese: Thinnernyms- Headlinese  might be defined as words that no human being would utter in context but that headline writers use because they fit into tight spaces.(John Russial,  Strategic Copy Editing. Guilford Press, 2004)- The grandest, oldest and arguably finest headline tradition of all, of course, is the use of short words. Instead of disagreeing, people clash. Rather than competing, they vie. Instead of divisions, we have rifts. And instead of a Mexico president promising reforms of the policing s ystem in an effort to mollify people’s anger over the murder of 43 students, we get Mexico president vows police reform in bid to quell massacre rage. I was inordinately pleased with myself for coining the word thinnernym to describe these short words, although I’ve since been informed that I’m not the first to do so.(Andy Bodle, Sub Ire as Hacks Slash Word Length: Getting the Skinny on Thinnernyms. The Guardian [UK], December 4, 2014)- [B]revity is a whip-bearing  dominatrix in the discipline of headline writing.(William Safire, Hotting Up. The New York Times Magazine, June 10, 2007) Life on Mars- War of the WordsThis is a headline from The Friday Review Section of The Independent of 21 August 1998. It introduces an article reviewing a fierce scientific debate about the possibility of life on Mars. Headline writers use a wide range of devices to create a very specific style, which is sometimes called headlinese. Their one-liners must put in a nutshell the main point of the news story they relate to and at the same time capture the readers attention. . . . [I]f we pad out the above headline, we might get something like The life on Mars debate remains a war of words. It will be noticed that the headline as it stands contains no verbs: this is replaced by the dash (- ). The structure has the effect of all the focus being on the balanced phrases, Life on Mars and War of the Words.(Peter Verdonk, Stylistics. Oxford University  Press, 2002)Telegraphic EllipsisA form of written language which typically uses telegraphic ellipsis is the newspaper headline. . . .Grammati cal clues present in  the headlines themselves . . . interact with contextual information from the setting to encode retrievable meaning; This process is essentially cataphoric in that headlines refer forward to the main body of the text, a fact exploited by editors and sub-editors on a daily basis to encourage headline-spotters to read on.(Peter Wilson, Mind The Gap: Ellipsis and Stylistic Variation in Spoken and Written English., 2000. Rpt. Routledge, 2014) Noun Stacking in HeadlinesA string of unleavened nouns will form a whole headline. Three nouns stuck cheek by jowl was once the limit, but now four is standard. Some months ago two tabloids gave their front pages to SCHOOL COACH CRASH DRAMA and SCHOOL OUTING COACH HORROR and a week or two later one of them achieved five with SCHOOL BUS BELTS SAFETY VICTORY. There is some loss of seriousness here, as if anyone cared.(Kingsley Amis, The Kings English: A Guide to Modern Usage. HarperCollins, 1997)A colleague points out: It sometimes seems that any time anyone writes a piece about Africa (or, in fact, dark-skinned people), the first (and usually last) headline everyone comes up with is Heart of Darkness. Its unimaginative, and boring, but more importantly perpetuates lazy colonial attitudes, ideas of ignorance and benightedness, etc.(David Marsh, Mind Your Language. The Guardian, February  14, 2010) See Examples and Observations below. Also see: Block LanguageCopyeditingCrash BlossomJargonJournaleseTelegraphic Speech

Rhetoric of the Image Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Rhetoric of the Image - Essay Example The image may be frank or empathetic depending on the user and the message needed to be passed across (269). To understand and get the meaning of the image in a piece of work, knowledge of signs is important especially in the advertising field. Any image may denote a coded message, a linguistic message, or a non-coded iconic message and require a lot of reading to separate the meaning. The image may contain a cultural and a perpetual message in which the image has the literal meaning as depicted by the symbols. The linguistic message forms images that do not contain any words, and one would need to revisit illiterate societies to get the pictographic meaning of the image. For example, the appearance of a book cover is an image with a lot of meanings and may depict some of the information contained in the book (273). The linguistic message is present in almost all the images especially in the field of mass communication such as the title, caption, and comic strip. There are two functions of the linguistic message in the iconic message, which are the anchorage and the relay. All images contain signs that the reader need to choose while ignoring others as in every society there are various techniques to resolve various signs. The linguistic message is one of the techniques to counter the challenge. For symbolic messages, linguistic does not play any part in the identification but can aid in the interpretation to give a meaning of the image. In other cases, the anchorage may be ideological suc h as in Advertisements and its purpose is to direct the readers and enable them to avoid some and receive other through dispatching them. Anchorage is very common in press photographs and advertisements in which the function of the relay is not common such as in cartoons and comic strips (274). The denoted image allows for the distinction between the literal message and the symbolic

Civil Rights Movement Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Civil Rights Movement - Research Paper Example While on the other hand, same words even refer to the atrocities experienced by African American while they stood up for their rights. The most disturbing picture that comes to our minds when we talk of civil rights is the mass murder of black school girls who were killed while they were participating in Sunday school and a bomb struck the 16th street Baptist Church. Such images marks the movements made by the blacks to gain their rights and the aggressive response of the whites (Mertz, 2010). Through the Civil Rights Movement is said to have initiated during the 1950s, but its origins date back to the era when first Africans migrated to US. The base of the entire Civil Rights Movement was laid down by the fight for rights conducted by the early slaved African Americans. Body History During 1619, first ever slaves were transacted to America and the slavery of the blacks continued until Civil War broke out and the 13th Amendment was passed. Even after blacks gained their freedom, they were still not educated and had little or no ownership of property and were subjected to unequal treatment especially in the Southern region where the majority of the slave used to live. To solve the scenario and to help blacks adjust with the whites, several reforms were made during the 10 years period of 1865 and 1875, this ten year period was recognized as the Reconstruction era (McGuire, 2011). One of the major measures taken the government was the 14th and the 15th Amendment which provided the African Americans with the right to vote and to be considered as equal citizens of US. Drastic moves were made, but these moves and their effect existed for a very short period of time. The white population in the South made every move to ensure that blacks do not enjoy the newly rights given to them by the government. Blacks were subjected to harassing behavior, those who harassed them includes the KKK (Ku Klux Klan). The KKK inflicted pain due to which the blacks were not able to exerc ise their newly awarded rights. The rights assigned to the blacks were already being violated and during this period, all the efforts of the blacks to gain their rights experienced a huge setback due to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson case. The ruling stated that if the facilities provided to both the races are equal in nature, then the blacks and whites can divided legally (Anderson, 1986). The problem was that the black population never enjoyed equal rights and the decision of the court provided the whites with the power of being an obstacle in letting the blacks enjoy their basic rights. The power of the whites led to the creation of Jim Crow laws, according to these laws different public properties were created for the blacks and whites, these properties include: public schools, parks, restaurants and vehicles. Due to these laws and the division of public property, black Americans stood against the strategies of the government that were unequ al and unjust in nature. A very prominent figure who stood up against these acts of discrimination was W.E.B Du Bois. This figure urged the black Americans to stand up for their rights and this followed the creation of NAACP

The genetic basis of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) Essay

The genetic basis of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency - Essay Example 008, pp.64, define G6PD deficiency as â€Å"an X-linked, hereditary genetic defect due to mutations in the G6PD gene, which cause functional variants with many biochemical and clinical phenotypes†. Most of the mutations are single base changes that result in amino acid substitutions. G6PD deficiency presents itself clinically in the form of acute haemolytic anaemia (Capellini & Fiorelli, 2008). The gene responsible for the production of the enzyme G6PD is the G6PD gene G6PD is the catalyst responsible for oxidising glucose-6-phosphate to 6-phosphogluconate, while at the same time it is also responsible for the reduction of the oxidised form of nicotanamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADP+) to nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH). This function of G6PD in the production of NADPH is important, as it is NADPH that plays a role as a cofactor in many biosynthetic reactions and maintaining glutathione in its reduced form (Carter & Gross, 2008). Reduced glutathione functions as a scavenger within cells, removing the dangerous oxidative metabolites in the cells. In addition with assistance from the enzyme glutathione peroxidase, it neutralizes hydrogen peroxide, which is harmful to the cell, by converting it to water. G6PD and its role in the production of NAPDH is important to red blood cells, as NAPDH is the sole contributor of protection to the red blood cells against oxidative stresses, The importance of G6PD to the red blood cells lies in it being the sole source of NAPDH and the protection NAPDH offers the red blood cells (Carter & Gross, 2008). The G6PD gene that is responsible for the enzyme Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase is found on the terminal region of the long arm of the X chromosome (Xq28), at a distance of less than 2 centi-Morgan centrometric to the Factor VIII gene. G6PD deficiency is a genetic condition, wherein the molecular grounds for the disease stems from mutations in the G6PD locus at Xq28. The length of the gene is 18

What It Means To Be Canadian

What It Means To Be Canadian To no ones surprise, being a Canadian means different things to different people and it is quite commonplace for many Canadians to have multiple identities and even multiple allegiances. Predictably, it is not always clear how these multiple identities can fit into Canadian society and fault lines inevitably arise between those with different identities. The next several pages will look at the oldest fault-line of them all at least among Canadians of European extraction which is the fault line between English-speaking Canadians and French-speaking Canadians. It resonates with this writer because, frankly, so much of our constitutional and political history has been wrapped up with trying to resolve the grievances and insecurities of French Canadians. For those within and without this fault line, Canadian identity is complicated because those who fall outside it people who have arrived from Asia or the Caribbean or from various other parts of the world are subtly reminded, through official bilingualism and through the constant constitutional wrangling over whether or not Quebec is a distinct society, that perhaps they are not true or authentic Canadians in the way some other groups are. Further, for French Canadians, the battle has always been between identifying themselves as Canadians or identifying themselves as French-Canadians who deserve to stand apart from other Canadians. This paper will look at the French-English divide in Canada by providing a brief historical overview of the tensions that have long existed between the two sides; as should be plain, the divide has been with us since before Confederation and will surely be with us for some time still to come. The paper will then turn to look at the introduction of Bill 101 in 1977 and how that ushered in a new era of strained English-French relations. With that out of the way, the paper will subsequently observe how the fault line in general has complicated how people who associate with this group identity interact within Canadian society? In short, how have French Canadians (the minority group and the group most likely to be inflamed by linguistic considerations) interacted within Canada in light of the powerful divide that separates them and that exacerbates their hostilities towards one another? With special reference to French Canadians, what does it mean to them (or what has it meant to them rec ently) to be Canadian within the context of Canada? Last of all, the essay will explore what the future of the Canadian national identity might well be should tensions in this fault line increase or tensions in other fault lines increase. We can all imagine that simmering tensions will weaken the connective tissue that binds Canadians together and will create the prospect for the fragmentation of Canadian society unless common ground is found. The only saving grace for Canada with regards to this particular English-French divide is that demographic factors may end up resolving it by changing the composition of Quebec and of Canada so dramatically that the country no longer much cares about English-French hostilities. Historical context of the English-French divide The simple reality is that tensions between English and French have always been a part of the Canadian landscape. In the eighteenth century, the British and French bitterly wrestled for control of North America and, at the end of that century and in the early decades of the next one, there was a significant divide between the French Canadians of Lower Canada and the English elites of that province who deigned to pass measures from on high. Suffice it to say, the educated professional elite that dominated the legislative assembly of Lower Canada from the turn of the nineteenth century onwards reacted most negatively to the disproportionate power held by (and general unresponsiveness exhibited by) the English-dominated colonial executive (executive council) and by the British-appointed governor (Greer, 1993). The end result was the ill-fated and violent 1837 Rebellion in Lower Canada when French-Canadian nationalists finally exploded in armed outrage at the refusal of the British gover nment to seriously contemplate the democratization of the Legislative Council (Breakenridge Read, 2008). As most students of Canadian history are aware, the aforementioned rebellion led to the Durham Report of 1839 wherein John Lambton, the Earl of Durham, advocated the cultural assimilation of French Canadian Lower Canada into a larger union with Lower Canada that would be dominated by the English. In effect, the best way to resolve the sense of grievance percolating in the hearts of French Canadians was to simply assimilate them (Van Male, 1997). For Lord Durham, what was tearing at the entrails of Lower Canada was a profound ethnic and linguistic conflict that fundamentally involved two nations warring in the bosom of a single state (quoted in Greer, 1993, p.153). Ultimately, though tensions did lessen somewhat from their high water mark in the late 1830s, the old animosity never completely went away: at least one observer has written about this tragic element in our historyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.this is a country of ingrown prejudicesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.unthinking, irrational and mean (Lower Q uoted in Cameron, 1997, p.372). During the subsequent generations, the animus between French Canadians and English Canadians always lurked just beneath the surface and could burst into flame at any moment. In general, many of the most significant moments in Canadian history have either revolved around French-English rapprochement the original constitutional deliberations of the 1860s or have revolved around French-Canadian animosities spilling into the open: the Conscription Crises of Two World Wars; the Richard riots of the 1950s; the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s and the federal governments attempts to head off Quebec nationalism; and the hotly-contested separatist referenda of 1980 and 1995. If one wants to understand the constitutional morass of the 1970s and 1980s (or 1990s) or if one wants to understand the original inspiration for Canadian multiculturalism (for more on how official multiculturalism under Trudeau was chiefly a response to Quebec nationalism, please see Tierney, 2007), then one must understand the fault line between English and French in Canada. Naturally, one of the greatest sources of tension of all was the battle on the part of French Canadians to protect the ir linguistic inheritance from the encroachment of the English majority. Discussion and analysis: how has the divide between English and French, and the formulation of Bill 101, impacted the interactions between the two groups within Canada? The 1977 Quebec language law was probably an inevitable consequence of the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s; protecting French culture from Les Anglais, after all, necessarily meant protecting the language from desecration and from conquest at the hands of English. Specifically, French-Canadian academics at the start of the 1970s wrote that the history of French Canada within the Canadian Confederation was very often a history of fighting to maintain the integrity of the French language. The passage of the Trudeau governments Official Language Law in 1970 saw French recognized as an official language in all federal affairs and constituted a victory of sorts, but the corresponding (and rather surprising) efforts of the Quebec government to pass Bill 63 a bill that would have granted the English language official status in Quebec was perceived as a direct threat to the primacy of the French language and viewed as setting the groundwork for the anglification of the population of Quebec ( Angers, 1970). Obviously, this raised the temperature in the room when it came to the ongoing debate about what measures should be taken to protect the French language in Quebec and expedited the arrival of Bill 101. The fault line between French Canada and English Canada has impacted or complicated how both groups (but particularly French Canadians) interact with Canada and with their Canadian identity in the sense that it has created a hyphenated group of Canadians who can be reliably expected to break down on the issues according to their linguistic background. The great conscription crises and the animus unleashed in the two referendum campaigns nearly a generation apart attest to how people on both sides (but especially French Canadians) have elected to define themselves by the language they speak than by the country of which they are a part. Bill 101, maybe more than any other single piece of legislation, reminded all Canadians of how the fault line between English and French was predicated upon concerns over language and, specifically, whose language would survive over time. Examining the act itself, Bill 101 was an act that mandated a number of things that could only have heightened the mistrust and paranoia of the English-speaking minority in Quebec at the same time as it surely disenchanted new arrivals from elsewhere in the world. Notably, Bill 101 decreed that French-only public signs were to be a feature of the province; French became the language of work in public institutions; and the autonomy of English schools in Quebec was sharply reduced (Levine, 1990). And, as most students are aware, and as our course notes remind us, Bill 101 also mandated that all students receive their schooling in French. The bill was a shot across the bow of English Quebec and divided Canadians dramatically along ethic and linguistic affiliation. To get to the heart of the matter, for French Canadians, Bill 101 was simply a re-conquest that merely asserted that French was the dominate language of la Belle Province; for English-speaking Quebeckers, however, the passage of Bill 101 was a clear repudiation of the English language as it stripped away the Charter status of the English language and also limited the rights and privileges of a linguistic group that, historically, had wielded most of the power in Quebec (Levine, 1990, p.119). Now, and maybe forever after, the centrality of language to ones conception of his or herself and his or her place in Canada could no longer be swept under the rug and the pretence that we were/are all loyal Canadians first was shattered. In general, Bill 101 has allowed the French language to retain somewhat of its lustre amongst visible minorities arriving in Quebec: recent data compiled by the Canadian Human Rights Commission indicates that, by a 2 to 1 margin, French is the first official language of visible minorities in the province (Canadian Human Rights Commission, 2007). Source: Canadian Human Rights Commission. (2007). Strategic Initiatives: section 6 Quebec. Retrieved August 5, 2010 from http://www.chrc-ccdp.ca/proactive_initiatives/bvm_mvb/page6-en.asp Information such as that above indicates that any hopes of complete English conquest of Quebec will have to wait for a little while longer. In fact, a closer look at the data reveals that the number of Quebeckers who identify English as their Mother Tongue appears to be declining and has been for several years (Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, 2007). Source: Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages. (2007). Ethnolinguistic composition of the population. OCOL. Retrieved August 5, 2010 from http://www.ocol-clo.gc.ca/html/ar_ra_04_05_v1_14_e.php We can safely conclude that language laws have contributed, even if indirectly, to the exodus of English speakers out of Quebec and to the polarization of sentiments between English and French within Quebec. However, such language laws do not guarantee the future of the French language in the province given the mass influx of new Canadians who speak neither English nor French or who are disinterested in learning French. For many French Canadians, being Canadian may still mean being French Canadian first above all else; however, as the demographic shape of Canada changes due to high immigration, they may find themselves even more isolated than ever before but this time isolated within a huge polyglot nation where the competing languages are not just English but dozens, or even hundreds, of others. At the end of it all, any increased tensions between French and English in Canada will tear at the Canadian national identity in the sense that it undermines the legitimacy of the confederation to have the two founding languages fighting with one another. On the other hand, even if simmering tensions will only intensify the self-identification of French Canadians with their French heritage, the reality is that all the chauvinism in the world may not matter chiefly because French Canada and English Canada are becoming relatively smaller pieces of the Canadian mosaic as the nation welcomes in people from Asia, from Africa, from South America and from Eastern Europe who do not have either language as their first language. Ultimately, if other divides in Canada fall the French-English model and grow more acrimonious, then the countrys future could be at risk; however, the French-English divide will probably become less important over time. Conclusion The past several pages have looked at the English-French divide in Canada, the ancient fault-line, and have argued that language laws instituted in Quebec surely did not help in bringing the two sides together; if anything, ancient animosities were revived. However, Canada is a changing nation and that means that no one can safely assume that Canada will tear apart if the gulf between English and French widens. The future is uncertain, but it is unlikely that the French and English divide will remain the dominant one in Canadian life simply because Canada is a country that is moving beyond its French/English past.