MONTREAL — Quebec’s language watchdog has officially U-turned on its bizarre war against the word “go”, grudgingly admitting that shouting it at hockey games may not bring about the collapse of French civilisation.
The Office québécois de la langue française — known locally as the Fun Police with a thesaurus — has now declared it’s “partially acceptable” to use go when encouraging sports teams. So long as you do it in a spirit of “cultural encouragement” and not, God forbid, while buying groceries.
This is the same office that, until very recently, bullied Montreal’s transit agency into wiping “Go Habs Go!” off over a thousand city buses. In their place? “Allez Canadiens Allez!” Because if there’s one thing guaranteed to whip up hockey fans into a playoff frenzy, it’s grammatically correct signage.
Naturally, this linguistic crusade went down like a poutine sandwich in Paris. Cue outrage, mockery, and the intervention of Quebec’s language minister who, with the subtlety of a flying elbow, declared “Go Habs Go” a cherished piece of national heritage. Roughly 30 seconds later, the watchdog reversed its position.
The internal emails behind the about-face have now surfaced, revealing what we all suspected: the office didn’t “evolve,” it folded like a wet baguette.
Still, they’re keeping up appearances. In its online dictionary, the office now notes “go” is “partially legitimized” — a status previously reserved for phrases like “email” and “Netflix and chill.”
The Montreal transit agency, shell-shocked from months of sign-swapping, hasn’t decided whether to reintroduce the word. A spokesperson said they’re now entering a period of “reflection,” which roughly translates to: “We’ve just finished removing it from 1,000 buses, let us lie down.”
Experts say the backpedal puts the office in a tight spot. “The minister told them to accept it, so they had to find a way to accept it,” said one literature professor, diplomatically avoiding the phrase “comically spineless.”
Meanwhile, at least one transit official had doubts from the beginning. “We’ve used ‘go’ for years,” she said in an internal email. “Are we really changing everything over one complaint?”
Spoiler: yes. And the replacement effort required manually updating each bus — an act of linguistic zealotry that would make Orwell blink.
Of course, this isn’t the first time “go” has scandalised the province. Complaints have previously been filed over a hashtag on the Bell Centre, a billboard slogan, and presumably at least one over someone whispering “go” under their breath in a queue.
In the end, the “Go Habs Go” sign still stands outside the arena. The fans still chant it. And Quebec’s language watchdog still insists it’s protecting French culture — one defeated syllable at a time.
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