I find it Irksome...

I admit it. I listen to the CBC in the mornings when I'm at work. They can have very interesting topics of discussion, interviews, etc. Sometimes it's as boring as all get out, but other times I find it informative and interesting.

One thing about the morning show, The Current, drives me bonkers. Ok, it's a little thing but none the less it's something I've picked up and has annoyed me ever since. When it comes to giving the various means of contacting the show, they will give a toll-free phone number you can call to leave your message on a machine, they give their email address, and they give a mailing address in case anyone wants to send a comment or whatnot via snail mail.

Canada's postal code system has an order to it. It goes: letter number letter (a space) number letter number. In other words it would look like this: M5W 1E6. This is the actual postal code they CBC has. Now, when they give it, they also say a little sentence to help listeners know what the letters are and not mistake them for similar sounding ones. The sentence used by the announcers of The Curent use this sentence: Mangle five words, I'll enunciate six.

It took me awhile to figure just what the heck they were talking about with that sentence because I wasn't paying close enough attention. Then, one day a little over a month ago, it dawned on me what they were using the sentence for: the postal code. Here's what bugs me...the "I'll" is wrong. Why you ask? Well, remember a few minutes ago I stated that the postal code order is letter number letter, number letter number? Well, the word "I'll" starts with the letter "I" and not a number 1. Their sentence is inaccurate! You can not associate the number 1 with a word beginning with "i"...it's impossible.

In my opinion, the CBC - or at least the program The Current needs to come up with a different sentence. They need one that accurately reflects what they are trying to accomplish. If not, and people not knowing the order of the postal code just might use a letter "i" instead of the number "1"...and then that would affect the machines at the post offices used to sort the mail according to postal code. That causes problems for the post office (ok maybe not really, but it might) and we all know not to cause problems for post office employees...otherwise they'll go postal...

Ok...bad joke at the end. I apologize to all postal employees, and members of their families if they are offended (heck, my own father used to sort mail at the post office). But, I will not apologize for stating that the CBC is wrong with their word association for the postal code and the fact they need to fix it to accurately reflect their postal code.

'Nuff said.