< Insert A Tenuous Beaver Joke Here >
In news designed purely to get traditionalists outraged and teenaged children giggling, we read that:
“CANADA’S second-oldest magazine, The Beaver, is changing its name after 90 years because the title is too often censored by online porn filters, preventing it from reaching new online readers.
The Winnipeg-based magazine was launched in 1920 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the fur trade that led to the early exploration of Canada. But in modern times, the term “beaver” has become slang for women’s genitals.
“The Beaver was an impediment online,” publisher Deborah Morrison said. “Several readers asked us to change the title because their spam filters at home or at work were blocking it,” she said. “I’ve even had emails bounce back because I had inadvertently typed the term in the heading.”
“Nearly a century ago, it probably seemed the perfect name for a magazine about the fur trade and Canada’s northwest frontier. There was only one interpretation for the word then. “But you’re likely to find a lot of (porn) sites now if you search for the title of our history magazine online,” she said.
Print subscriptions to the Winnipeg-based magazine, which publishes six issues a year, range between 45,000 and 50,000. It is published by Canada’s National History Society.
The magazine that chronicles Canada’s past will publish its last issue under the old banner in February/March. Thereafter, it will be known under the less evocative name of Canada’s History.
If it had been published in Scunthorpe the title would have been changed years ago.
Apologies: a return to serious blogging as soon asTheEye’s post New Year current bout of frivolity succumbs to the depressing weather.
Being Canadian it is a Sad thing. Wonderful country, great magazine. I will be getting a copy of the last one to be publish as The Beaver.
The infuriating thing is that they actually feel the need to do this. TheEye, as a self-confessed traditionalist in this respect, hates the idea of 90 years of history being thrown away just because of the technological inadequacies of corporate web browser filtering software.
Unfortunately the tone of my post here reflects TheEye’s deteriorating and unproductive attitude of a sad shake of the head and then moving on. A few years ago I would have been up in arms about this and organising a petition to save the proper name. Nowadays its just another victim of people who have no sense of history or proportion. Ho hum, nothing to see, move along.
I must snap out of it and get back to fighting these things, especially ones closer to home where I have a chance of success. If we all just give up then we’re doomed.