THE ADVOCATE 633
VOL. 80 PART 4 JULY 2022
The government of Canada’s website describes the phenomenon of the
“salute”, including the “gun salute” that “has for centuries had a part in
expressing the joy of a people’s thanksgiving, much in the same spirit as
a Te Deum is sung in the churches for deliverance from catastrophe. Sometimes
the guns roared out in the sheer joy of celebration.” The website notes
that “one such occasion on the grand scale was the celebration of a small
city, Norwich in East Anglia, when the Spanish Armada was destroyed in
battle and storm in 1588”, with “‘the great guns … firing salvoes in salute all
day long, the town’s soldiers let off their calivers and muskets in the meadows.
The flags were hung out and to the accompaniment of drums, flutes
and trumpets the waits official bands of musicians maintained by a city or
town sang at the city cross’”.
Pierre J.Y. Gagnon recently authored of a chapter on language policies and
rights in the text Terminology, a Linguistic Approach (La terminologie, une
approche linguistique) published by Éditions JFD.
In 2016, Autotrader.ca ran an article comparing—yes, really—the 2017 Nissan
Armada (the SUV) and the 1588 Spanish Armada. Similarities between
the SUV and the galleons that dominated the Spanish fleet were said to
include expansive windows. Further, given that there are “no roads in the
ocean”, “naturally Spanish galleons like the SUV had immense off-road
capability”, though “despite their stout oak-and-hardwood construction
many fell prey to the hurricane winds and towering waves the Atlantic can
dish out during a storm”. For its part, the SUV “can’t drive across oceans, but
it avails itself extremely well in rough terrestrial conditions … Certainly it
never capsized and sank, unlike a galleon caught in a hurricane”. Further,
“unlike the 1588 Spanish Armada the 2017 Nissan Armada is unlikely to
retreat from anything you can throw at it”.
A “lively appreciation of the worth of sea power” in England was manifest
in the following examples cited by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second
Circuit in Hume v. Moore McCormack Lines, 121 F.2d 336 (1941):
Legend ascribes the foundation of the English navy to King Alfred;
William the Conqueror knew what he was about when he established the
Cinque Ports; Edward III followed his father in proclaiming himself “Sovereign
of the Sea”; Henry VIII created a permanent royal navy; in order
to revitalize a trade helpful in time of war, the fishing industry weakened
by the Reformation which did away with the religious obligation to eat
fish Edward VI established “Political Lent” by a statute requiring fish,
instead of flesh, to be eaten on Fridays, Saturdays, Ember Days and during
Lent; the adventures of men such as Drake, Frobisher and Raleigh,
and the defeat of the Spanish Armada, tell of the marked interest in sea
/Autotrader.ca