Thursday, April 18, 2019

April 18, 2019, T+6, Part 5 -- Notley Nocked Out -- Not Even Close

From The National Post, link here:
  • Alberta: home of the TransMountain pipeline fight
  • outcome not even close
  • United Conservative Party wins in a landslide
  • UCP takes 63 of the province's 87 "ridings"
  • Jason Kenney to replace Rachel Notley
  • Notley's NDP took 24 of the 87 ridings
From the linked article:
Kenney entered UCP headquarters at Calgary’s Stampede Grounds Tuesday night in the blue pickup truck he made famous on the campaign trail. As a “build that pipe” chant went up in the room, the UCP leader stopped the crowd to correct them. It’s not just one pipeline we need, it’s several, he said. “It’s build those pipes,” said Kenney.
“Today, we Albertans begin to fight back.”
Has already directly threatened British Columbia.
  • threatening to turn off the oil and gas taps right after he takes office later this month.
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The Word Page

"Riding" is no doubt a British term. I first came across when deployed to northern England/Yorkshire some years ago. I thought I had blogged about "riding" and Yorkshire on many occasions, but perhaps not. Here is one post (at the link, scroll to the very bottom).

I can pretty much guess the etymology of the British/English term "riding." The Brits/English are incredibly "concrete" when it comes to their language.

A traffic circle, for example, is a "round-about" in England.

So, "riding."

Here it is from wiki:
The term 'riding' is of Viking origin and derives from Threthingr meaning a third part. The three ridings in Yorkshire were named the East Riding, West Riding and North Riding.
More from wiki:
A riding is an administrative jurisdiction or electoral district, particularly in several current or former Commonwealth countries.

The word riding is descended from late Old English *þriðing or *þriding (recorded only in Latin contexts or forms, e.g., trehing, treding, trithing, with Latin initial t here representing the Old English letter thorn).
It came into Old English as a loanword from Old Norse þriðjungr, meaning a third part (especially of a county) – the original "ridings", in the English counties of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, were in each case a set of three, though once the term was adopted elsewhere it was used for other numbers (cf. farthing).
The modern form riding was the result of initial th being absorbed in the final th or t of the words north, south, east and west, by which it was normally preceded.

A common misconception holds that the term arose from some association between the size of the district and the distance that can be covered or encircled on horseback in a certain amount of time (cf. the Walking Purchase).

The term was used in 19th century Canada to refer to subdivisions of counties.

In Canadian politics, "riding" is a colloquial term for a constituency or electoral district. Officially, "electoral district" is generally used, although government documents sometimes use the colloquial term. In colloquial Canadian French, a riding is known as comté, i.e., "county", as the electoral districts in Quebec were historically identical to its counties; the official French term is circonscription.

The Canadian use of "riding" is derived from the English local government term, which was widely used in Canada in the 19th century.
The local association for a political party, which legally is known as an "electoral district association", is often referred to as a riding association.

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