ST. CATHARINES [sic] – The largest city in the Niagara peninsula has decided to change its name after realizing that the spelling of “St. Catharines” has been wrong for over two centuries.
“We’ve always insisted that our semi-literate Loyalist ancestors who named this city had it right,” explained Mayor Walter Sendzik. “We have always been adamant to correct those who would spell it “St. Catherine’s” or “St. Catharine’s”. However, after consulting with high school English teachers, we realized that we were the ones spelling it wrong this whole time.”
The city’s current moniker fails to meet current rules for both spelling and grammar. After an emergency city council meeting, the councillors and mayor moved to amend the name to “Saint Kathryn’s”.
“We decided to spell our name with a ‘K’ to give the city a new, modern look,” added the mayor.
Locals along St. Paul Street were happy to hear that people from outside their fair city will now have a better chance of getting the name right.
“I wrote it as ‘St Kitts’ since I didn’t have the time to learn the proper misspelling,” explained resident Grace Allen. “But when I did that, my water bill kept being sent to the Caribbean Island, St. Kitts. I’m glad we put an end to the confusion.”
Saint Kathryn’s is not the first Canadian city or jurisdiction to change its name to comply with the rules of the English language. Before 1974, St. John’s, Newfoundland was spelled as “S’aint Jahnz” and ten years earlier, the Province of Saskatchewan was simply denoted as “X”.
