Get Out The Dictionary

CUPE’s demands for its outside workers in Toronto are “modest enough, even apologetic” says Rick Salutin in an otherwise fairly reasonable column in The Globe and Mail. They’re not asking for anything new, he insists. They just “don't want to give back the right to accumulate sick-leave benefits by coming to work assiduously.” Now, last we checked, assiduously is an adjective meaning “constant; unremitting.” Assuming (conservatively, we’re guessing) that the striking workers get three weeks’ vacation, 18 sick days allow them to miss work more than seven per cent of the time! We have seen assiduity, and that ain’t quite it.