Montréal or Montreal

Is it Montreal or Montréal?

Language and thus spelling are politically sensitive issues in this part of North America. When sending an email, or filing out an application, some people who are bilingual (and perhaps a little neurotic) make many minute calculations about the political-linguistic preferences of the person on the receiving end. Are they Québecois thirsting for independence or irritated federalists?

Sure, if the text is in French, then it's a no brainer. You are in Montréal. However, never, EVER, write a francophone you are in Montreal, unless it can pass as a typo. Just like you should never begin speaking to a stranger in the language of Shakespeare. You might be exposing yourself to a descent amount of unfriendliness. When in doubt in the continent's bilingual capital, always begin a conversation in French. French speakers will be happy you are one of them and Anglophones will feel in a disadvantaged position (especially if they "ne parle pas la français"). But in the event you are writing en anglais, then it can become important how you spell the name of the world's second largest French speaking city, and the neurotic second guessing can begin.

A similar question can be asked about other wonderfully fractured cities. In the more explosive context of Jerusalem, do people visit Israel, the Occupied Territories, the Holy Land, or Palestine? Yikes, at least in the case of the place so dear to many of the world's religions, the spelling is the same and you can always cop out by just writing you are going to the city, regardless of where that is. Not so with Québec's largest metropolis, because of that damn accent aigu.

That same bilingual problem comes up again when writing an address, what does one write after the wacky British postal code (H2K 4H9), just "QC" (Québec), or "QC, Canada"? Where are we? At least in an oral conversation it is easy to sidestep the issue by simply being in Montreal, or is it Montréal?