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Simon Fraser University’s sports teams are known as the Clan, a nod to the Scottish origins of the school’s namesake. But all of that will come to an end if a name-change campaign by philosophy professor Holly Andersen is successful.

Andersen understands that there is nothing inherently wrong with the name, but wants it changed solely because it sounds like “Klan” — as in “Ku Klux Klan.”

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“This is not a history we can just wish away by saying, ‘but that’s not what WE mean by it!’” wrote Andersen on a petition that now counts 398 supporters.

Inspired by this newly defined “Andersen Method” of “not racist but sounds like it could be,” the National Post has compiled a list of Canadian objects and places that may sound offensive, but are not.

The McGill Redmen

Photo by John Meagher/Postmedia Network

At first glance, the name of McGill University’s men’s athletic teams seems like an obvious slur on Indigenous people, similar to the Washington Redskins. But the Montreal university’s own research has determined that the name originated in the 1920s as a somewhat lazy reference to the team’s red sweaters, and is possibly a tribute to the Celtic roots of university founder James McGill (a lot of Celts have red hair).

Slave Lake, Alta.

Photo by Trevor Robb/Edmonton Sun/Postmedia Network

The name of this Alberta town has no connection to African slavery, and it has a debated connection to slavery in general. As the story goes, while on his 1793 canoe trek to the Pacific coast, Alexander Mackenzie asked his Cree guides what they called the body of water in what is now central Alberta. They reportedly replied that it was a “slave” lake, in reference to the Dene people whom they occasionally enslaved. However, another theory is that Mackenzie had simply misheard the Cree word for “stranger.”