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Mark Carney gave a speech in Toronto on Tuesday.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail

One of the privileges of editing The Globe is hosting a range of fascinating guests at our editorial board.

This week, we were visited by a regular guest, Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, who was in Toronto to make one of his last major speeches before moving to London to lead the Bank of England.

The visit was arranged about 10 days earlier, when Mr. Carney and I spoke by telephone so he could explain some of the background of his decision to move to London, which was at risk of being mangled by Canadian and British press hordes probing his life like never before. (Leave it to Fleet Street to track down a college buddy in New Zealand.)

While Mr. Carney is articulate, charming and what we call a press magnet – no wonder so many Liberals wanted him to seek their party's leadership – he is also protective of his young family's privacy. I implored him to share his story with the country, or at least our readers, which he did in this story by Boyd Erman.

Not evident in Boyd's story is the tone of Mr. Carney's voice in response to a question about his spare time spent with Liberals. The usually ebullient Governor glared at one of our editors, and growled, "I don't comment on my private life." His trademark doodling accelerates when he is agitated, and it reached a near frenzied scribble. (It looked like right-angle triangles, although another editor thought he was drawing a house.)

One other point to note about Mr. Carney: He is spooked by the growth of Toronto condos. In fact, it's one thing he and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty have in common. Whenever they visit The Globe, they comment on the growth of condos all around our Front Street headquarters.

Mr. Carney recalled from his days in Toronto as an investment banker that our front door faced the old CP rail lands. Today, it's a wall of glass and home to thousands of urbanites.

Before we said goodbye, I asked why both he and Mr. Flaherty seemed so cautious about urban development, when it could also be seen as a sign of a vibrant city on the march. He quickly pulled out a Bank of Canada report to show a chart of Toronto condo vacancies, and how it surpasses the downturn of the early 1990s. And with that, he was gone.

Before climbing aboard a Russian rocket on Wednesday and blasting off to take command of the space station, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield spoke with The Globe's biggest space buff, Paul Taylor.

You may have noticed an Arts headline this week that included the word "limn." The Middle English word, derived from a 16th century expression to illuminate, is generally – if obscurely – used as a verb to mean to draw, describe or delineate. Some readers were not amused. Here is what one wrote:

Dear Mr. Stackhouse, I am a 61-year-old, university educated, long-time Globe and Mail reader. For the past few months, I have noticed the increasingly gratuitous use of obscure words in place of commonly used alternatives. The use of "limn" on the front page of the Life & Arts section really takes the cake.

What purpose is served with this obscurity? How does this approach help communicate meaning? I don't appreciate having to take the time to consult a dictionary to understand an otherwise straightforward headline.

Regards, Thomas Linderoos

A confession: I had to look the word up on m-w.com. So did our Arts editor, Gabe Gonda. He didn't mind challenging his readers: "Whether strategic obscurity is a fun diversion or an annoyance, I figure with Wikipedia, every little bit of knowledge is a couple clicks away; one of the things that make media so much fun these days."

Enjoy the weekend,

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