We probably have lots of terms everywhere that others don't know. Any interesting examples?
We in Alberta have a few chinook and wobbly terms that we share with BC (chuck doesn't just refer to Edmonton, for example.) There are some words derived from Michif and Cree in Alberta that are used like "Ship it!" The commute from Edmonton to Fort McMurray has a few terms:
On CBC radio this evening an interview with Lorne Greene in 1965 was replayed as part of a retrospective on the 50th anniversary of the show Ideas.
Far from having any kind of identifiably Canadian accent, Mr. Greene, confusingly for someone so associated with the great love for the mythical Wild West in the pop culture of the U.S. in the 1950s and 60s, spoke with the vowels of a displaced native of Brooklyn, though toned down one or two registers from the likes of Mel Brooks or Woody Allen. My guess is that he adopted that while doing theatre and television in New York.
It's not that I expected him to sound like a "hoser," but still. Canadian media people spoke with a de rigeur mid-Atlantic accent during the era surrounding the Second World War, and it was common to hear BBC English on Canadian radio and television from landed Britons in the trade, so this seemed peculiar to me. I wonder what people at the time thought?
Ayreonaut's former roommate, a girl from Toronto who only lived here for six months, still sounded more or less like a mainlander to me the day she left. But everyone she knew back in Toronto teased her a little for how "east coast" she sounded.
Well now it's many months later, I forget how long, but she moved back I think I'm spring of 2014. She just posted on my FB wall that a Newfoundlander she works with at the big hospital downtown asked her, today, "What part of Newfoundland are you from?"
I think she might be stuck with whatever it is she picked up here.
EDIT: The conversation continued with comments from a mutual friend and her friend. She says "my love" and "my duckie" subconsciously now. That's what it is.
__________________ Note to self: "The plural of anecdote is not evidence."
Last edited by SignalHillHiker; Jan 8, 2015 at 9:13 PM.
A guy named Leo just called in to Open Line to complain about Canada mismanaging our fishery. He had such a lovely accent. He said words like "requirement" as though he was making fun of the Irish. Sssooo sing-songy. I recorded some of it and will post after work. But he also used a bunch of old terms I haven't heard in years.
"Be's long" = belong
"Hung" = tired
"Kent Street" = slur term for the federal government.
"Gumbean" = scum politician
"Buckell" = a lot
__________________ Note to self: "The plural of anecdote is not evidence."
"Kent Street" = slur term for the federal government
I assume this comes from Kent St in Ottawa? It is a major CBD street with lots of federal offices having their letterheads on it... though the CRA is not there.
I assume this comes from Kent St in Ottawa? It is a major CBD street with lots of federal offices having their letterheads on it... though the CRA is not there.
Hahaha. No those were all really old and rare terms. I only know the hung one because my Dad's fisherman from Grand Beach says it. I've never heard it anywhere else.
It normally means exactly the same things here .
__________________ Note to self: "The plural of anecdote is not evidence."
O.K., here's a little of the clip I mentioned. The only odd phrase I caught was "be's long". It basically has the same origin as the modern English "belong" (a combination of BE and LONG, with LONG in old English meaning "going with"). Ours just comes from a different tense that implies the action is regular, as opposed to simply happening at the moment.
Some forms of it are still very common today. "I be's to that store" = "I am regularly at that store".
But "be's long" you could live your whole life here and never hear these days.
And the only really strongly pronounced (to my ears) brogue I captured was "requirement". I wish I had recorded his long intro before he got excited and sped up. He was speaking so slowly, every word was a melody. It was beautiful.
Just makes my blood boil too. God, I hope some federal party gives us control of the fishery.
We only have a few years longer of Canada controlling the fishery before the shrimp fishery collapses. The stocks are falling fast, and when Canada reduces quotas, it's the small, inshore fishermen whose quotas are cut first (ignoring the internationally-recognized or respected rights associated with adjacency). Canada leaves the large trawlers on the offshore, which are allowed to harvest during spawning season.
This is what happened with capelin, in which case it wasn't only mostly foreign overfishing, but COMPLETELY foreign overfishing. When that stock collapsed, the cod - which rely on it for food - followed immediately after. Like... just give us the control, ye fucking idiots. We'll cut the quotas for the huge offshore trawlers, close the fishery during spawning season, and end up with a fishery which allows US to harvest even more than WE currently are while taking less shrimp from the ocean in total.
And it's bad like this across the board. It just boggles the mind.
/endrant
__________________ Note to self: "The plural of anecdote is not evidence."
Last edited by SignalHillHiker; Jan 9, 2015 at 11:04 PM.
isn't the knacker's the place where they take old horses to be made into glue, by's?
__________________
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. (Bertrand Russell). Sweet Loretta fart thought she was a cleaner, but she was a frying pan. (John Lennon)
1. "Thank you so much." This exaggerated lip service to gratitude grates on me. It sounds like sarcasm, as if the person is mocking the very notion of having to show gratitude for my custom, and so acts out a small caricature of an unctuous display of servitude in order to mock the reality of our respective positions of customer and retail employee.
It might actually be a subtle marker of the potential for class warfare if it weren't now so ubiquitous and automatic. Maybe it was at first, but has now devolved into a small, impotent protest at the economic reality that has forced a child of the self-esteem generation to confront the disheartening fact that, far from actually doing anything "awesome!" as the comments to each of the 37,000 photos on his Facebook page seem to attest as part of the ritualistic mantra of mutual affirmation that has come to define our age, he is working at Wendy's.
2. "Hello, sir, how are you?" Haven't telemarketers cottoned on to the backlash against this yet? When I hear the phone ring I anticipate that it portends a communication from a client (in my particular case in my home office) or someone else I know, in which case a quick "how are you -- good, thanks" is a formality with a basis in an established relationship.
The telemarketers think they've figured out that going directly into their spiel is too harsh, so they need to preface it with niceties. I think they should just matter-of-factly state their business immediately: "Hello sir, I'm calling from Acme Windows and Doors. Could I interest you in some of our products?"
Of course, I also think that they should never call me again, as I never have and never will purchase anything from anyone calling me out of the blue, so they're basically caught behind the eight-ball on that one, and they know it. They must have some tedious phone conversations with lonely eighty-year-olds who can't understand Indian-accented English.
3 "I'm like...and she's like..." This is old one, I know, but I still wince when I hear it. Though it seems to be fading somewhat. You don't hear it quite so much as you used to, do you?
1. "Thank you so much." This exaggerated lip service to gratitude grates on me. It sounds like sarcasm, as if the person is mocking the very notion of having to show gratitude for my custom, and so acts out a small caricature of an unctuous display of servitude in order to mock the reality of our respective positions of customer and retail employee.
It might actually be a subtle marker of the potential for class warfare if it weren't now so ubiquitous and automatic. Maybe it was at first, but has now devolved into a small, impotent protest at the economic reality that has forced a child of the self-esteem generation to confront the disheartening fact that, far from actually doing anything "awesome!" as the comments to each of the 37,000 photos on his Facebook page seem to attest as part of the ritualistic mantra of mutual affirmation that has come to define our age, he is working at Wendy's.
.....
You will have me listening for this in coming weeks, as I can't say I've ever noticed it. When I say it to myself, I only hear a bit of surprise and pleasure (more so than "thank you very much").
On the other hand, I may have a tin ear since what the service staff say and do, beyond serving me, is really of no interest. Plus, I think I give off some sort of vibe that leads the bright ones to realize that they shouldn't mess with me!
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God, I hope some federal party gives us control of the fishery. 
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