Canadian Litmus test.
Feb. 25th, 2004 01:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anigo Stolen from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
framlingem. She's a sweetie, eh. From just over on da rock. Go say hi to her sometime if you have a chance. You'll be glad you did.
Do you understand the following passage?
"Last night, I cashed my pogey and went to buy a mickey of C.C. at the beer parlour, but my skidoo got stuck in the muskeg on my way back to the duplex. I was trying to deke out a deer, you see. Damn chinook, melted everything. And then a Mountie snuck up behind me in a ghost car and gave me an impaired. I was S.O.L., sitting there dressed only in my Stanfelds and a touque at the time. And the Mountie, he's all chippy and everything, calling me a "shit disturber" and what not. What could I say, except, "Sorry, EH!"
The passage cited above contains no fewer than 19 different
Canadianisms.
In order:
* pogey: EI (Employment insurance). Money provided by the government
for not working.
* mickey: A small bottle of booze (13 oz) (A Texas mickey, on the
other hand, is a ridiculously big bottle of booze, which, despite the name, is still a Canadianism through and through.)
* C.C.: Canadian Club, a brand of rye. Not to be confused with "hockey stick," another kind of Canadian Club.
* beer parlour: Like an ice cream parlour, but for Canadians.
* skidoo: Self-propelled decapitation unit for teenagers,
Snow-Mobiles)
* muskeg: Boggy swampland.
* duplex: A single building divided in half with two sets of inhabitants, each trying to pretend the other doesn't exist while at the same time managing to drive each other crazy; metaphor for Canada's French and English.
* deke: Used as a verb, it means "to fool an opponent through skillful misdirection." As a noun, it is used most often in exclamatory constructions, such as: "Whadda deke!" Meaning, "My, what an impressive display of physical dexterity employing misdirection and guile."
* chinook: An unseasonably warm wind that comes over the Rockies and
onto the plains, melting snow banks in Calgary but just missing Edmonton, much to the pleasure of Calgarians.
* Mountie: Canadian icon, strong of jaw, red of coat, pure of heart.
Always get their man! (See also Pepper spray, uses of.)
* snuck: To have sneaked; to move, past tense, in a sneaky manner;
non-restrictive extended semi-gerundial form of "did sneak." (We think.)
* ghost car: An unmarked police car, easily identifiable by its
inconspicuousness.
* impaired: A charge of drunk driving. Used both as a noun and as an
adjective (the alternative adjectival from of "impaired" being "pissed to the gills").
* S.O.L.: Shit outta luck; in an unfortunate predicament.
* Stanfields: Men's underwear, especially Grandpa-style, white cotton ones with a big elastic waistband and a large superfluous flap in the front and back!
* touque: Canada's official National Head Apparel, with about the same suave sex appeal as a pair of Stanfields.
* chippy: Behaviour that is inappropriately aggressive; constantly
looking for a reason to find offense; from "chip on one's shoulder."
(See Western Canada)
* shit disturber: (See Quebec) a troublemaker or provocateur.
According to Katherine Barber, editor in Chief of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary,"shit disturber" is a distinctly Canadian term. (Just remember that Western Canada is chippy and Quebec is a shit disturber, and you will do fine.)
Sadly, I understood the whole darn thing.
framlingem. She's a sweetie, eh. From just over on da rock. Go say hi to her sometime if you have a chance. You'll be glad you did.Do you understand the following passage?
"Last night, I cashed my pogey and went to buy a mickey of C.C. at the beer parlour, but my skidoo got stuck in the muskeg on my way back to the duplex. I was trying to deke out a deer, you see. Damn chinook, melted everything. And then a Mountie snuck up behind me in a ghost car and gave me an impaired. I was S.O.L., sitting there dressed only in my Stanfelds and a touque at the time. And the Mountie, he's all chippy and everything, calling me a "shit disturber" and what not. What could I say, except, "Sorry, EH!"
The passage cited above contains no fewer than 19 different
Canadianisms.
In order:
* pogey: EI (Employment insurance). Money provided by the government
for not working.
* mickey: A small bottle of booze (13 oz) (A Texas mickey, on the
other hand, is a ridiculously big bottle of booze, which, despite the name, is still a Canadianism through and through.)
* C.C.: Canadian Club, a brand of rye. Not to be confused with "hockey stick," another kind of Canadian Club.
* beer parlour: Like an ice cream parlour, but for Canadians.
* skidoo: Self-propelled decapitation unit for teenagers,
Snow-Mobiles)
* muskeg: Boggy swampland.
* duplex: A single building divided in half with two sets of inhabitants, each trying to pretend the other doesn't exist while at the same time managing to drive each other crazy; metaphor for Canada's French and English.
* deke: Used as a verb, it means "to fool an opponent through skillful misdirection." As a noun, it is used most often in exclamatory constructions, such as: "Whadda deke!" Meaning, "My, what an impressive display of physical dexterity employing misdirection and guile."
* chinook: An unseasonably warm wind that comes over the Rockies and
onto the plains, melting snow banks in Calgary but just missing Edmonton, much to the pleasure of Calgarians.
* Mountie: Canadian icon, strong of jaw, red of coat, pure of heart.
Always get their man! (See also Pepper spray, uses of.)
* snuck: To have sneaked; to move, past tense, in a sneaky manner;
non-restrictive extended semi-gerundial form of "did sneak." (We think.)
* ghost car: An unmarked police car, easily identifiable by its
inconspicuousness.
* impaired: A charge of drunk driving. Used both as a noun and as an
adjective (the alternative adjectival from of "impaired" being "pissed to the gills").
* S.O.L.: Shit outta luck; in an unfortunate predicament.
* Stanfields: Men's underwear, especially Grandpa-style, white cotton ones with a big elastic waistband and a large superfluous flap in the front and back!
* touque: Canada's official National Head Apparel, with about the same suave sex appeal as a pair of Stanfields.
* chippy: Behaviour that is inappropriately aggressive; constantly
looking for a reason to find offense; from "chip on one's shoulder."
(See Western Canada)
* shit disturber: (See Quebec) a troublemaker or provocateur.
According to Katherine Barber, editor in Chief of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary,"shit disturber" is a distinctly Canadian term. (Just remember that Western Canada is chippy and Quebec is a shit disturber, and you will do fine.)
Sadly, I understood the whole darn thing.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-02-25 10:04 am (UTC)But I'm a Canada-phile.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-25 10:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-01 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-02 05:47 am (UTC)I've read some of your posts as well - great wedding pictures, by the way.
Welcome!