The use of the а word in canada

CANADA

Canada is an independent federative state. It is one of the most developed countries. Canada consists of ten provinces and two territories.

It is situated on the North American continent. The country is washed by the Pacific Ocean in the west, by the Atlantic Ocean in the east and by the Arctic Ocean and its seas in the north. About 2 percent of the Canadian territory is covered by glacier ice.

The eastern parts of the country are mainly valleys and plains. The western territories are occupied by the Cordilleras.

The main Canadian islands are Newfoundland, Victorian Island, Baffin Island and others. There are a lot of rivers and lakes in Canada. The largest rivers are the Nelson, the Ottawa, the Mackenzie and the Yukon.

In size Canada is the second in the world after Russia. Its area is almost 10 million km2. The capital of Canada is Ottawa, which is situated on the bank of the Ottawa River. It is famous for its beautiful parks. It is also known as the city of bridges.

The most developed industries are timber, mining, chemical, meat and milk and food industries. Canada grows wheat, barley, flax, potatoes, vegetables and fruit. Fishing is also one of the prosperous industries.

Official languages of Canada are English and French. Canada is a founding member of the United Nations. It has been active in a number of major UN agencies.

1) Read these geographical names.

• Canada

• the North American continent

• the Pacific Ocean

• the Atlantic Ocean

• the Arctic Ocean

• Canadian islands

• Newfoundland [‘njuːfən(d)lənd]

• Victorian Island

• Baffin Island

• the Nelson, the Ottawa, the Mackenzie and the Yukon

2) Remember the words.

independent federative state – независимое федеративное государство

the most developed – наиболее развитый

provinces — провинции

territories — территории

the west — запад

the east — восток

percent — процент

is covered — покрыты

glacier ice — ледник

are occupied by — заняты

bank — берег

bridge — мост

timber – лесная промышленность

mining – горная промышленность

chemical – химическая промышленность

wheat — пшеница

barley — ячмень

flax — лен

prosperous — процветающий

founding member — основатель

United Nations – Организация Объединенных Наций

major UN agencies – основные учреждения ООН

3) Find 11 words.

p	r	o	s	p	e	r	o	u	s
w	q	e	h	r	a	w	t	x	e
b	f	w	h	o	s	a	r	x	a
a	o	h	j	v	t	q	v	z	o
r	l	e	m	i	n	i	n	g	l
l	w	a	g	n	o	c	e	a	n
e	e	t	p	c	b	f	l	a	x
y	s	c	p	e	r	c	e	n	t
c	t	c	k	s	r	b	a	n	k

4) Make up these sentences.

1) on the North American continent / is / it / situated.

2) a lot of / there are / in Canada / rivers and lakes .

3) of Canada / are / English and French / official languages.

4) consists of / Canada / ten / territories / and / provinces / two.

5) Answer the questions.

1. What does Canada consist of?

2. Where is it situated?

3. What oceans is Canada washed by?

4. What are there in the eastern part of the country?

5. What are the main Canadian islands?

6. What are the largest rivers?

7. What is the size of Canada?

8. What is its area?

9. What is the capital of Canada? Where is it situated? What is it famous for?

10. What are the most developed industries?

11. What are grown in Canada?

12. What are the official languages?

6) Do the test.

1. Fill in the missing words.

Largest / flax / continent / an / eastern / Ocean / parks / provinces / developed western

Canada is 1) … independent federative state. It is one of the most 2) … countries. Canada consists of ten 3) … and two territories. It is situated on the North American 4) …. The country is washed by the Pacific 5) … in the west.  The 6) … parts of the country are mainly valleys and plains. The 7) … territories are occupied by the Cordilleras. The … rivers are the Nelson, the Ottawa, the Mackenzie and the Yukon. Ottawa is famous for its beautiful 9) …. Canada grows wheat, barley, 10) …, potatoes, vegetables and fruit.

2. True or false.

1) Canada is the most developed country.

2) Canada consists of two provinces and ten territories.

3) It is situated on the South American continent.

4) The country is washed by the Arctic Ocean in the south. 

5) The largest rivers are Newfoundland, Victorian Island, Baffin Island and others.

6) In size Canada is the first in the world.

6) Quiz.

• 1.  Canada is surrounded by ___ oceans.

A. 1 B. 2 C. 3 D. 4

• 2.  What is the capital of Canada?

A. Ottawa B. Québec C. Vancouver D. Montreal

• 3.  Canada’s national animal is the…

A. Grizzly bear. B. Moose. C. Beaver. D. Eagle.

• 4.  Canada owns ___% of the world’s forests.

A. 5 B. 10 C. 15 D. 20

• 5.  Who were the first inhabitants of Canada?

A. American people B. Aboriginal people C. European people D. Eskimos

• 6.  Ice hockey is the national winter sport of the country. What is the national summer sport?

A. Lacrosse B. Basketball C. Football D. Rugby

• 7. Niagara falls belongs to…

A. Canada. B. The USA. C. Both of them. D. None of them.

• 8. How big is the population of the country?

A. More than 10 million people B. More than 20 million people C. More than 30 million people

D. More than 40 million people

• 9. In 2010 the Winter Olympic Games were held in Vancouver. There was another occasion when Canada was a host for the games. When was it?

A. 1948 B. 1956 C. 1972 D. 1988

Key:

1. C 2. A 3. A 4. B 5. B 6. A 7. C 8. C 9. D

Canadian English

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Canada has
its own political, cultural, historical, and geographical
realities and has its own words to describe these
realities. It has two official languages, English
and French, but in the 2001 census 18% of the population
reported having a mother tongue, other than one of
the official languages, Chinese being the third most
common mother tongue. Canadian English is spoken as
a first or second language by over 25 million people.
Most of the Canadians who speak French live in the
province of Quebec although forty percent of the population
of the province of New Brunswick is also francophone.
Canada was founded as a union of British colonies,
some of which had earlier been under French control.
It is a federal dominion with ten provinces and three
territories obtained its sovereignty from the United
Kingdom in a process beginning in 1867. Canada defines
itself as a bilingual and multicultural nation.

The English
vocabulary used does not differ enormously from the
vocabulary used in other parts of the world, but some
words have different connotations in different
English speaking countries. The bulk of the words
used are common to all English speakers, but there
are, a number of words that are peculiar to Canada.
Canadian English spelling is a mixture of American,
British , and unique Canadianisms. Canadian vocabulary
is similar to American English, but with key differences
and local variations. Generally speaking, there are
no grammatical features that are distinctly Canadian.
There are, however, slight differences between American
English and British English, and since Canadians are
influenced by both, Canadian English is a mixture
of both American and British features. In general,
Canadian pronunciation is almost identical to American
pronunciation, but there are regional differences.

Distinctive Canadian Vocabulary

Canadian
English includes words borrowed from other languages
which do not appear in other varieties of English.
The country’s name comes from the Iroquoian word Kanata
meaning «community». Most of these borrowed
words refer to features in the flora, fauna, geography
and topography. The native Aboriginal peoples, the
British and French settlers, more recent arrivals
and occupations in the different regions have all
contributed to making Canadian English unique.

Allophone	A resident of Quebec who speaks a first language other than English or French
Anglophone	Someone who speaks English as a first language.
Biffy	An outdoor toilet usually located over pit or a septic tank
Chesterfield	A sofa, couch, or loveseat (also used in Northern California and Britain)
Click	Slang for kilometre.
Concession road	In southern Ontario and southern Quebec, one of a set of roads laid out by the colonial government as part of the distribution of land in standard lot sizes. The roads were laid out in squares as nearly as possible equal to 1,000 acres (that is, one and a quarter miles square). In Ontario, many roads are still called lines.
Eavestroughs	Grooves or channels that attach to the underside of the roof of a house to collect rainwater. Known to Americans as a gutter
Francophone	Someone who speaks French as a first language
Garburator	A garbage disposal unit located beneath the drain of a kitchen sink.
Humidex	A term referring to the combined effect of heat and humidity on temperature
Joe job	A lower-class, low-paying job
Keener	An enthusiastic student, not necessarily a positive term
Loonie or loony	This is a colloquialism for Canada’s dollar coin. The plural is loonies. The nickname comes from the loon on the coin.
Muskeg	A sphagnum bog, an usually thick deposit of partially decayed vegetable matter of wet boreal regions
Off side	From the hockey term offside, meaning that a player has raced too far ahead of the puck, this phrase is often used in Canada to mean someone is not on board.
On side	Used frequently in Canada to mean that you’re in agreement, this term may come from hockey, where players can be offside.
Parkade	A parking garage
Pogey	This is a mildly pejorative Canadian word for welfare or, occasionally, unemployment insurance.
Poutine	A Canadian delicacy made of French fries covered in cheese curds and gravy.
Pure laine	From the French words for pure wool, this expression refers to French Canadians whose roots go back to colonial New France. It also connotes racial purity, and as such is mildly offensive.
Runners	Running shoes; sneakers
Ski-Doo	A brand name now used generically to refer to any snowmobile. Can also be used as a verb
Sniggler	Someone who takes the parking spot you wanted, or who otherwise does something perfectly legitimate, but which nonetheless inconveniences or annoys you.
Sook or suck	A crybaby. The adjective is sookie or suckie. Sook rhymes with hook. For some reason, you can get away with using sook in polite company, but never suck.
Toboggan	A long flat-bottomed light sled, usually made of thin boards curved up at one end with low handrails at the sides.
Tuque	A knit winter hat that covers the head and ears (rhymes with kook).
Utilidor	Short for utility corridor , this term is used mostly in the Canadian North.

Other words
have different meanings in Canada, the United States
and Britain.

Examples
include:

Canadian English	American English	British English
ABM	ATM	Cashpoint, cashdispenser
bachelor apartment	efficiency	bedsit
Billion — a thousand million (1,000,000,000)	Billion — a thousand million (1,000,000,000)	Billion — a million million (1,000,000,000,000).
bus depot	bus station	coach station
Canadian bacon	back bacon
child benefit, baby bonus	child tax benefit	family allowance
coin laundry	Laundromat	launderette
depanneur	convenience store	corner shop
driver’s permit	driver’s license	driving licence
Elevator	Elevator	Lift
fire hall	firehouse	fire station
flat tire	flat	flat tyre, puncture
funeral chapel	funeral home	funeral parlour
gas	gas	petrol
main floor	first floor	ground floor
offence	offense	attack
phone, call (v)	call	phone
puckster	hockey player	ice hockey player
railways	Railroads	Railways
Revenue Canada, RevCan	International Service, IRS	Inland Revenue
riding	district	constituency
Serviette	Table napkin	Serviette
statutory holiday	legal holiday	bank holiday
tap	faucet	tap
university	college	university
vacation	vacation	holiday
washroom	ladies’ room, men’s room	Ladies, Gents
Z — pronounced zed	Z — pronounced zee	Z — pronounced zed

Pronunciation

In general,
Canadian pronunciation is almost identical to American
pronunciation, especially in Ontario. In Nova Scotia,
New Brunswick and Price Edward Island, there is a
strong Scottish influence and in the Ottawa Valley
there is an Irish influence. The pronunciation of
people living near, or working with French-Canadians
is greatly influenced by French and the island of
Newfoundland has its own distinctive English dialect.

The most
famous difference between Canadian and American pronunciation
is the ou sound in words like house and out, which sound to
American ears like hoose and oot.
(Some say the words sound more like hoase and
oat). Canadians
also tend to pronounce
cot the same as caught and collar
the same as caller. Keen ears will hear
a Canadian distinction in certain vowels: the i
comes out differently in knife and in knives,
in bite and in bide, and in price
and in prizes. Many Canadians
also will turn t sounds into d sounds,
so the name of the capital sounds like «Oddawa.»

Spelling

The main
difference between Canadian English and that of the
US and Britain is the spelling. Canadian spelling
combines British and American rules, but the rules
for Canadian spelling are not clearly defined. There
are regional variations, and differences of opinion
exist among editors. The official Canadian spelling
is that used in the Hansard transcripts
of the Parliament of Canada. The
government style guide says that editors should consult
the Gage Canadian Dictionary and go with the
word used first. Many Canadian editors use the Canadian
Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Oxford
University Press, 2004), and Editing Canadian
English: The Essential Canadian Guide, 2nd ed.
(Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2000).

In 1984 the
Freelance Editors’ Association of Canada (now called
the Editors’ Association of Canada) surveyed publishers,
academics, PR people, editors and writers about their
spelling preferences to get a better idea of what
was the more common use. Some of the results are summarized
below:

WORDS WITH
-OUR/-OR: 75% of the sample preferred the use of —our
such as colour, rather
than color and favourite rather than favorite.

WORDS ENDING
IN -RE/-ER: 89% of the sample preferred -re endings
such as centre and theatre.

WORDS ENDING
IN -SE/-CE: 80% of the sample preferred -ce over
-se in nouns such
as defence, practice and pretence, but
let -se stand when such words were used
as verbs, such as to practise the piano lesson.

DIPTHONG: 75% used the diphthong (ae or oe) in such words as aesthetic,archaeology
and manoeuvre.

WORDS ENDING
IN -IZE/-ISE: Canadian editors rejected the British
-ise endings,
such as organise, preferring -ize endings.

DOUBLING
FINAL CONSONANTS: Up to 90% liked the double L in
such words as enroll,
fulfill, install, marvelled, marvellous, signalled,
skillful, traveller and woollen.

References:

Dave VE7CNV’s
Truly Canadian Dictionary of Canadian Spelling
http://www.luther.ca/~dave7cnv/cdnspelling/cdnspelling.html

Cornerstone’s
Canadian English Page
http://www.cornerstoneword.com/misc/cdneng/cdneng.htm

Proper Treatment:
Canadian vs American vs British
http://canadianenglish1.narod.ru/

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Standard Canadian English is the largely homogeneous variety of Canadian English that is spoken particularly across Ontario and Western Canada, as well as throughout Canada among urban middle-class speakers from English-speaking families,^[1] excluding the regional dialects of Atlantic Canadian English. Canadian English has a mostly uniform phonology and much less dialectal diversity than neighbouring American English.^[2] In particular, Standard Canadian English is defined by the cot–caught merger to [ɒ] (listen) and an accompanying chain shift of vowel sounds, which is called the Canadian Shift. A subset of the dialect geographically at its central core, excluding British Columbia to the west and everything east of Montréal, has been called Inland Canadian English. It is further defined by both of the phenomena that are known as Canadian raising (which is found also in British Columbia and Ontario):^[3] the production of /oʊ/^[a] and /aʊ/ with back starting points in the mouth and the production of /eɪ/ with a front starting point and very little glide^[4] that is almost [e] in the Prairie Provinces.^[5]

Phonetics and phonology[edit]

Standard Canadian vowels

	Front	Central	Back
lax	tense	lax	tense
Close	ɪ	i		ʊ	u
Mid	ɛ	eɪ	ə	ʌ	oʊ
Open			æ		ɒ
Diphthongs	aɪ   ɔɪ   aʊ

The phonemes /oʊ/ (as in boat) and /eɪ/ (as in bait) have qualities that are almost monophthongal for some speakers, especially in the Prairie Provinces.

Almost all Canadians have the cot–caught merger, which also occurs primarily in the Western United States but also often elsewhere in the country, especially recently. Few Canadians distinguish the vowels in cot and caught, which merge as [ɒ] (more common in Western and Maritime Canada) or [ɑ] (more common in central and eastern mainland Canada in which it can even be fronted). Speakers with the merger produce the vowels identically and often fail to hear the difference when speakers without the merger, such as General American and Inland Northern American English, pronounce the vowels. The merger has existed in Canada for several generations.^[6]

The standard pronunciation of /ɒr/ (as in start) is [ɑɹ], as in General American, or perhaps somewhat fronted as [ɑ̈ɹ]. As with Canadian raising, the advancement of the raised nucleus can be a regional indicator. A striking feature of Atlantic Canadian speech (in the Maritime Provinces and Newfoundland) is a nucleus that approaches the front region of the vowel space; it is accompanied by a strong rhoticity ranging from [ɜɹ] to [ɐɹ].

Words such as origin, Florida, horrible, quarrel, warren, as well as tomorrow, sorry, sorrow, generally use the sound sequence of FORCE, rather than START. The latter set of words often distinguishes Canadian from American pronunciation. In Standard Canadian English, there is no distinction between horse and hoarse.

The merger creates a gap in the short vowel subsystem^[7] and triggers a sound change known as the Canadian Shift, which involves the front lax vowels /æ, ɛ, ɪ/. The /æ/ of bat is lowered and retracted in the direction of [a] except in some environments, as is noted below. Indeed, /æ/ is farther back than in almost all other North American dialects,^[8] and the retraction of /æ/ was independently observed in Vancouver^[9] and is more advanced for Ontarians and for women than for people from the Prairies and Atlantic Canada and men.^[10]

Then, /ɛ/ and /ɪ/ may be lowered (in the direction of [æ] and [ɛ]) and/or retracted, but studies actually disagree on the trajectory of the shift.^{[11][12][13][14]} For example, Labov and others (2006) noted a backward and downward movement of /ɛ/ in apparent time in all of Canada except the Atlantic Provinces, but no movement of /ɪ/ was detected.

Therefore, in Canadian English, the short a of trap or bath and the broad ah quality of spa or lot are shifted in the opposite way from those of the Northern Cities shift, which is found across the border in Inland Northern American English, and is causing both dialects to diverge. In fact, the Canadian short-a is very similar in quality to Inland Northern spa or lot. For example, the production [map] would be recognized as map in Canada but mop in Inland Northern United States.

A notable exception to the merger occurs, and some speakers over the age of 60, especially in rural areas in the Prairies, may not exhibit the merger.

Perhaps the most recognizable feature of Canadian English is «Canadian raising,» which is found most prominently throughout central and west-central Canada and in parts of the Atlantic Provinces.^[2] For the beginning points of the diphthongs (gliding vowels) /aɪ/ (as in the words height and mice) and /aʊ/ (as in shout and house), the tongue is often more «raised» than in other varieties of English in the mouth when the diphthongs are before voiceless consonants: /p/, /t/, /k/, /s/, /ʃ/, and /f/.

Before voiceless consonants, /aɪ/ becomes [ʌɪ~ɜɪ~ɐɪ]. One of the few phonetic variables that divides Canadians regionally is the articulation of the raised allophone of that and /aʊ/. In Ontario, it tends to have a mid-central or even mid-front articulation sometimes approaching [ɛʊ], but in the West and the Maritimes, a more retracted sound is heard, which is closer to [ʌʊ].^[15][16] For some speakers in the Prairies and in Nova Scotia, the retraction is strong enough to cause some tokens of raised /aʊ/ to merge with /oʊ/; couch then merges with coach, and both words sound the same (/koʊtʃ/). Also, about then sounds like a boat, which is often inaccurately represented as sounding like «a boot» for comic effect in American popular culture.

In General American, out is typically [äʊt] (listen), but with slight Canadian raising, it may sound more like [ɐʊt] (listen), and with the strong Canadian raising of the Prairies and Nova Scotia, it may sound more like IPA: [ʌʊt]. Canadian raising makes words like height and hide have two different vowel qualities. Also, for example, house as a noun (I saw a house) and house as a verb (Where will you house them tonight?) can then have two different vowel qualities: [hɐʊs] and [haʊz].

Especially in parts of the Atlantic Provinces, some Canadians do not have Canadian raising. On the other hand, certain non-Canadian accents use Canadian raising. In the United States, it can be found in areas near the border in dialects in the Upper Midwest, Pacific Northwest, and Northeastern New England (like Boston) dialects, but Canadian raising is much less common than in Canada. The raising of /aɪ/ alone is actually increasing throughout the United States and, unlike the raising of /aʊ/, is generally not perceived as unusual by people who do not exhibit the raising.

Because of Canadian raising, many speakers are able to distinguish between words such as writer and rider, which can otherwise be pronounced the same in North American dialects, which typically turn both intervocalic /t/ and /d/ into an alveolar flap. Thus, writer and rider are distinguished solely by their vowel characteristics as determined by Canadian raising, which causes a split between rider as [ˈɹäɪɾɚ] and writer as [ˈɹʌɪɾɚ] (listen).

When not in a raised position and before voiceless consonants, /aʊ/ is fronted to [aʊ~æʊ] before nasals and low-central [äʊ] elsewhere.^{[16][citation needed]}

Unlike many American English dialects, /æ/ remains a low-front vowel in most environments in Canadian English. Raising along the front periphery of the vowel space is restricted to two environments, before nasal and voiced velar consonants, and even then varies regionally. Ontario and Maritime Canadian English often show some raising before nasals, but it is less extreme than in many American varieties. Much less raising is heard on the Prairies, and some ethnic groups in Montreal show no pre-nasal raising at all. On the other hand, some speakers in the Prairies have raising of /æ/ before voiced velars (/ɡ/ and /ŋ/), with an up-glide rather than an in-glide, and so bag can almost rhyme with vague.^[17] For most Canadian speakers, /ɛ/ is also realized higher as [e] before /ɡ/.

/æ/ raising in North American English^[18]

Following consonant	Example words[19]	New York City, New Orleans[20]	Baltimore, Philadelphia[21]	Midland US, New England, Pittsburgh, Western US	Southern US	Canada, Northern Mountain US	Minnesota, Wisconsin	Great Lakes US
Non-prevocalic /m, n/	fan, lamb, stand	[ɛə][22][A][B]	[ɛə][22]	[ɛə~ɛjə][25]	[ɛə][26]	[ɛə][27]
Prevocalic /m, n/	animal, planet, Spanish	[æ]
/ŋ/[28]	frank, language	[ɛː~eɪ~æ][29]	[æ~æɛə][25]	[ɛː~ɛj][26]	[eː~ej][30]
Non-prevocalic /ɡ/	bag, drag	[ɛə][A]	[æ][C]	[æ][22]
Prevocalic /ɡ/	dragon, magazine	[æ]
Non-prevocalic /b, d, ʃ/	grab, flash, sad	[ɛə][A]	[æ][31]	[ɛə][31]
Non-prevocalic /f, θ, s/	ask, bath, half, glass	[ɛə][A]
Otherwise	as, back, happy, locality	[æ][D]
^ a b c d In New York City and Philadelphia, most function words (am, can, had, etc.) and some learned or less common words (alas, carafe, lad, etc.) have [æ].[23] ^ In Philadelphia, the irregular verbs began, ran, and swam have [æ].[24] ^ In Philadelphia, bad, mad, and glad alone in this context have [ɛə].[23] ^ In New York City, certain lexical exceptions exist (like avenue being tense) and variability is common before /dʒ/ and /z/ as in imagine, magic, and jazz.[32] In New Orleans, [ɛə] additionally occurs before /v/ and /z/.[33]

Phonemic incidence[edit]

Although Canadian English phonology is part of the greater North American sound system and so is therefore similar to American English phonology, the pronunciation of particular words may have British influence, and other pronunciations are uniquely Canadian. The Cambridge History of the English Language states, «What perhaps most characterizes Canadian speakers, however, is their use of several possible variant pronunciations for the same word, sometimes even in the same sentence.»^[34]

• The name of the letter Z is normally the Anglo-European (and French) zed, and the American zee is less common in Canada and often stigmatized but remains common, especially for younger speakers.^[35][36]
• Lieutenant was historically pronounced as the British /lɛfˈtɛnənt/, rather than the American /luˈtɛnənt/,^[37] and older speakers and official usage in military and government contexts typically still follow the older practice, but most younger speakers and many middle-aged speakers have shifted to the American pronunciation. Some middle-aged speakers cannot even remember the existence of the older pronunciation, even when they are specifically asked whether they can think of another pronunciation. Only 14-19% of 14-year-olds used the traditional pronunciation in a survey in 1972, and in early 2017, they were at least 57 years old.^[37]
• In the words adult and composite, the stress is usually on the first syllable (/ˈædʌlt/ ~ /ˈædəlt/, /ˈkɒmpəzət/), as in Britain.
• Canadians often side with the British on the pronunciation of lever /ˈlivər/, and several other words; been is pronounced by many speakers as /bin/, rather than /bɪn/;^{[citation needed]} and either and neither are more commonly /ˈaɪðər/ and /ˈnaɪðər/, respectively.^{[citation needed]}
• Furthermore, in accordance with British traditions, schedule is sometimes /ˈʃɛdʒul/; process, progress, and project are occasionally pronounced /ˈproʊsɛs/, /ˈproʊɡrɛs/, and /ˈproʊdʒɛkt/, respectively; harass and harassment are sometimes pronounced /ˈhærəs/ and /ˈhærəsmənt/ respectively,^[b] and leisure is rarely /ˈlɛʒər/.
• Shone is pronounced /ʃɒn/, rather than /ʃoʊn/.
• Again and against are often pronounced /əˈɡeɪn, əˈɡeɪnst/, rather than /əˈɡɛn, əˈɡɛnst/.^{[citation needed]}
• The stressed vowel of words such as borrow, sorry, and tomorrow is [ɔ], like the vowel of FORCE, rather than of START.^[39]
• Words like semi, anti, and multi tend to be pronounced /ˈsɛmi/, /ˈænti/, and /ˈmʌlti/, rather than /ˈsɛmaɪ/, /ˈæntaɪ/, and /ˈmʌltaɪ/.
• Loanwords that have a low central vowel in their language of origin, such as llama, pasta, and pyjamas, as well as place names like Gaza and Vietnam, tend to have /æ/, rather than /ɒ/ (which includes the historical /ɑ/, /ɒ/ and /ɔ/ because of the father–bother and cot–caught mergers: see below). That also applies to older loans like drama or Apache. The word khaki is sometimes pronounced /ˈkɒki/ or /ˈkɒrki/. The latter was the preferred pronunciation of the Canadian Army during World War II.^[c] The pronunciation of drama with /æ/ is in decline, and studies found that 83% of Canadians used /æ/ in 1956, 47% in 1999, and 10% in 2012.^[40]
• Words of French origin, such as clique and niche, are pronounced with a high vowel as in French, with /klik/ rather than /klɪk/ and /niʃ/ rather than /nɪtʃ/.
• Pecan is usually /ˈpikæn/ or /piˈkæn/, as opposed to /pəˈkɒn/, which more common in the United States.^[41]
• Syrup is commonly pronounced /ˈsɪrəp/ or /ˈsərəp/.
• The most common pronunciation of vase is /veɪz/.^[42] Resource, diagnose, and visa also have /z/.
• The word premier, the leader of a provincial or territorial government, is commonly pronounced /ˈprimjər/, but /ˈprɛmjɛr/ and /ˈprimjɛr/ are rare variants.
• Some Canadians pronounce predecessor as /ˈpridəsɛsər/ and asphalt as /ˈæʃfɒlt/.^{[citation needed]}
• The word milk is pronounced /mɛlk/ (to rhyme with elk) by some speakers but /mɪlk/ (to rhyme with ilk) by others.^{[citation needed]}
• The word room is pronounced /rum/ or /rʊm/.
• Many anglophone Montrealers pronounced French names with a Québec accent: Trois-Rivières [tʁ̥wɑʁiˈvjæːʁ] or [tʁ̥wɑʁiˈvjaɛ̯ʁ].

Features shared with General American[edit]

Like most other North American English dialects, Canadian English is almost always spoken with a rhotic accent, meaning that the r sound is preserved in any environment and not «dropped» after vowels, as commonly done by, for example, speakers in central and southern England where it is only pronounced when preceding a vowel.

Like General American, Canadian English possesses a wide range of phonological mergers, many of which are not found in other major varieties of English: the Mary–marry–merry merger which makes word pairs like Barry/berry, Carrie/Kerry, hairy/Harry, perish/parish, etc. as well as trios like airable/errable/arable and Mary/merry/marry have identical pronunciations (however, a distinction between the marry and merry sets remains in Montreal);^[2] the father–bother merger that makes lager/logger, con/Kahn, etc. sound identical; the very common horse–hoarse merger making pairs like for/four, horse/hoarse, morning/mourning, war/wore etc. perfect homophones (as in California English, the vowel is phonemicized as /oʊ/ due to the cot–caught merger: /foʊr/ etc.);^{[citation needed]} and the prevalent wine–whine merger which produces homophone pairs like Wales/whales, wear/where, wine/whine etc. by, in most cases, eliminating /hw/ (ʍ), except in some older speakers.^[6]

In addition to that, flapping of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ to alveolar tap [ɾ] before reduced vowels is ubiquitous, so the words ladder and latter, for example, are mostly or entirely pronounced the same. Therefore, the pronunciation of the word «British» /ˈbrɪtəʃ/ in Canada and the U.S. is most often [ˈbɹɪɾɪʃ], while in England it is commonly [ˈbɹɪtɪʃ] (listen) or [ˈbɹɪʔɪʃ]. For some speakers, the merger is incomplete and ‘t’ before a reduced vowel is sometimes not tapped following /eɪ/ or /ɪ/ when it represents underlying ‘t’; thus greater and grader, and unbitten and unbidden are distinguished.

Many Canadian speakers have the typical American dropping of /j/ after alveolar consonants, so that new, duke, Tuesday, suit, resume, lute, for instance, are pronounced /nu/ (rather than /nju/), /duk/, /ˈtuzdeɪ/, /sut/, /rəˈzum/, /lut/. Traditionally, glide retention in these contexts has occasionally been held to be a shibboleth distinguishing Canadians from Americans. However, in a survey conducted in the Golden Horseshoe area of Southern Ontario in 1994, over 80% of respondents under the age of 40 pronounced student and news, for instance, without /j/.^[43]

Especially in Vancouver and Toronto, an increasing number of Canadians realize /ɪŋ/ as [in] when the raising of /ɪ/ to [i] before the underlying /ŋ/^[44] is applied even after the «g» is dropped, leading to a variant pronunciation of taking, [ˈteɪkin]. Otherwise it primarily is found in speakers from not just California but also from other Western states and Midwestern areas including the Upper Midwest.^[45][46] Speakers who use the [in] variant use it only for the underlying /ɪŋ/, which makes taking with a dropped «g» no longer homophonous with taken. This pronunciation is otherwise incorrect and was described as a «corruption of the language» to listeners.^[47]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

• Baker, Adam; Mielke, Jeff; Archangeli, Diana (2008). «More velar than /g/: Consonant Coarticulation as a Cause of Diphthongization» (PDF). In Chang, Charles B.; Haynie, Hannah J. (eds.). Proceedings of the 26th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics. Somerville, Massachusetts: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. pp. 60–68. ISBN 978-1-57473-423-2.
• Boberg, Charles (2008). «Regional phonetic differentiation in Standard Canadian English». Journal of English Linguistics. 36 (2): 129–154. doi:10.1177/0075424208316648. S2CID 146478485.
• Boberg, Charles (2020). «Foreign (a) in North American English: Variation and Change in Loan Phonology». Journal of English Linguistics. 48 (1): 31–71. doi:10.1177/0075424219896397.
• Duncan, Daniel (2016). «‘Tense’ /æ/ is still lax: A phonotactics study» (PDF). In Hansson, Gunnar Ólafur; Farris-Trimble, Ashley; McMullin, Kevin; Pulleyblank, Douglas (eds.). Supplemental Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Meeting on Phonology. Proceedings of the Annual Meetings on Phonology. Vol. 3. Washington, D.C.: Linguistic Society of America. doi:10.3765/amp.v3i0.3653.
• Labov, William (2007). «Transmission and Diffusion» (PDF). Language. 83 (2): 344–387. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.705.7860. doi:10.1353/lan.2007.0082. JSTOR 40070845. S2CID 6255506.
• Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (2006). The Atlas of North American English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-016746-7.

English is the majority language in every Canadian province and territory except Quebec (which has a French-speaking
majority) and Nunavut (which has an Inuit language majority who speak Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun). In Quebec, English is the mother tongue of 8.1 per cent of the population,
and the first official language of 13.7 percent of the population.

Within Quebec, the proportion of English-speakers (or anglophones) has declined sharply from the 19th century, when it was about 25 per cent. A higher
birthrate among French-speakers (or francophones) and the departure of many anglophones to pursue better economic opportunities in other provinces gradually reduced that proportion to about 14 per cent by the mid-20th century. Beginning in the 1970s,
a more dramatic reduction was prompted by political developments. The provincial government introduced language laws designed to protect the vitality of French by restricting the use of English in business, education, government and public signage; English
now has no official status at the provincial level in Quebec (see Quebec Language Policy). At the same time, many francophones began calling for the separation
of Quebec from Canada. Most anglophones objected to the language laws and opposed separation. Many responded to the conflict by leaving Quebec; by the 1990s, an exodus of close to 200,000 anglophones had reduced Montreal’s
English-speaking community by one-third. Despite these losses, English is still the mother tongue of about 8 per cent of Quebec’s population, and 44.5 per cent of the population report being able to speak both English and French. In greater Montreal,
where the majority of Quebec’s English-speakers now live, English is the mother tongue of 13.2 per cent of the metropolitan population (533,845 people).

Even where English is the majority language, it often coexists with other languages. In Toronto and Vancouver,
high levels of immigration from non–English-speaking countries have reduced the proportion of native speakers of English to just over half of the metropolitan population.
It should also be remembered that not all native speakers of English in Canada are native speakers of Canadian English; some are immigrants who grew up in other English-speaking countries and therefore speak other types of English. In the discussion
that follows, Canadian English will be taken to mean the type of English spoken by people who acquired native competence in English while growing up mostly in Canada. (See also French Language;
Indigenous Languages of Canada; Languages in Use.)

History

Canadian English owes its very existence to important historical events, especially: the Treaty of Paris of 1763, which ended the Seven Years’ War and
opened most of eastern Canada for English-speaking settlement; the American Revolution of 1775–83, which spurred the first large group of English-speakers
to move to Canada; and the Industrial Revolution in Britain, which encouraged an even larger group to join them in the 19th century. These and other events determined the patterns of English-speaking settlement in Canada, which in turn influenced the
current form of Canadian English.

Origins

English was first spoken in Canada in the 17th century, in seasonal fishing communities along the Atlantic coast, including the island of Newfoundland, and
at fur trade posts around Hudson Bay. Following the transfer of Nova Scotia to
Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), permanent English-speaking settlements were established in that province, such as Halifax,
founded in 1749. After the expulsion of the French-speaking Acadian population in the 1750s, Nova Scotia’s English population was expanded with pioneers
from New England. Extensive English-speaking settlement of the rest of eastern Canada was made possible by British victory in the Seven Years’ War, after which France ceded its remaining Canadian territory to Britain in the Treaty of Paris (1763).

United Empire Loyalists

Two decades later, following the American Revolution, approximately 45,000 United Empire Loyalists, who had supported Britain during the war, fled to Canada, mostly from the
mid-Atlantic and New England states. Their arrival in 1783–84 provided the first substantial English-speaking population in what would become Ontario, Quebec,
New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Most of the Loyalists who arrived in Quebec were resettled
further west, in Ontario, to avoid conflict with the French Canadian population. American immigration continued
into the early 19th century — bolstering the population of Ontario and pioneering the Eastern Townships region of southern Quebec — but was brought to an end
by the War of 1812. By this time, Ontario had a mostly ex-American population of around 100,000, stretching from Windsor to
Cornwall, and Toronto had been founded as the town of York (1793). The late 18th century also saw smaller groups of British emigrants make their way to Canada; from
southeastern Ireland and southwestern England to Newfoundland and
from the Scottish Highlands to parts of the Maritimes and eastern Ontario
(though many of these people spoke Irish or Gaelic, rather than English, when they arrived).

British Settlement

The next major wave of English-speaking settlement followed the Napoleonic Wars, when Britain faced problems connected with overpopulation and the economic and social
consequences of the Industrial Revolution. These problems encouraged many British people to emigrate. Hundreds of thousands came to Canada in the early- and mid-19th century, more or less completing the settlement of the central and eastern parts of
the country, from southern Ontario to the Atlantic coast. The largest numbers of these immigrants were Irish, with Ulster Irish predominating in frontier regions of Ontario and southern Irish in the lumber camps and major cities of Quebec and Atlantic
Canada; English immigrants were the second largest group and Scots the third. As Canada’s largest city, the centre of its industrial development and
a major port of entry for immigrants, Montreal gained an English-speaking majority by
the 1850s, including a large Irish working class and a smaller but highly influential Scottish merchant class, which directed much of Canada’s commercial
and industrial development.

Westward Expansion

The earliest English-speaking settlements in western Canada also began in the early and mid-19th century, with such settlers as Scottish farmers in Manitoba’s Red River Colony,
established in 1811, and American gold prospectors in British Columbia in 1858 (see Fraser River Gold Rush).
The West was also dotted with fur trading posts by this time, from Winnipeg (
Fort Garry, established in 1822) through Edmonton (1795) to Victoria (1843).
But the majority of English-speaking settlement of the West was made possible by the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885. A subsequent
“land boom” brought millions of immigrants to Canada and encouraged many eastern Canadians to move west.

While large groups of western pioneers arrived from the United States, Britain and Europe, the dominant group in most places, both numerically and socially, was Canadian-born migrants from Ontario. Saskatoon,
for instance, was founded in 1883 by the Temperance Colonization Society, a group of Methodists from Toronto,
and eastern Canadians dominated the early elites across the West. The first mayors of Edmonton, Saskatoon,
Regina and Winnipeg were all from Ontario; Calgary’s
was from New Brunswick. The first premier of the Northwest Territories and those of the new provinces of Alberta and
Saskatchewan were also from Ontario. It was therefore Ontario English that became the main model for the English of western Canada, despite the diverse origins of the
general population of the West.

Modern Canadian English

More recent immigration to Canada from all over the world, though involving much larger groups of people than earlier periods, has had comparatively little effect on the development of Canadian English, which reached something like its present form by
Canada’s Confederation in 1867. With such a large Canadian-born population to blend into, the children of today’s immigrants rapidly assimilate to the patterns of
the English already spoken by the majority of people in their adopted communities. Nevertheless, Canadian English, like all dialects and languages, continues to evolve, with small changes seen in each generation of speakers. We can measure these changes
by comparing data on today’s speech, collected in recent studies such as the Dialect Topography survey of J.K. Chambers, from the mid-1990s, or the North American Regional Vocabulary Survey and Phonetics of Canadian English projects
of C. Boberg, from the late 1990s and early 2000s, to surveys of Canadian English carried out in the 1950s (by H.B. Allen, W.S. Avis and R.J. Gregg) and in 1972 (The Survey of Canadian English: A Report, by M.H. Scargill and H.J. Warkentyne).

Even if the main features of Canadian English are relatively stable, new words and ways of saying things arise all the time, while older expressions go out of fashion and disappear. Some of these changes, together with the stable features of Canadian
English, are discussed in the following sections.

A Unique Dialect

Canada’s history of English-speaking settlement might be expected to have created a hybrid variety of English with a distinctive blend of American and British features. This is indeed what we find, together with a few features that are uniquely Canadian.
Nevertheless, in the most general sense, the English spoken today by most Canadians from British Columbia to Nova Scotia is
clearly a type of North American English, most similar to that of the western United States and to General American English. This is particularly true of its grammar (how words and sentences are put together, which linguists call morphology and syntax)
and of the most systematic aspects of its pronunciation (what linguists call phonology and phonetics).

Many linguists attribute this North American character to the influence of the Loyalists and post-Loyalists, who to a large extent founded Canada’s English-speaking population
and thereby created a common origin with American English. In most places, the children of 19th-century British settlers and those who came after them would have adopted the local variety of English that had developed from 18th-century Loyalist speech,
which was later transferred to western Canada when Ontarians settled there in the late-19th century. Several of the main features of Canadian English, however, can also
be found in the regional dialects brought to Canada by British settlers from northern and western England, Scotland and
Ireland, so their presence in Canada may reflect a combination of both sources of influence.

The English of Newfoundland, which remained a separate British colony until 1949, has traditionally been seen as distinct from that of mainland Canada, reflecting
its more specific origins in southwestern England and southeastern Ireland (especially the region around Waterford). Though many young Newfoundlanders have recently been shifting their speech toward general Canadian patterns, the speech of most people
in the capital, St. John’s, still retains a notably Irish-influenced character that separates it from general Canadian English. The rich local vocabulary of Newfoundland has
been catalogued in a Dictionary of Newfoundland English with thousands of entries (see Dictionary).

Pronunciation

The colonial American English that the Loyalists brought to Canada was established in the 17th century, before several of the changes that created modern Standard British
English had occurred in southeastern England. In particular, most modern North American English retains the /r/ sound after vowels, in words like start and north, and has the same short-a sound in words like trap and bath,
rather than the lengthened and further-back /ah/-sound of bath and similar words (past, staff, etc.) that is heard today in London.

Other general North American features shared by Canadian English may reflect more recent American influence. The /t/ sound, when it occurs after a stressed vowel in the middle of a word, as in city, better, Ottawa, battle and party,
sounds more like a /d/: “siddy,” “bedder,” “Oddawa,” “baddle” and “pardy” (linguists call this “flapping”). The vowel sound of words like news, student and Tuesday, which is like that of few in
British English, is more like that of food in the US and Canada: “nooze,” “stoodent,” “toozeday” rather than “nyooze,” “styoodent,” “tyoozeday” (though some Canadians prefer the British variants).

(Courtesy Jimiticus.)

Low-back Merger and the Canadian Shift

Other phonological features divide North Americans by region. The most important is what linguists call the “low-back merger,” a collapse of the distinction between two vowels pronounced in the lower-back part of the mouth — those of words like lot versus
words like thought. These sound different in Britain and in parts of the eastern United States. In Canada, as in the western United States, they sound the same; lot and thought rhyme, while cot and caught, stock and stalk and don and dawn are
homophones. This merger is thought to be the cause of a phonetic pattern called the Canadian Shift, a change in progress in modern Canadian English that involves a lowering and retraction of the short front vowels in words like kit, dress and trap.
For instance, head may sound something like had in other dialects, while hat may have the same vowel quality as many Americans’ pronunciation of hot (especially those living across the
border from Ontario, in Buffalo or Detroit).

Canadian Raising

Another distinctive Canadian pronunciation pattern is called Canadian Raising. This is a shortening of the diphthongs in words like price and mouth, causing the vowel to be produced somewhat higher in the mouth than in other
dialects. (Diphthongs are two-part vowels; in the vowel of spy, for instance, the first part sounds like the vowel of spa and the second part sounds like the vowel of see [“spah-ee”].) Since Canadian Raising
only occurs before the voiceless consonants /p/, /t/, /k/, /f/, /th/ and /s/, Canadian English distinguishes the raised and unraised vowels in pairs of words like type v. tie, write v. ride, spike v. spy, shout v. loud, south v. sound,
or house v. how. While some American dialects also raise the vowels of price words, raising in mouth words is more distinctively Canadian.

Foreign «a» Words

Equally distinctive is the way Canadians adapt or “nativize” words borrowed from other languages whose vowel sounds are spelled with the letter a. Speakers of British English vary in this respect between the /ah/ sound of palm for
words like avocado, lava and saga and the /æ/ sound of trap for words like kebab, mantra and pasta, while Americans prefer the /ah/ sound in all of
these words. Canadians, by contrast, tend to use /æ/ in all of them, though younger Canadians have begun to use a more American /ah/ vowel in some words, like macho, mafia and taco. In a related pattern, most
Canadians, like the British, use the vowel of cost in words like Costa Rica, whereas Americans prefer the vowel of coast.

British Pronunciations

Though the most systematic aspects of Canadian pronunciation follow North American patterns, pronunciation of individual words sometimes follows the British norm. For instance, Canadians pronounce the –ile suffix in words like fertile, futile, hostile, missile and mobile with
a full vowel like that in profile, whereas Americans rhyme futile with brutal, hostile with hostel, missile with thistle, mobile with noble,
etc. For most Canadians, shone, the past tense of shine, rhymes with gone, as in Britain, not with bone, as in the US.

Vocabulary

American Versus British Words

British and American English have developed distinct vocabularies for many aspects of modern life, especially in such semantic domains as clothing, food and transportation.
In general, Canadians follow the American model in these cases; like Americans, they say apartment rather than flat, diaper rather than nappy, elevator rather than lift, flashlight rather
than torch, freight car rather than goods wagon, fries rather than chips (Canadian chips are what the British call crisps), pants rather
than trousers, sweater rather than jumper, truck rather than lorry, and wrench rather than spanner. Canadian cars, like American, have hoods, fenders, mufflers, trunks, turn signals and windshields —
not bonnets, wings, silencers, boots, indicators and windscreens — and drive on gas from gas stations, not petrol from filling stations or petrol stations.

In a few cases, however, most Canadians prefer British words: bill rather than check for the tally of charges in a restaurant; cutlery rather than silverware for knives, forks and spoons; icing rather
than frosting for the top layer of a cake; icing sugar rather than powdered sugar for the finely ground sugar sprinkled on desserts; tap rather than faucet for the device
that controls the flow of water into a sink; and, zed rather than zee for the last letter of the alphabet.

Canadianisms

Canadians also display a small set of their own unique vocabulary, which can be called Canadianisms. In discussing Canadianisms, it is important to distinguish between international words for things that occur only or mostly in Canada, and uniquely Canadian
words for things that occur internationally.

The first type of word represents the uniqueness of Canada but not of Canadian English. It is not difficult to think of distinctively Canadian things: flora and fauna that are found only or mostly in Canada, like the Canada goose,
Canada jay or Canada lynx; aspects of Canadian Indigenous cultures, like the buffalo jump,
pemmican or the totem pole; Canadian historical artifacts, like the Hudson’s Bay point
blanket, the Red River cart or the York boat; Canadian inventions, like
IMAX films, kerosene, the McIntosh apple, Nanaimo bars, poutine,
the Robertson screw or the snowmobile;
Canadian institutions, like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or
the United Church of Canada. All of these things contribute to a Canadian cultural identity and
their names are Canadian words in one sense, yet if people outside Canada found occasion to refer to them, they would use the same words as Canadians. In a parallel way, Canadians use Australian words like boomerang, didgeridoo, kangaroo and koala;
these words are part of World English, not of Canadian or Australian English exclusively.

Only the second type of word, where Canadians use their own word for something that has other names in other dialects, is a true Canadianism in the linguistic sense.
Some examples include the following: a small apartment without a separate bedroom is a bachelor in Canada but a studio in the US and Britain; a machine that performs banking services is a bank machine in
Canada but an ATM in the US and a cash dispenser in Britain; the structures along the edge of a roof for collecting rainwater are eavestroughs in much of Canada but gutters in the US
and Britain; the years of school are grade one, grade two, etc., in Canada but first grade, etc., in the US and year one, etc., in Britain; pencils used for colouring are usually pencil crayons in
Canada but colored pencils in the US and colouring pencils in Britain; orange cones used to manage traffic during road repairs are pylons in Canada but traffic cones in the US and Britain;
a tight-fitting woolen winter hat is a toque in Canada but a beanie in the US and Britain; and, a public toilet is a washroom in Canada but a restroom in the US and a lavatory or loo in
Britain.

Nonetheless, Canadian English often shows variation in the use of these words, with Canadianisms competing with other words, usually the American variants. This sometimes results in the decline or disappearance of Canadianisms. The best-known example
is chesterfield, which used to be the standard Canadian term for what is called a couch in the US and a sofa or settee in Britain; today, while some older Canadians continue to use chesterfield,
most younger Canadians say couch.

Loanwords

The French and British were not, of course, the first people to occupy the land that became Canada; for thousands of years before their arrival, it was home to a wide array of Indigenous cultures and
their languages. When European settlers arrived, many of the things they encountered, like aspects of the natural environment,
were already familiar to them and were given pre-existing European names: bay, bear, beaver, birch, bison, cod, deer, duck, eagle, fir, fox, frost, glacier, grasshopper, gull, hail, hare, ice, lake, lobster, loon, maple, marsh, mosquito, mountain, owl, pine, poplar, prairie, puffin, river, salmon, seal, sleet, slush and snow are
all European words, among thousands of other examples. Even many unfamiliar things were given European names, adapted to fit new, North American meanings, like robin,
which denotes different birds in North America and Europe.

Many terms connected with Indigenous cultures, like chief, dogsled, harpoon, peace pipe, snowshoe, sun dance and sweat lodge,
are also of European origin. In a few cases, however, words were borrowed from Indigenous languages. Many of these are shared with American English, since the international border is irrelevant to the natural and Indigenous worlds. A few examples of
Indigenous loanwords in North American English are caribou, chinook, chipmunk, husky, igloo, inukshuk, kamik, kayak, moccasin, moose, mucky-muck, mukluk, muskeg, powwow, raccoon, saskatoon, skunk, sockeye, teepee, toboggan, wapiti and wigwam.
Admittedly, most of these do not occur very often in everyday speech and their number is remarkably small, compared to the much larger vocabulary transferred from European languages. The major contribution of Indigenous languages to Canadian English
is therefore not in common nouns or other parts of ordinary vocabulary, but in place names, something few modern Canadians stop to think about: the names Manitoba, Mississauga, Niagara, Nunavut, Ontario, Ottawa, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Toronto, Winnipeg,
and Yukon — as well as the name Canada itself — all come from Indigenous
languages.

Eh?

Along with Canadian Raising of mouth words, discussed above, the most popular stereotype of Canadian English is the word eh, added to the end of a phrase
to solicit confirmation that the hearer has understood or agrees with what the speaker is saying. A Canadian might say, “The game starts in half an hour, eh? So we have to leave now,” or, “Put your jacket on, eh? It’s cold outside,” or “Let’s go have
some lunch, eh?” Like most stereotypes, however, this one is exaggerated and may now be obsolete; recent research suggests that, at least among younger Canadians, actual use of eh is much less frequent than its popularity as a stereotype
would suggest (see Eh).

Spelling

One domain where Canadian English shows a more balanced mixture of American and British standards is spelling, reflecting a continued belief among many Canadian educators and others in positions of linguistic authority that British English is more correct
than American. Thus, Canadians tend to use British “-our” spellings in words like color, labor and vigor and “-re” spellings in center, fiber and theater. Other British
spellings preferred by Canadians are cheque over American check, grey over gray and travelled over traveled. There are many inconsistencies, however: Canadians
prefer British catalogue to American catalog but not British programme to American program, while use of British defence and American defense is mixed. Even
the use of “-our,” which is the most systematic and iconic pattern, has exceptions: most Canadians prefer odor and favorite over odour and favourite. Moreover, some British spellings rarely
occur in Canada, like kerb for curb and tyre for tire, or some foreign-influenced spellings of fancy words like analyse, criticise, paediatrics and foetus.
Technological developments have tended to increase American influence on Canadian spelling, with American spellings normalized by the use of American-made spell-checker applications in word-processing programs and intensive exposure to written American
English on the Internet, especially among younger Canadians.

While some Canadians have strong opinions on these matters, often pointing to arbitrary and isolated examples of British spelling as symbols of Canadian cultural independence from the United States, most linguists agree that the main characteristic of
Canadian spelling is the absence of any consistent pattern, with choices between American and British forms varying by word, context, publication, genre, region and social group, thereby reflecting Canada’s transitional position between the two main
standards of World English. It might be said that tolerance of disagreement about spelling is in any case a truer reflection of the modern Canadian character than a rigid adherence to British standards. As a result, however, Canadian writers, editors
and other language professionals face sometimes perplexing choices and uncertainties that do not burden their British or American colleagues, at least not to the same extent.

Dictionaries and Style Guides

Setting a standard to follow in spelling, pronunciation and other aspects of usage is the job of the linguists and lexicographers who produce dictionaries and
style guides. While many Canadians continue to consult American and British authorities on these matters, in keeping with its status as a unique and independent dialect, Canadian English now has its own set of such publications. There were two general-purpose
comprehensive dictionaries produced entirely in Canada: first the Gage Canadian Dictionary and later the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, now largely used as the standard. (The Gage Canadian is no longer being
produced but there are several other paperback made-for-Canada dictionaries available, including the Nelson Winston Canadian Paperback Dictionary and the Collins Gem Canadian English Dictionary.) There are also style guides
for Canada’s language-related professions; Canadian editors, for instance, can consult Editing Canadian English, while journalists can refer to The Canadian Press Stylebook and public servants to The Canadian Style,
published by Public Works and Government Services Canada. Aimed at a more general audience is the Guide to Canadian English Usage by Oxford University Press. In 1981, the Strathy Language Unit was established in the Department of English
of Queen’s University with a mission to study standard English usage and produce a guide to Canadian English usage; its activities promoting research on Canadian
English continue today.

Regional Variation

With the important exception of Newfoundland mentioned above, Canadian English is notable for its comparative lack of regional variation, with a very
similar type of English spoken by most people across the vast territory between Victoria and Halifax.
Compared to Britain and the eastern United States, regional differences are small and subtle and they decrease from east to west. In the Maritimes, distinctive enclaves
of traditional speech remain on Cape Breton Island, in several parts of mainland Nova Scotia (like
Pictou County) and on Prince Edward Island. Quebec English is highly distinctive because
of its comparative lack of Loyalist influence and its close contact with French.
The Ottawa Valley that divides Quebec and Ontario also has a distinctive traditional
dialect reflecting Scottish and Irish settlement. Further west, from southern Ontario to
British Columbia, only very subtle differences are found, with a few exceptions, like religious communities on the Prairies. In northern Canada, we find distinct types
of English spoken by many Indigenous people, reflecting the influence of Indigenous languages,
but most of the non-Indigenous population is too recent and diverse to have formed a regional dialect in the traditional sense. Even in eastern Canada, many traditional dialect enclaves are now recessive, as younger people shift their speech toward
general Canadian models. The isolation that once sustained dialect enclaves has all but disappeared.

Regional Pronunciation

Despite this general homogeneity, important regional indicators can be identified, even within the domain of what we might label Standard Canadian English. Some of these involve pronunciation. For instance, the vowel of words like start (e.g., bar, far, market),
is pronounced further forward in the mouth by Atlantic Canadians than by westerners, while Canadian Raising produces slightly different sounds in Ontario and
the West. In words like doubt, house and mouth, the diphthong used by southern Ontarians begins with a sound something like the vowel of bet, whereas that used by people on the Prairies begins with
a sound more like the vowel of but. In words like bag, flag and tag, westerners tend to use a higher vowel than central or eastern Canadians, like that of vague, so that bag sounds
something like the first syllable of bagel. Montreal is the only place in mainland Canada where most people still distinguish between the trap and dress vowels
when they occur before an intervocalic /r/, in words like arrow versus error, barrel versus berry, or marry versus merry. For most Canadians, the first syllables of
these words sound the same, so arrow sounds like air, barrel like bare and marry like mare. In Montreal, as in the eastern US and Britain, they sound different,
with the first word in each pair having a vowel sound more like that of trap than that of dress.

Regional Vocabulary

The most obvious regional differences concern vocabulary. One word that varies across the country is the term for a small house in the countryside, usually on a lake, where city people go for summer weekends. This is a cabin in the West
and a cottage in most of the East. In northwestern Ontario, it’s a camp, as it is quite often in New Brunswick. In Quebec, it’s sometimes
a chalet. (In Montreal, a cottage is a two-storey house in the city.) Another western word is parkade, for a multi-level parking structure, called a parking garage in Ontario. Westerners also
call athletic shoes worn as casual attire runners, whereas Ontarians call them running shoes and Atlantic Canadians use the American term, sneakers. Students preparing to take notes in the Maritimes would pull
their scribblers out of their book bags, whereas other Canadians would pull their notebooks out of their backpacks. Outside school, children in Newfoundland and Quebec might play on a see-saw,
but elsewhere that would be a teeter-totter. As a generic term for non-alcoholic carbonated beverages, Canadians across the country use the Midwestern American term pop, except in Quebec and sometimes in Manitoba,
where it’s soft drink. The standard set of pizza toppings is called deluxe in the West, deluxe or everything-on-it in Ontario, all-dressed in Quebec and Saskatchewan,
and the works in Atlantic Canada; similar variation applies to the toppings on hamburgers and hotdogs.

There are whole dictionaries of local words and meanings for many places in eastern Canada, as already mentioned in connection with Newfoundland, though many of these
are specialized terms that have no equivalents in other regions. Even in less generally distinctive regions of Canada, however, a few unique words can be found in most places. Ontario, for instance, offers concession, meaning a tract of surveyed
farmland, with its related terms concession line and concession road, and Ontario children start their education in junior kindergarten, which has other names in other regions (e.g., preschool or pre-K).
On the Prairies, a dugout is an excavated reservoir for rainwater or spring runoff on a farm and a bluff is a clump of trees, not a cliff. In Saskatchewan, a hooded sweatshirt is called a bunnyhug, whereas
other Canadians call it a hoodie. In Calgary, enclosed pedestrian bridges linking the second floors of adjacent buildings over a street are called plus-15s,
while in Edmonton they are known as pedways and in Winnipeg as skywalks; in Montreal, pedestrians escape the Canadian winter in the underground city.

Quebec English

Partly because of its close contact with French, Quebec English is the most distinctive type of Canadian English in terms of general vocabulary. Many of its unique words are borrowings from French that are not found in other regions. For instance, Quebec
English speakers tend to refer to a convenience store as a dépanneur (or dep), an internship as a stage (rhymes with massage), a patio or sidewalk restaurant as a terrasse, and
stomach flu as gastro. Other Quebec words exist in other varieties of English but have special meanings in Quebec that are influenced by French. The verb pass, for instance, is often used in French senses, so a Montrealer may
ask, “When does your bus pass?” meaning, “When is it coming?” Montreal schoolchildren get “7 on 10” on a test, like “7 sur 10” in French, rather than “7 out of 10” elsewhere in Canada. Where Torontonians may look for a loft or one-bedroom apartment near
a subway station, Montrealers search for a two- or three-and-a-half near a metro station, the former being a translation of the French nomenclature for apartments, in which the bathroom
counts as half a room. Whereas Atlantic Canadian shoppers pay at the checkout and Ontarians and westerners go to the cashier, Quebecers line up at the cash, a direct equivalent of la caisse in
French. (See also English-Speaking Quebecers.)

Social Variation

Another effect of minority status on Montreal English is a much higher degree of ethnic variation than is found in cities where English is the dominant language. In most
cities, even those with large ethnic communities, ethno-linguistic differences usually disappear after one generation, as the children of immigrants assimilate to local speech patterns. In Montreal, by contrast, the local dominance of French insulates
ethnic communities from the assimilatory power of Standard Canadian English, so that ethnic differences persist even among Canadian-born generations. These include distinct phonetic patterns associated with speakers of British,
Italian and Jewish ancestry — three of the largest ethnic components of
Montreal’s English-speaking community. In other Canadian cities, ethno-linguistic differences often distinguish Indigenous from non-Indigenous types of English.

Variation among ethnic groups is only one of many ways that Canadian English varies according to social categories. This sort of variation is studied by sociolinguists, who examine the relationship between language and society, particularly the correlations
between linguistic variables and social attributes such as age, sex and social class, as well as speech style or context of speaking. Urban sociolinguistic surveys of Vancouver (by
R.J. Gregg), Toronto (by J.K. Chambers and S. Tagliamonte), Ottawa (by H.B. Woods),
Montreal (by C. Boberg), and St. John’s (by S. Clarke), based on previous research in American and British cities, have found similar patterns in Canada: younger people
and women tend to lead language changes, while older people and men lag behind; middle-class people and women prefer a more standard variety of language; while working-class people and men display more non-standard language. All speakers display variation
between contextual styles, with certain variants like talking or best friend or Toronto occurring more frequently in formal styles and others, like “talkin’” or “bessfrien’” or “Tronno,” in casual styles.
These general sociolinguistic patterns apply as much to Canadian English as to other dialects and languages; they are one of the ways in which individuals and groups signal their social identities and relationships with one another.

Canadian English has words or expressions not found, or not widely used, in other variants of English. Additionally, like other dialects of English that exist in proximity to francophones, French loanwords have entered Canadian English. This page comprises words—proper English terms, French loanwords, and slang words—that are distinctive for their relatively widespread use in Canada.

Canadian English words, expressions, and terms[edit]

• ABM, bank machine: a common term for an automated teller machine. (More commonly known as an ATM in Eastern Canada)
• all worried: Used in Montreal. If someone says this, they are usually being sarcastic and aren’t actually worried..on the contrary…they probably have little worries.
• allophone: a resident of Quebec who speaks a first language other than English or French. Used only by linguists in other English-speaking countries, this word has come to be used by journalists and broadcasters, and then by the general public, in some parts of Canada.
• bachelor: bachelor apartment (a single room apartment with a bathroom).
• Bytown: the original name of Ottawa before its designation as national capital, often still used in the same context as Hogtown for Toronto or Cowtown for Calgary.
• Canuck: A slang term for «Canadian» in the U.S. and Canada. It sometimes means «French Canadian» in particular, especially when used in the Northeast of the United States and in Canada. Adopted as the name of the National Hockey League team in Vancouver. Sometimes jokingly pronounced can-OOK (not used this way for the hockey team, aka «the Nucks»).
• chesterfield: a sofa or couch. Used somewhat in Northern California; obsolete in Britain (where it originated). Sometimes (as in classic furnishing terminology) refers to a sofa whose arms are the same height as the back, but more usually to any couch or sofa. The more international terms sofa and couch are also used; among younger generations in the western and central regions, chesterfield is largely in decline.
• clotheshorse: a wooden or metal drying rack for clothing
• chinook: a warm, dry wind experienced along the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. Most common in winter and spring, a chinook wind can result in a rise in temperature of 20 °C (35 to 40 °F) in a quarter of an hour. In British Columbia, the word is pronounced with an affricate ch instead of the fricative sh sound as used elsewhere in Canada, and means an extremely wet, warm constant southwesterly, which actually is the same weather pattern as the drying wind that it becomes when it hits Alberta. The use of the word to mean a wind is from the Chinook Jargon, «i.e., the wind from the direction of the country of the Chinooks» (the lower Columbia River), as transmitted to the Prairies by the francophone employees of the North West Company, hence the Frenchified pronunciation east of the Rockies. A Chinook in BC is also one of the five main varieties of salmon, and can also mean the Chinook Jargon, although this older usage is now very rare (as is the Jargon itself).
• concession road: in southern Ontario and southern Quebec, one of a set of roads laid out by the colonial government as part of the distribution of land in standard lot sizes. The roads were laid out in squares as nearly as possible equal to 1,000 acres (4 km²). Many of the concession roads were known as sidelines, and in Ontario many roads are still called lines.
• Confederation: (capitalized) the federal union of provinces and territories by which Canada was formed, starting with New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Québec. Often refers to the date of initial Confederation, July 1, 1867. In Newfoundland and Labrador, can also refer to March 31, 1949, the date when that province officially joined Canada.
• dayliner: a Budd Rail Diesel Car, a self-propelled diesel passenger railcar on the former British Columbia Railway, also called «Budd Car» after the company who made them (the dayliner is now out of service)
• double-double: a cup of coffee with two creams and two sugars
• droke: (especially Newfoundland) coppice, thicket
• eaves troughs (also Northern & Western U.S.): grooves or channels that attach to the underside of the roof of a house to collect rainwater. Known to most Americans and to Britons as gutters.
• eh: a spoken interjection to ascertain the comprehension, continued interest, agreement, etc., of the person or persons addressed («That was a good game last night, eh?»). May also be used instead of «huh?» or «what?» meaning «please repeat or say again.» Frequently mis-represented by Americans as A, or hey. May have its origins from the French hein, which is pronounced in a very similar fashion.
• Family Compact: a group of influential families who exercised substantial political control of Ontario during part of the 1800s. The Quebec equivalent was the Chateau Clique.
• fire hall: fire station, firehouse
• garburator: a garbage disposal unit located beneath the drain of a kitchen sink.
• give’r: a shortened form of «give her a go,» this slang term is used to encourage someone on (i.e., if one wanted to get the driver to go faster, he could say «just give’r buddy!»). The present tense of give’r is givn’r (short for giving her a go)
• Gostapo: GO Transit Enforcement Unit security staff in the Greater Toronto Area. They check for valid tickets or passes on GO Transit commuter trains and issue fines for not having same.
• Grit, grit: a member or supporter of one of the federal or provincial Liberal parties (but not the Parti libéral du Québec)
• height of land: divide, water parting
• homo milk: homogenized milk, particularly with a fat content greater than 2%, usually 3.25%. Referred to in the U.S. as whole milk.
• humidex: measurement used by meteorologists to reflect the combined effect of heat and humidity.
• hydro: (except Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the Maritimes) commonly as a synonym for electrical service. Many Canadian provincial electric companies generate power from hydroelectricity, and incorporate the term «Hydro» in their names: BC Hydro, Toronto Hydro, Hydro Ottawa, etc. Usage: «Manitoba Hydro… It’s not just a Power Company anymore.»; «How long did you work for Hydro?» «When’s Hydro gonna get the lines back up.»; «The hydro bill is due on the fifteenth.»; «I didn’t pay my hydro bill so they shut off my lights.» Hence hydrofield, a line of electricity transmission towers, usually in groups cutting across a city, and hydro lines/poles, electrical transmission lines/poles.
• Kokanee: British Columbian name for a species of land-locked salmon (accent on first syllable). Also the name of a popular beer made in the Kootenay district, also known as «Blue Cocaine.»
• line: see Concession road.
• loonie: Canadian one dollar coin. Derived from the use of the loon on the reverse.
• lumber jacket: A thick flannel jackeolett either red and black or green and black favoured by blue collar workers and heavy metal/grunge afficinados. This apparel is more commonly referred to as a mackinac (pron mackinaw). In parts of British Columbia, it is referred to as a doeskin.
• Mickey: a 300ml-500ml bottle of hard alcohol (also referred to in certain regions as a pint)
• Nanaimo bar: a confection named for the town of Nanaimo, British Columbia and made of egg custard with a Graham-cracker-based bottom and a thin layer of chocolate on top; however, this term is now common in the United States and elsewhere, thanks to the efforts of Starbucks in popularizing them.
• Newfie, Newf: A colloquial, often derisive term used to describe one who is from Newfoundland and Labrador. Historically viewed as derogatory, but often used nowadays with light humour.
• parkade: a parking garage, especially in the West; probably coined by either the Woodward’s or Hudson’s Bay Company department store chains.
• pencil crayon: Common term for coloured pencil.
• pickerel: This is a slang word for walleye.
• pogey: social assistance, welfare (Especially in Newfoundland.), Employment insurance. In British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia pogey always means Employment Insurance, as opposed to the dole or other terms for Welfare.
• pop: the common name for soft drinks or soda pop.
• quart: a large bottle of beer, also used in Atlantic Canada to refer to a 26er
• quiggly hole and quiggly town: remains of First Nations underground houses in the Interior of British Columbia
• runners: running shoes, sneakers, especially in Central Canada. Also used somewhat in Australian English, and in the Republic of Ireland.
• serviette: a small square of cloth or paper used while eating, a napkin. Derives from British English.
• Ski-Doo: a brand name now used generically to refer to any snowmobile, most often pronouced «sk-DOO». Can also be used as a verb. Also skidoo.
• Skookum: a term used primarily, but not exclusively in British Columbia and Yukon Territory as well as the U.S. Pacific Northwest, from a Chinook word meaning «strong, powerful, good, cool, superlative or first rate» but also currently used to indicate «very good.» («Skookum party last night, eh?» «He’s a skookum guy, that skookum with you?»)
• snowbird: a Canadian who spends the winter in the U.S. (often Florida). Often retired.
• sugar pie: A pie made with maple-sugar filling, similar to a butter tart and a staple in Québécois home cooking.
• Timbits: a brand name of doughnut holes made by Tim Hortons that has become a generic term
• toonie: Canadian two dollar coin. Modelled after loonie (q.v.). Also spelled tooney, twooney, twoonie, twonie, or twoney
• toque: a knitted winter hat, often with a pompom on the crown.
• Tory: a member or supporter of the Conservative Party of Canada, or a provincial conservative party. Term borrowed from the UK, where it has long been used in reference to that nation’s Conservative Party.
• two-four: A case of twenty-four beers. The two-four refers to the two digits what make up the number «24»
• May two-four Weekend the «two-four» refers to the Victoria Day long weekend in May, which for many years fell on a weekend between the 20th and 24th of May (also references the two-four as it is the first «beer drinking» long weekend usually celebrated as the start of the summer holidays)
• washroom: the general term for what is normally named public toilet or lavatory in Britain. In the U.S. (where it originated) mostly replaced by restroom in the 20th century. Generally used only as a technical or commercial term outside of Canada. The term «toilet» is generally considered somewhat indelicate in Canada and is avoided.

French loanwords[edit]

Often native French Canadian speakers will use calques of French idioms, so in Quebec it is relatively common of for both Anglophones and Francophones to «close the light» or to «open the light,» meaning to turn on or off the light in a room. This was especially common in the Gaspé Peninsula, where until recently Anglophones and Francophones lived in mixed communities for generations. Similar calques from other languages are found in English throughout Canada, particularly in BC and the Prairies where translated usages from European languages are common, whether inherited from parents or spoken by new immigrants.

• aboideau: a sluice gate or dam.
• alcool: grain alcohol; everclear (pronounced as if English, al-cool).
• dépanneur: a corner store (convenience store) that sells alcohol, shortened to dep (Quebec only).
• gaspereau: the fish alewife.
• guichet: (Quebec) automated teller machine.
• poutine: a dish of french fries (or chips) topped with cheese curds and covered with hot gravy (Quebec) or a dumpling filled with ground meat (Maritimes).
• stage: (Quebec) pronounced as in French, internship or apprenticeship.
• tuque: a close-fitting woolen winter hat (sometimes spelled toque, which is assimilated from a different kind of hat, or touque). Akin to a stocking-cap, knit cap or watch cap.
• voyageur: literally, a traveller. Refers to one of the long-distance canoe porters of the fur companies, which is a strong image in the history of the Canadian North and West.

Canadian slang words[edit]

Canadian slang consists of words and phrases of slang exclusive to or originating from Canada. It is important to note that many of these words are regional and not used in all areas. In addition to general-purpose slang, there are slang nicknames for many Canadian places, and residents of specific Canadian places.

Numbers[edit]

• 2-4: (two four) a box containing 24 beer («Beer» being short for «bottles of beer»)

These numbers designate the Victoria Day holiday, which falls on the Monday closest to the twenty-fourth of May May 2-4

• 2-8: (two eight) a box containing 28 beer. See King Case
• 26er (also 2-6, twixer): a 26 & 2/3 imperial fl oz (758 ml) in earlier times, or 750 ml (26.4 fl oz) bottle of alcohol
• 40: a 40 fl oz (1 imperial quart, 1.14 L) bottle of alcohol. (see forty pounder)
• The 416: Term used to describe the city of Toronto, from the original area code covering the city (now one of three used in that area). Largely replaced in the 2010s by «The 6» (see below).
• 50: Short for «Labatt 50» a brand of beer sold mostly in eastern Canada.
• 6 mil: Describes a 591 mililitre bottle of pop.
• 60 or 60-pounder: a 1.75 L (61.6 imperial fl oz) bottle of spirits
• 66er: a former 66.6 imperial fl oz (1/2 U.S. gallon, 1.89 L) bottle of alcohol, probably also applied to 1.75 L (61.6 imperial fl oz) bottles (see gripper)
• The 6ix: Term used to describe the city of Toronto, popularized by the musician Drake. Said to be a reference to the number 6 in several area codes in the city (most notably the city’s original area code of 416), or to be a reference to Toronto being composed of six amalgamated boroughs.
• The 905: the suburbs to the west, north and east of Toronto, covered by the telephone area code, including Halton, Peel, York and Durham regions, even though the main area code in this area is «416». Many «905ers» identify with right-wing political views, an issue that gained recognition during the Mike Harris era. Contains a number of much sought-after federal electorial districts. Does not include Hamilton aka «The Hammer», Ontario and the Regional Municipality of Niagara, Ontario, even though they are part of the same area code.

A–B[edit]

• Abby: Abbotsford, British Columbia; very common in speech throughout British Columbia, but especially in the Lower Mainland.
• back east: In British Columbia, anywhere east of the Rockies. See Out East. In other Western provinces, referring to everything east of Manitoba. In Ontario or Quebec, used by Maritimers as a geographical reference where they are from.
• The Ballet: Strip club, or exotic dance club.
• baywop: Someone living in a rural area centered around a bay. Mostly used in Newfoundland. A pejorative term.
• beauty . A term used to express thanks, or alternative way to say thanks. Additional meaning for «good fortune» or «cool».
• beaver tail: Fried dough, a dessert food basically consisting of a pastry, usually covered with lemon juice and cinnamon sugar. Given its name because it resembles the shape of a beaver’s tail. Usually known as an Elephant Ear or Whale’s Tail in British Columbia.
• The Big O, The Big Owe: Olympic Stadium (Montreal). «Owe» refers to the stadium’s massive costs, about eight times greater than original projections, leading to debts that were not totally paid until 2006—30 years after the event for which it was built, the 1976 Summer Olympics.
• The Big Smoke: now pervasive enough in Ontario to have come into use in the Canadian (Toronto-based) media to mean the City of Toronto, this term is of British Columbian origin and has been used to refer to the City of Vancouver since the milltown era of the 19th century. The term was either a reference to the heavy mill-smoke locally, or to the pervasive cloud and fog of the city’s location («smoke» in the Chinook Jargon meant cloud and fog as well as smoke). Independently used for many cities around the world, notably London (where its usage may also have its origins in the old close ties between the UK and British Columbia).
• bismarck: jelly doughnut (Prairies; also used in BC).
• Blochead: A derogatory term for Anglophone, or English speaker in the province of Quebec. French translation tête carrée. Often used as a derogatory term for a member of the Bloc Quebecois.
• blue-eyed Arab: a term for a resident of Alberta, emanating from the oil industry in that province.
• bluenoser: a term for a resident of Nova Scotia.
• Bob’s Your Uncle: An expression meaning that a task has (or can be) completed in a simple fashion. Not exclusive to Canada, it’s also used in Britain and other Commonwealth nations.
• bogtrotter: a term for a resident of New Brunswick, also a term used by Newfoundlanders for inhabitants of the other Atlantic Provinces.
• booze can: an after-hours club or blind pig.
• Boston: In the BC Interior, a slightly derisive and sometimes aggressive First Nations term for «white man». Derived from the Chinook Jargon term for an American, boston man.
• Bramladesh: refers to the city of Brampton, Ontario because of its large Indian population
• British California: alternate name for British Columbia; a reference to the similarities between that province and the US state of California, including physical location and relative climatic differences, liberal society and political-cultural climate; and also because of the general resemblance of geographic shape of the state and the province. See also «Left Coast».
• bunny hug: commonly used in Saskatchewan referring to a hooded sweatshirt.
• bush, the bush: commonly used in Western Canada in the same way that Australians refer to the Outback, i.e., as a generic term, whether in relation hunting/outdoors or employment at mines or in the woods. In certain uses interchangeable with upcountry, but «the Bush» is never used to refer to any significant-sized town or agricultural area (relatively speaking, that is).
• bushed: in British Columbia and Yukon, somebody who’s been in «the bush» too long, typically eccentric from being alone too long; possibly smelly and otherwise without civilized habits.
• b’y: A term from Newfoundland and Cape Breton Island. The equivalent of «man,» «dude,» or «pal.» Possible contraction of «boy,» but more likely of «buddy.» Example: «Go on, b’y».
• Bytown: Ottawa, Ontario (Bytown is the former name of the capital of Canada).

C–D[edit]

• CanCon: Abbreviation for Canadian Content. Refers to the requisite number of Canadian songs, films, programs, etc. that Canadian broadcasters must air.
• CanLit: Canadian literature, of the variety that exists only because it’s government-funded, and of a certain style. Originally derisive, ultimately adopted by the Canadian literary establishment as shorthand for itself.
• canuck: Canadian. Often used in the US as well, sometimes derogatorily. Originally used to mean French-Canadians only, and archaic pron. can-OOK (which Americans often use, and which also can still be used in a humorous or mocking sense). Also the name for a player on the Vancouver NHL team. See Canucklehead.
• Caper: Someone from Cape Breton Island (Nova Scotia)
• Cariboozer: Someone from BC’s Cariboo Country, and more jocularly than derisive. Need not be an alcoholic to be applied to someone, but definitely coined concerning the heavy-drinking culture of that region (which has one of southern Canada’s highest rates of heart disease and other drinking-related mortality).
• CBC: Canadian Born Chinese. Refers to the generation of Chinese born in Canada whose parents were landed immigrants. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is also the CBC, but is referred to as Mother Corp.
• case (of Beer): In Central Canada, a box of 24 bottles of beer. In the Atlantic provices and the West, it more often refers to a box of 12 bottles of beer.
• centre of the universe: A common sarcastic term for Toronto, Ontario, derived from a belief about how Torontonians view themselves and their city.
• citidiots, a portmanteau of «City» and «Idiots». Commonly used in rural Southwestern Ontario, particularly Bruce and Grey Counties to describe tourists or cottage-goers from the GTA.
• The Chuck: Edmonton, Alberta, short for its other nickname Edmonchuck, a reference to the city’s dominant population of Canadians of Ukrainian descent. In British Columbia, the chuck is a reference to water, usually the straits and other inland waters between Vancouver and Vancouver Island from the Chinook Jargon and commonly used in marine English and in weather forecasts, e.g., it’ll be fine out on the chuck. Also saltchuck.
• chug: A derogatory expression applied to First Nations people (originally in reference to alcoholism).
• coastie: In the BC Interior, a slightly derisive term for someone from Vancouver or the Lower Mainland, implying city attitudes and dress.
• constab: pronounced cun-STAB; the police in cities of Newfoundland and Labrador serviced by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary.
• Cow-Town: nickname for Calgary, Alberta.
• CPR strawberries: Prunes or dried apples.
• Cote-Saint Jew: refers to the predominantly Jewish district of Cote-Saint Luc in Montreal
• CSL: refers to the Côte-Saint Luc district of Montreal
• dart: cigarette
• DDO: refers to the Dollard-Des-Ormeaux district of Montreal
• deke, deke out: to feint, to trick or avoid someone «to deke out of a meeting» or, to deftly manoeuvre around a sporting opponent (esp. in hockey). Also used to refer to making shortcuts and innovative routes through traffic. Word originates from the word decoy.
• dep: corner store, adapted from Quebec French word «dépanneur,» especially by English-speaking Quebeckers.
• dipper: a member of the New Democratic Party
• Ditchland’, also Ditchmond: Richmond, British Columbia, where all streets were lined by deep (and dangerous) drainage ditches, now largely replaced by culverts or otherwise covered.
• doeskin: lumber jacket.
• dogan: a Catholic; abusive, falling into disuse.
• double-double: a coffee with double cream, double sugar (especially, but not exclusively, from Tim Hortons), recently added to the Oxford Dictionary. Triple-triple and four-by-four (less common) are three and four creams/sugars, respectively.
• downhomer: a person from Newfoundland; sometimes refers to a person from any part of Atlantic Canada.

E–F[edit]

• Easterner: any citizen who lives east of the Manitoba–Ontario boundary, usually used by Albertans to refer to people who do not understand the plight of western Canadians and their addiction to the resource extraction economy.
• Edmonchuk: A name for Edmonton, Alberta, referring to the large Ukrainian population. Many Ukrainian family names end with «-chuk».
• farmer tan: tan of the lower left arm, obtained by driving with the window open wearing a short-sleeve shirt. Also any tan or sunburn of both arms from mid-bicep and lower. Also used in the US.
• farmer turn: a manoeuvre executed while driving an automobile in urban areas. A right turn that starts by veering to the left, often crossing into the adjacent lane before completing the (often slow) right turn. Name refers to the driving habits of rural farmers accustomed to large vehicles and unused to city traffic.
• farmer vision (also peasant vision, country cable or TFC — Three Friggin’ Channels): The basic three broadcast TV channels that can be picked up almost anywhere (Global, CBC, CTV).
• Fish Police (also tree cop and critter cop): Derogatory reference to Federal or Provincial Fisheries or Wildlife Officers.
• flat: An Atlantic Canadian term used to refer to a box containing 24 bottles of beer. (see also, 2-4) Central and Western Canadians usually use the term ‘case’ to identify this quantity, although the term flat is also sometimes used for the same thing in Western Canada. Also slab. («Flat» is almost never used to mean «apartment» in Canada, even though this usage is common in both the UK and some regions of the US.)
• floater : See Goal Suck
• flowerpots: See The Rocks.
• flippin: increasing in use; also Friggin as alternate use for fucking.
• fuck the dog: A term used to indicate doing nothing (e.g. I fucked the dog all weekend). May be referred to as Making Puppies in polite company. Also refers to slacking off at work or getting paid to do nothing.
• forty pounder (forty ouncer) – a 40 oz. bottle of alcohol (see 40).

G[edit]

• Garden City: Richmond, British Columbia’s official sobriquet. Often mistakenly applied to Victoria
• Gastown: the old part of Vancouver and the original colloquial name of the settlement , a contraction of «Gassy’s town» after steamboat captain-cum-bartender «Gassy» Jack Deighton. Sometimes used to mean Vancouver in general in the way that Hogtown and Cowtown are used for Toronto and Calgary respectively, and also often mistaken or at least fudged to include the Downtown Eastside of that city, which includes Gastown proper.
• ghetto: someone whose behaviour is perceived as acting or posturing a gang-like image even if unassociated with a street gang «Mike is ghetto» or a residence in a state of disrepair and very dirty «they live so ghetto», growing usages in Ontario, not unique to Canada.
• ghetto blaster: a portable stereo system. The term was common throughout North America at one time, but is still common in Canada.
• gitch: see «gotch»
• givin’ ‘er: used to describe any act carried out with extreme exuberance or to its fullest potential. «We were just giv’n’r last night.» Often used to describe heavy alcohol drinking and partying. Short for «giving her (hell)». Variation «Give ‘er» used on east coast (‘I’m gonna just give ‘er in tonight’s game’ or ‘We really gave ‘er last night at the game.’)»
• goal suck: In ice hockey, somebody who stays around the opposing teams goalie and does not play defence. (see «Cherry Picker»)
• goof: 1: cheap sherry or fortified wine («I could buy the Indian chiefs off with a case of goof,» – Ed Havrot, chair of the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, Toronto Globe and Mail, May 16. 1975); 2: a major insult, equivalent to «nonce» (pedophile) in the UK, often precipitating violence.
• Goolie: In Manitoba, a derogatory term for someone of Icelandic descent. From Islendigur, meaning Icelander.
• gotch, ginch or gonch: underwear, especially men’s briefs. A «gotch-pull» or «gonch-launch» is another name for a wedgie.
• Gouge-and-Screw Tax: Goods and Services Tax (Canada) (GST).
• Grit: a member of the Liberal Party of Canada. In British Columbia, a neo-Grit is a new-era BC Liberal (distinct in character from the pre-1970s BC Liberal Party), although Grit is commonly used in the media, though usually to mean the federal Liberals only.
• gripper: a former 66 imp fl oz (1/2 U.S. gal) or a 1.75 L (61.6 imp fl oz) bottle of liquor. So named for either having a looped handle on the bottle neck, or matching indented «grips» on the body of the bottle.
• Grocery Police: A Canadian Customs and Revenue Border Agent.
• GTA: frequently used acronym for the Greater Toronto Area
• Gut Bomb: Slang for a McDonald’s hamburger e.g., «I went to Rotten Ronnie’s for a Gut Bomb».

H–J[edit]

• Habs: Historical Quebec: Habitants — Nick name of the Montreal Canadiens NHL team.
• had the biscuit: Dead, broken, spent, «My old car has had the biscuit».
• half-sack: A six pack of beer.
• half-case: A 12 Pack of beer.
• Hali: Halifax, Nova Scotia.
• Haligonian: a resident of Halifax (and of its namesake in the UK).
• The Hammer: Hamilton, Ontario
• The Hat: Medicine Hat, Alberta
• head ‘er: Used as a verb, to leave. eg. I guess I’d better head’r.
• Here Before Christ: The Hudson’s Bay Company (founded 1670).
• Hog Town or Hogtown: Nickname for Toronto.
• Hollywood North: a reference to Hollywood, California, used to describe Toronto and Vancouver as two major sites of Canadian film production.
• Hongcouver: Derogatory reference to the large number of immigrants from Hong Kong in the city of Vancouver
• Honger or Hong: Derogatory name for immigrants from Hong Kong used by Mandarin-speaking and Canadianized Chinese. NB «Hong Konger» is not derisive.
• hoodie: A hooded sweatshirt with or without a zipper.
• Horny Tim’s: Tim Hortons doughnut chain
• hose: used as a verb ‘to hose’ meaning to trick, deceive, steal, etc.
• hosed: Broken or not working. e.g., «There was a power surge and now my TV’s hosed.» Can also mean «drunk» as in «I went out and got hosed last night».
• hoser: a stereotype and a mild insult; exploiter; from Depression era prairie gasoline thieves.
• The Hub City: the city of Moncton, New Brunswick, the city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and the city of Nanaimo, British Columbia
• Inside Passage: a «marine highway» linking BC’s south coast with the Central Coast and North Coast/Prince Rupert via a chain of channels. The route is «inside» because it is sheltered by the coastal archipelago.
• The interior: used (without further description) by residents of British Columbia to describe essentially the entire province outside of Greater Vancouver, the Islands and the North Coast. Often seen in compound forms, Central Interior and Southern Interior especially (which almost mean the same thing, but not quite).
• The island: Vancouver Island, in common British Columbia usage; other islands are referred to directly by name, except in context.
• The islands: in BC, the Gulf Islands. In a general sense can be used to include Vancouver Island. In the capital ‘I’ sense this refers generally to the inhabited islands of the Strait of Georgia, usually the southern Gulf Islands; does not usually include the archipelagos Desolation Sound, Discovery Passage, the Queen Charlotte Strait or Inside Passage.
• jambuster: a jelly-filled doughnut, generally covered with icing sugar (Manitoba, possibly Ontario)
• jawbone, as in to give jawbone: backcountry expression referring to giving credit at a store or bar. «He gave me jawbone» means the storekeeper or merchant advanced credit.
• Jesus Murphey: a common exclamation
• jib: methamphetamine or crystal meths (West/Central Canada).
• joggers: a term used for jogging pants or sweatpants

K–M[edit]

• Kenora dinner jacket: A plaid Melton jacket, typically red or green, at one time a hallmark of the Canadian workingman and once associated with residents of Kenora, Ontario. Later popular with artists and fans of the grunge movement.
• Kentucky Fried Pigeon and Kentucky Fried Rabbit: disparaging term for Kentucky Fried Chicken, due to suspect quality of poultry used in preparation of this food.
• ketchup potato chips: a common flavour in Canada for potato chips but difficult to find in much of the USA, as is the most common Canadian chip flavour, Salt and Vinegar.
• Kraft Dinner: A popular brand of macaroni noodles, often used to describe any macaroni or macaroni-like noodle meal, especially when abbreviated as K.D. The brand sold as «Kraft Dinner» in Canada is known as «Kraft Macaroni & Cheese» in the U.S.
• KV: A term for the Kennebecasis Valley, which consists of two towns, Rothesay, New Brunswick and Quispamsis, New Brunswick, which are affluent suburbs of Saint John, New Brunswick.
• Lakehead, The Lakehead: Thunder Bay, Ontario
• Language Police: A Quebec provincial government body titled the Office de la Langue Française who under Bill 101, the controversial language law passed in the 1970s, were charged with ensuring that Quebec businesses feature the French language at least on par with English on signs, menus etc.
• L.C.: Slang for Manitoba Liquor Control Commission (MLCC), the government-run liquor stores in Manitoba; also for Nova Scotia’s ‘Liquor Commission’. Abbreviated as the ‘Mission. In Ontario, it is the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) government run liquor stores—may be pronounced as «lick beau» or «el cabo». In British Columbia the same reference is now L.D.B. — Liquor Distribution Branch (formerly L.C.B. — Liquor Control Board; L.C.B. is still heard despite the Board’s renaming)
• liquor store: A specific reference to a government operated liquor store, as privately owned liquor stores are uncommon or illegal in Eastern Canada. A private liquor store is generally referred to as a Cold Beer & Wine Store or off-sale.
• Left Coast: term used to refer to British Columbia; the phrase is often applied in the United States to California; both are a reference to left-wing politics and used to describe the more liberal attitudes of those regions in comparison to the rest of the country. An early user of the phrase was Allan Fotheringham, then writing for Vancouver Sun. It also occurs in the title of the Left Coast Review, a Vancouver-published magazine.
• (Lord) love a duck: may be considered a minced oath for fuck a duck
• Lord Stanley or Lord Stanley’s Mug: slang reference to the Stanley Cup, awarded annually to the champion team of the National Hockey League.
• Lotus Land: British Columbia, especially the Lower Mainland around Vancouver, British Columbia; often in reference to the absurd theatrics of BC politics and political personalities, and also including at times political life in the provincial capital of Victoria, British Columbia. Sometimes written as one word. Originally coined by Vancouver Sun columnist Allan Fotheringham; derived from the Homeric «Land of the Lotus-Eaters». The California cognate, on which Lotus Land was styled, is La-la Land, for Los Angeles, California.
• Lower Mainland; the Greater Vancouver-Fraser Valley area of BC, apposite to «upcountry» (q.v), the Interior, the North, and the North Coast. The origin of this term is that the Fraser delta-Vancouver area is virtually at sea level, vs. the extreme heights of nearly all the communities on the Interior Plateau, the «upper mainland» (though it is never called such).
• mackinaw cloth, mackinac, pronounced Mackinaw and sometimes spelled that way. A plaid Melton jacket, typically red or green, at one time a hallmark of the Canadian workingman. Later popular in artists and fans of the grunge movement.
• mainlander: Used by Newfoundlanders, Prince Edward Islanders and Cape Bretoners to refer to a person from mainland Canada; often used in the derogatory. Also used by Vancouver Islanders, especially Victorians, in the same way but primarily referring to residents of the Greater Vancouver/Lower Mainland area rather than those from the Interior or Upcoast.
• Maritimer; Used to describe residents of the Maritime provinces on Canada’s east coast. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island make up the Maritimes, but not Newfoundland due to climatic and geographic differences, and also because Newfoundland did not become part of Canada until 1949, more than 80 years after Confederation.
• member; Used by the RCMP to refer to fellow Mounties in place of the usual «officer» or «constable» (or equivalent) in other police forces. Mounties have their own lexicon of special terms and usages, which are familiar the general public because of their use on-air by RCMP press relations officers. Sample usage: «the member approached the suspect with caution».
• mickey: a small (13 oz.) bottle of liquor, shaped to fit in a pocket, much like a hip flask. Also fits conveniently alongside the calf of a cowboy boot or rubber boot.
• monster house: In Vancouver, a newly-built and very large, post-modern residence taking up nearly all of a city lot, often overshadowing neighbouring houses and usually in a bland stucco out-of-character with the older flavour of the neighbourhood. The term has fallen into disuse as «politically incorrect».
• Mountie: a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
• Mother Corp: The CBC. Originally coined by then-Vancouver Sun columnnist Allan Fotheringham as the Holy Mother Corporation.
• Mtl: spelled out M.T.L. means Montreal
• muni, the muni : in British Columbia, a municipal government and its bureaucracy. «The Muni won’t allow that to go through», «He works for the muni».

N–R[edit]

• Nammer: Derogatory term for Vietnamese young adults with dyed hair and unconventional fashion. Used mostly in the Vancouver area.
• N.D.G.: refers to the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district of Montreal
• Newfie, Newf: a person from Newfoundland; occasionally derogatory if used by someone other than a Newfoundlander.
• New West: New Westminster, British Columbia.
• the Oilpatch, or the patch: the local term of the oil industry of Alberta, especially the part involved directly with drilling.
• out east: A summary term used in Western Canada (BC specifically) to classify anyone born and raised east of Manitoba- used with less negative connotation as «Torontonian.» See Back East.
• out west: Term used to describe the general direction towards anywhere in Western Canada west of the Manitoba/Ontario border.
• parish: In New Brunswick, although now defunct along with counties, they are equivalent to townships inother provinces. They are now only geographical expressions (as are counties) and exist outside of incorporated municipalities (towns, cities & villages, as well as the new Rural Communities).
• peeler bar: Strip club
• The Peg and Peg City: Winnipeg, Manitoba.
• The Peninsula: Refers to New Brunswick’s Kingston Peninsula, a rural stretch of land surrounded by the Saint John River on 2 sides, the Kennebecasis River on 1 side, and Kingston Creek on part of one side. Also used for the northern suburbs of Victoria, British Columbia, which are on the Saanich Peninsula.
• pepper, pepsi: derogatory term used to refer to francophone Quebeckers by anglophones, or to anglophones by francophones.
• Pile O’ Bones: Regina, Saskatchewan (the latin word for Queen, named for the Queen, and pronounced like vagina); this was the name of the site of the future city when it was selected as the site of the capital of the North-West Territories.
• Poco: Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, one of the «Tri-Cities» or «Northeast Sector», which includes Coquitlam, and Port Moody.
• PoCoMo: The region of Port Coquitlam, Coquitlam, and Port Moody, the «Tri-Cities» or «Northeast Sector».
• poutine: a plate or box of french fries covered with poutine sauce (commonly known as «gravy») and cheese curds.
• poverty pack: a six-pack of beer. Used in Southern New Brunswick.
• puck bunny: (AKA ‘Puck Slut’, or just ‘a Puck’) In disparaging terms, a young girl who pursues hockey players; a groupie of hockey players.
• Queen City: Regina, Saskatchewan. (However, in French, la Ville Reine refers to Toronto, Ontario, which experienced rapid growth during Queen Victoria’s reign.)
• Queen’s Hotel: local or county jail
• rancherie: In British Columbia, an Indian Reserve, specifically its residential section and often specifically the oldest residential neighbourhood of a reserve. Pronounced with a «hard» /ch/ and accent on the last syllable. Derived from Californian Spanish rancheria.
• reservation rocket: nickname for vehicle generally seen travelling towards or away from native reservations, typically an old Camaro or Trans-Am, frequently overloaded and over-speed .
• the rez: A First Nations reserve, particularly its residential area. Found across in Canada, generally used by First Nations English-speakers.
• rice king and rice queen: In British Columbia, non-Asians who date only Asians, often immigrants from another part of Canada moved here for that reason.
• Rig Pig : A person who works in the oilfield; often used in the prairies as a derogatory remark to anyone with a lifted pickup truck.
• rink rat— Term used to describe people who work at a hockey rink and maintain the building/ice surface.
• rippers: term for strippers or exotic dancers. Derived from the fact they rip their clothes off (eventually). They perform in Ripper Bars. See Peelers.
• The Rock: Newfoundland. Also, in Greater Victoria, British Columbia, for Vancouver Island .
• Rockhead: A resident of the small town of St. George, New Brunswick, which is affectionately called the «Granite Town».
• The Rocks: The Hopewell Rocks, in Hopewell, New Brunswick, where the highest tides in the world are found. Also referred to as the Flowerpots.
• Rotten Ronnie’s: McDonald’s restaurants. Also McScumolds, McDick’s, or in Quebec, McDo’s.
• (The) Royal City: New Westminster, British Columbia. Often mistakenly used for Victoria, British Columbia. Also used when referring to the city of Guelph, Ontario.

S[edit]

• Sack Vegas: Another name for Lower Sackville, a lower to upper middle class suburb of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Known for a significant concentration of used car dealerships and at least seven separate Tim Horton’s doughnut shops serving the population of around 30,000, one of the highest ratios in the country.
• saltchuck: In British Columbia, the chuck is a reference to water, usually the straits and other inland waters between Vancouver and Vancouver Island from the Chinook Jargon and commonly used in marine English and in weather forecasts, e.g., «It’ll be fine out on the saltchuck tomorrow.» Also chuck.
• Saskabush: Saskatchewan or in some circles, Saskatoon
• sasquatch: A creature similar to Bigfoot or Yeti, from the Halkemeylem word sesqac. In British Columbia often used, especially in the short form Squatch (rhymes with «botch»), to mean someone tall, large and shaggy or bearded. Also a Saskatchewan driver in Alberta, or an Albertan teen with Saskatchewan licence plates.
• Sauga: Mississauga, Ontario, short diminutive form.
• Scarberia: Scarborough, Ontario, a suburban part of Toronto, a derogatory reference to its desolation. Also known as Scarbz as a known common diminutive word used within the area. Or even known as Scompton, in reference to its perceived similarities with the Compton, California neighbourhood in Los Angeles.
• Scare Canada: a derogatory term used with regard to national air carrier Air Canada. Originally this was coined in British Columbia as Scare BC (for Air BC).
• scivey: (Pronounced SKEE-vee) an untrustworthy person; or someone who is considered un-generous or stingy. Used in Nova Scotia, and with similar meaning to sketchy.
• screech: a particularly potent type of Newfoundland rum.
• (The) Shwa: Local slang (generally derogatory) for the city of Oshawa, Ontario.
• side-by-each: A term common among French Canadians meaning «next to each other»
• sixty-sixer: A term for a sixty-two ounce (1.75 L) bottle of liquor (from the old 1/2 U.S. gallon size, 66.6 imp fl oz).
• sketch’d right out of ‘er: Extreme form of sketchy used in New Brunswick.
• skid: a reference to people who appear down and out with raggedy clothing, sometimes homeless but not always. Derived from skid row.
• slack: Term for low quality, disappointment, etc. Often prefaced with ever, as in Ever slack, eh? To slack off is to work slowly and minimally.
• Slurrey: Derogatory name for Surrey, British Columbia.
• snokked or snocked: drunk, as in really drunk.
• snowbirds: a reference to people, often senior citizens, who leave Canada during the winter months to reside in southern states of the U.S. (particularly Florida.) Also the name of the Canadian Forces aerobatics team.
• The Soo or The Sault: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
• Speedy Creek: Swift Current, Saskatchewan
• spinny: when used in reference to a girl or woman, this means a certain kind of talkative, dizzy, not-all-there kind of personality, as in «man, she’s a spinny chick, huh?» and «I dunno man — she’s pretty spinny.» See also Surrey girl (though the terms are nowhere near synonymous).
• spudhead: a person from Prince Edward Island, in reference to the province’s abundance of potato farming
• square head/English muffin: Words used to describe English/Anglo Canadians, the former in French is «Tête Carré.» «English Muffin» is often heard in New Brunswick schoolyards with its counterpart, «French Fry.» In British Columbia and Alberta, squarehead invariably is a derisive term for an ethnic German, i.e., someone who still has their accent and old-country hardliner attitudes.
• stagette: the female equivalent of a stag party.
• Steeltown: Hamilton, Ontario, in reference to the city’s main industry
• Stinktown: Sarnia, Ontario, in reference to the smell from the petroleum refineries.
• stubble jumper or stubblejumper: Someone from Saskatchewan, or from the prairies in general. Relates to the province’s vast farmlands that when harvested, leave stubble.
• suitcase: Case of twenty-four cans of beer. The handle is located such that the case carries like a suitcase.
• Surrey girl: something more than just a stereotype, evocative of the character and «culture» of Surrey, BC («Canada’s Brooklyn»). See «Slurrey» and «Whalleyworld».
• swish: Homemade low-quality liquor. Made by taking leftover, used, liquor aging barrels and swishing water in them to absorb the alcohol from the wood. Absolutely terrible. In BC, the British context of swish can be heard, as in slickly presented or fancy/fashionable, having a little too much showiness, if not effeminacy. «He’s kinda swish, doncha think?» might imply the individual in question is homosexual, or at least tending that way (as well as well-dressed).

T–Z[edit]

• takitish: used in conversation as slang for «take it easy» mostly in cenral Canada, more specifically Southern Ontario
• t-Bar: refers to female underwear visible above the pants at rear end.
• take off: expression of disagreement or command to leave, similar to «get lost» («Take off, you hoser!»). Used by TV characters Bob & Doug McKenzie.
• telecaster: Term used in Nova Scotia to refer to a newspaper TV listings publication. Sometimes used in BC media English interchangeably with «broadcaster.»
• (The) Terminal City: Vancouver, BC.
• texas mickey: A 3 litre(or 3.78 litre) or larger bottle of liquor, despite the Texas reference, this is a purely Canadian term.
• thongs: Summer sport sandles with a pair of straps anchored between the big and second toe, then across the toes. Referred to as «Flip-Flops» in modern trendspeak.
• Tim’s, Timmy’s, Timmy Ho’s, Timmy Ho-Ho’s: Tim Hortons doughnut chain; female employees of same are sometimes (affectionately) known as «TimTarts.» or in a more derogatory context, a Timmy’s Ho (as in ‘whore’).
• timbit: A round bite-sized treat made from what is left over of a doughnut after the hole is cut out from the middle. The term was coined by the Tim Hortons doughnut chain, but the term «timbit» is used to refer to the same treat served at different doughnut locations, such as Country Style or Dunkin Donuts, though these chains do not officially refer to their version of the treat as «timbits».
• tipper: A 3.75 litre bottle of liquor, sold with a metal frame used to support the bottle when pouring.
• T.O.: Toronto
• Toon Town: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
• towney : In Newfoundland, to describe someone from St. John’s. The term is heard variously in BC by rural residents to refer to town residents nearby.
• T Dot: Toronto
• TransCan, T-Can: reference to the Trans-Canada Highway, also called the Number 1. Begins in Victoria, British Columbia, ends in St John’s, Newfoundland. Is also the world’s longest national highway at 7821km.
• Trash-cona: (derogatory) Nickname for Transcona, an sub-burb of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Transcona is referred to this not because of sanitation reasons but because the perception of women from that area as having loose morals.
• Trash-cona girl: a woman that lives in transcona, winnipeg, manitoba.
• twenty-sixer or two-six: a 26 oz bottle of alcohol like vodka etc. (see 2-6)Referred to as a «quart» in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
• twofer, two-four: a case of 24 beer (see 2-4).
• two-eight: a case of 28 beer (see 2-8).
• upcountry: in BC anywhere on the mainland outside of the Lower Mainland, or if in the Southern Interior. points north. Not usually used for points up the Coast, in which case «upcoast» is used (as also «up the Coast»). May have its origin in the colonial-era usage «the upper country», meaning the Interior. See also «bush», as in «the bush»
• up island: On Vancouver Island, refers to any part of the island north of Victoria.
• upriver: Refers to northwestern New Brunswick (Edmundston, Grand Falls, Florenceville, etc) in reference to it location from Saint John, at the southern end of the river.
• Van — Vancouver, British Columbia. Local short form used to refer to certain districts and suburbs of Vancouver, e.g., East Van, North Van, West Van. Also used by itself in the other suburbs in the context «are you going into Van today?». The form Van-City, originally and still a credit union’s brand name, has become fashionable in texting usage among the young and also in trendy business names.
• Vancouver special: A house with little or no basement having the main living area above the first floor. The first floor is often renovated as a suite and rented out. References both the construction in the Vancouver area (bed rock prevents deep basements) and the high housing cost requiring people to rent out half their homes.
• Vico: Synonymous with «chocolate milk.» Used primarily throughout Saskatchewan and Quebec.
• Waste Island: refers to Montreal’s West Island.
• West Island: Western portion of the Island of Montreal
• Wet Coast: refers to the West Coast where they receive lots of rain, especially in winter.
• wheels: A vehicle, usually a car. Tire is usually used when referring to the actual wheels «Where are your wheels parked?»
• Winterpeg: Winnipeg, Manitoba.

See also[edit]

• Canadian English
• Greater Toronto English