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Canadian English
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Canadian English (CanE, en-CA) is the variety of English used in Canada. More than 26 million Canadians (85% of the population) have some knowledge of English (2006 census). Approximately 17 million speak English as their native language. Outside Quebec, 76% of Canadians speak English natively. Canadian English contains elements of British English in its vocabulary, as well as several distinctive Canadianisms. In many areas, speech is influenced by French, and there are notable local variations.
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Encyclopedia
Canadian English (CanE, en-CA) is the variety of English used in Canada. More than 26 million Canadians (85% of the population) have some knowledge of English (2006 census). Approximately 17 million speak English as their native language. Outside Quebec, 76% of Canadians speak English natively. Canadian English contains elements of British English in its vocabulary, as well as several distinctive Canadianisms. In many areas, speech is influenced by French, and there are notable local variations. However, Canada has very little dialect diversity compared to the United States. The phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon for most of Canada are very similar to that of the Western and Midland regions of the United States, while the phonological system of western Canadian English is identical to that of the Pacific Northwest of the United States, and the phonetics are very similar. As such, Canadian English and American English are sometimes grouped together as North American English. Canadian English spelling is a blend of British and American conventions.
History
The term "Canadian English" is first attested in a speech by the Reverend A. Constable Geikie in an address to the Canadian Institute in 1857. Geikie, a Scottish-born Canadian, reflected the Anglocentric attitude prevalent in Canada for the next hundred years when he referred to the language as "a corrupt dialect," in comparison to what he considered the proper English spoken by immigrants from Britain.
Canadian English is the product of four waves of immigration and settlement over a period of almost two centuries. The first large wave of permanent English-speaking settlement in Canada, and linguistically the most important, was the influx of British Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution, chiefly from the Mid-Atlantic States – as such, Canadian English is believed by some scholars to have derived from northern American English, and is nothing more than a variety of it. The second wave from Britain and Ireland was encouraged to settle in Canada after the War of 1812 by the governors of Canada, who were worried about anti-English sentiment among its citizens. Waves of immigration from around the globe peaking in 1910 and 1960 had a lesser influence, but they did make Canada a multicultural country, ready to accept linguistic change from around the world during the current period of globalization.
The languages of Aboriginal peoples in Canada started to influence European languages used in Canada even before widespread settlement took place, and the French of Lower Canada provided vocabulary to the English of Upper Canada.
Spelling and dictionaries
Canadian spelling of the English language combines British and American rules. Most notably, French-derived words that in American English end with -or and -er, such as color or center, usually retain British spellings (colour, honour and centre), although American spellings are not uncommon. Also, while the United States uses the Anglo-French spelling defense (noun), Canada uses the British spelling defence. (Note that defensive is universal.) In other cases, Canadians and Americans differ from British spelling, such as in the case of nouns like tire and curb, which in British English are spelled tyre and kerb. Words such as realize and recognize are usually spelled with -ize rather than -ise, but nouns take the -ice while verbs take the -ise, compare practice and practise. The British ise spelling is not considered incorrect in most incidences. (The etymological convention that verbs derived from Greek roots are spelled with -ize and those from Latin with -ise is preserved in that practice.) Canadian spelling also retains the British practice of usually doubling a final single -l when adding suffixes to words even when the final syllable (before the suffix) is not stressed. Compare Canadian (and British) travelled, counselling, and controllable (always doubled) to American traveled, counseling, and controllable (only doubled when stressed). But both Canadian and British have balloted, profiting, and the irregular woollen (double vowel) whereas American also and usually has woolen.
Canadian spelling rules can be partly explained by Canada's trade history. For instance, the British spelling of the word cheque probably relates to Canada's once-important ties to British financial institutions. Canada's automobile industry, on the other hand, has been dominated by American firms from its inception, explaining why Canadians use the American spelling of tire and American terminology for the parts of automobiles (e.g., truck instead of lorry, gasoline instead of petrol).
A contemporary reference for formal Canadian spelling is the spelling used for Hansard transcripts of the Parliament of Canada. Many Canadian editors, though, use the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2004), often along with the chapter on spelling in Editing Canadian English, and, where necessary (depending on context) one or more other references. (See Further reading below.)
The first Canadian dictionaries of Canadian English were edited by Walter Spencer Avis and published by Gage Ltd (also Gauge. Toronto. The Beginner's Dictionary (1962), the Intermediate Dictionary (1964) and, finally, the Senior Dictionary (1967) were milestones in CanE lexicography. Many secondary schools in Canada use these dictionaries. The dictionaries have regularly been updated since: the Senior Dictionary was renamed Gage Canadian Dictionary and exists in what may be called its 5th edition from 1997. Gage was acquired by Thomson Nelson around 2003. Concise versions and paperback version are available.
In 1997, the ITP Nelson Dictionary of the Canadian English Language was another product, but has not been updated since.
In 1998, Oxford University Press produced a Canadian English dictionary, after five years of lexicographical research, entitled The Oxford Canadian Dictionary. A second edition, retitled The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, was published in 2004. Just as the older dictionaries it includes uniquely Canadian words and words borrowed from other languages, and surveyed spellings, such as whether colour or color was the most popular choice in common use. Paperback and concise versions (2005, 2006), with minor updates, are available.
The scholarly Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles (DCHP) was first published in 1967 by Gage Ltd. It was a partner project of the Senior Dictionary (and appeared only a few weeks apart from each other). The DCHP can be considered the "Canadian OED", as it documents the historical development of CanE words that can be classified as "Canadianisms". It therefore includes words such as mukluk, Canuck, bluff and grow op, but does not list common core words such as desk, table or car. It is a specialist, scholarly dictionary, but is not without interest to the general public. After more than 40 years, a second edition has been commenced at UBC in Vancouver in 2006.
Throughout most of the 20th century, Canadian newspapers generally adopted American spellings e.g. color as opposed to the British-based colour. The use of such spellings was the long-standing practice of the The Canadian Press perhaps since that news agency's inception, but visibly the norm prior to World War II. The practice of dropping the letter u in such words was also considered a labour-saving technique during the early days of printing in which movable type was set manually. Canadian newspapers also received much of their international content from American press agencies, therefore it was much easier for editorial staff to leave the spellings from the wire services as provided. But reader complaints regarding the American spellings continued, given the widespread usage of the British variants in Canada which were particularly taught in the school systems. Eventually, Canadian newspapers adopted the British spelling variants such as -our endings, notably with the The Globe and Mail changing its spelling policy in October 1990. Other Canadian newspapers adopted similar changes later that decade, such as the Southam newspaper chain's conversion on 2 September 1998. The Toronto Star adopted this new spelling policy on 15 September 1997 after that publication's ombudsman discounted the issue earlier in 1997.
In summary, there is then neither a national standard nor even provincial level standards for the education of, or consistent usage of, the written form of Canada's first language, English.
Phonemic incidence
The pronunciation of certain words has both American and British influence.
- The name of the letter Z is normally the Anglo-European (and French) zed; the American zee is not unknown in Canada, but it is often stigmatized.
- In the words adult and composite, the emphasis is usually on the first syllable, as in Britain.
- Canadians side with the British on the pronunciation of lieutenant , shone , lever , and several other words; been is pronounced by many speakers as rather than ; as in Southern England, either and neither are more commonly and , respectively.
- Schedule can sometimes be ; process, progress, and project are sometimes pronounced , , and ; leisure is often , harassment is often .
- Again and against are often pronounced rather than .
- The stressed vowel of words such as borrow, sorry or tomorrow is rather than .
- Words such as fragile, fertile, and mobile are pronounced as , , and . The pronunciation of fertile as is also becoming somewhat common in Canada, even though remains dominant.
- Words like semi, anti, and multi tend to be pronounced as , , and rather than , , and .
- Loanwords that have a low central vowel in their language of origin, such as drama, llama, pasta, and pyjamas, tend to have rather than (which is the same as due to the father-bother merger, see below); khaki is sometimes pronounced , the preferred pronunciation of the Canadian Army during the Second World War.
- The most common pronunciation of vase is .
- Words of French origin, such as clique, niche, and croissant, are pronounced more like they would be in French.
- The word syrup is commonly pronounced .
- The word premier "leader of a provincial or territorial government" is commonly pronounced , with and being rare variants.
- The herb and given masculine name basil is usually pronounced rather than .
- Many Canadians pronounce asphalt as "ash-falt" . This pronunciation is also common in Australian English, but not in General American English or British English.
- Milk may be pronounced by some speakers. It is common especially in areas such as Saskatchewan, although some Americans pronounce it that way as well.
Regional variation
Canada has very little dialect diversity compared to the United States. The provinces east of Ontario show the largest dialect diversity. Northern Canada is, according to Labov, a dialect region in formation, and a homogenous dialect has not yet formed. A very homogeneous dialect exists in Western and Central Canada, a situation that is similar to that of the Western United States. William Labov identifies an inland region that concentrates all of the defining features of the dialect centred on the Prairies, with periphery areas with more variable patterns including the metropolitan areas of Vancouver and Toronto. This dialect forms a dialect continuum with the far Western United States, however it is sharply differentiated from the Inland Northern United States. This is a result of the relatively recent phenomenon known as the Northern cities vowel shift; see below.
Western and Central Dialect
As a variety of North American English, this variety is similar to most other forms of North American speech in being a rhotic accent, which is historically a significant marker in
differentiating different English varieties.
Like General American, this variety possesses the merry-Mary-marry merger (except in Montreal, which tends towards a distinction between marry and merry), as well as the father-bother merger.
Canadian raising
Perhaps the most recognizable feature of CanE is Canadian raising. The diphthongs and are "raised" before voiceless consonants, namely /p/, /t/, /k/, /s/, and /f/. In these environments, becomes , while the raised allophone of varies regionally: it is more fronted in Ontario (closer to ) but more retracted in the West and the Maritimes (closer to ). Canadian raising is found throughout Canada, including much of the Atlantic Provinces. It is the strongest in the Inland region, and is receding in younger speakers in Lower Mainland British Columbia, as well as certain parts of Ontario.
Because the nucleus of the diphthong is raised to a mid position, speakers of dialects that do not possess Canadian raising will hear that the diphthong sounds different, and will approximate it with the closest sound in their dialect, which is usually . As a result, the Canadian pronunciation of about to American ears, may sound like "a boat", or sometimes even exaggerated to "a boot". This is more noticeable in Eastern Canada (with the exception of Newfoundland) and least so in Vancouver. However there is no region in Canada that pronounces it like "a boot", although in parts of the Prairies and Nova Scotia it may be so retracted as to be very similar to "a boat".
Many Canadians, especially in parts of the Atlantic provinces, do not possess Canadian raising. In the U.S., this feature can be found in areas near the border such as the Upper Midwest, although it is much less common than in Canada; raising of alone, however, is increasing in the U.S., and unlike raising of , is generally not noticed by people who do not have the raising.
Because of Canadian raising, many speakers are able to distinguish between words such as writer and rider—a feat otherwise impossible, because North American dialects turn intervocalic /t/ into an alveolar flap. Thus writer and rider are distinguished solely by their vowels, even though the distinction between their consonants has since been lost. Speakers who do not have raising cannot distinguish between these two words.
The low-back merger and the Canadian Shift
Almost all Canadians have the cot-caught merger, which also occurs in the Western U.S. Speakers do not distinguish (as in caught) and (as in cot), which are merged in low back position. The merger causes speakers not only to produce these vowels identically, but also fail to hear the difference when speakers who preserve the distinction (e.g. speakers of Conservative General American and Inland Northern American English) pronounce these vowels. This merger has existed in Canada for several generations.
This merger creates a hole in the short vowel sub-system and triggers a sound change known as the Canadian Shift, which involves the front lax vowels . The of bat is lowered and retracted in the direction of (except in some environments, see below). Indeed, is backer in this variety than almost all other North American dialects; the retraction of was independently observed in Vancouver and is more advanced for Ontarians and women than for people from the Prairies or Atlantic Canada and men. Then, and may be lowered (in the direction of and ) and/or retracted; studies actually disagree on the trajectory of the shift. For example, Labov et al. (2006) noted a backward and downward movement of in apparent time in all of Canada except the Atlantic Provinces, but no movement of was detected.
Therefore, in Canadian English, the short-a and the short-o are shifted in opposite directions to that of the Northern Cities shift, found across the border in the Inland Northern U.S., which is causing these two dialects to diverge: the Canadian short-a is very similar in quality to the Inland Northern short-o; for example, the production would be recognized as map in Canada, but mop in the Inland North.
Other features
Traditionally diphthongal vowels such as (as in boat) and (as in bait) have qualities much closer to monophthongs in some speakers especially in the Inland region. Like the Northern U.S., and are conservative--they are pronounced back and rounded. However, /u/ is fronted after coronals. is becoming more fronted in recent generations. This fronting is led by women, and is strongest in Ontario and British Columbia.
Unlike most varieties of North American English, in this dialect is raised more before velar stops rather than before . For example, bag has a vowel that is similar to the vowel in beg. Before nasals, is usually raised, but to a lesser degree than in most of the U.S.
Some older speakers still maintain a distinction between whale and wail, and do and dew.
Another common feature of Canadian English is the aleovolar long vowel phoneme "ai" ( ie curtain kurtn vs. kur-t[?r] )
The first element of (as in car) tends to be raised to at least lower-mid position or even higher .
British Columbia
British Columbia English has several words still in current use borrowed from the Chinook Jargon. Most famous and widely used of these terms are skookum and saltchuck. In the Yukon, cheechako is used for newcomers or greenhorns. A study shows that people from Vancouver exhibit more vowel retraction of /ć/ before nasals than people from Toronto, and this retraction may become a regional marker of West Coast English.
Prairies (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta)
A strong Canadian raising exists in the prairie regions together with certain older usages such as chesterfield and front room also associated with the Maritimes. Aboriginal Canadians are a larger and more conspicuous population in prairie cities than elsewhere in the country and certain elements of aboriginal speech in English are sometimes to be heard. Similarly, the linguistic legacy, mostly intonation but also speech patterns and syntax, of the Scandinavian, Slavic and German settlers who are far more numerous and historically important in the Prairies than in Ontario or the Maritimes can be heard in the general milieu. Again, the large Métis population in Saskatchewan and Manitoba also carries with it certain linguistic traits inherited from French, Aboriginal and Celtic forebears.
Some terms are derived from immigrant groups or are just local inventions:
- Bluff: small group of trees isolated by prairie
- Bunny Hug: elsewhere hoodie or hooded sweat shirt (primarily Saskatchewan)
- Ginch/gonch/gitch/gotch: underwear (usually men's or boys' underwear)
- Jam Buster: jelly filled doughnut.
- Porch Climber: moonshine or homemade alcohol.
- Pot Hole: usually a deeper slough; also used to refer to slough in plural. Pot hole more commonly refers to a hole in a paved road caused by the freezing and thawing cycle.
- Slough: pond - usually a pond on a farm
In farming communities with substantial Ukrainian, German, or Mennonite populations, accents, sentence structure, and vocabulary influenced by these languages is common.
Ontario
Ottawa Valley
The area to the north and west of Ottawa is heavily influenced by original Scottish, Irish, and German settlers, with many French loanwords. This is frequently referred to as the Valley Accent. This dialect is heavy with slang phrases and terminology.
Toronto
Although only 1.5% of Torontonians speak French, about 56.2% are native speakers of English, according to the 2006 Census. As a result Toronto shows a more variable speech pattern. Although slang terms used in Toronto are synonymous with those used in other major North American cities, there is also a heavy influx of slang terminology originating from Toronto's many immigrant communities. These terms originate mainly from various European, Asian, and African words. Among youths in ethnically diverse areas, a large number of words borrowed from Jamaican Patois can be heard, owing to the large number of Jamaican immigrants in Toronto.
Quebec
- Many people in Montreal distinguish between the words marry and merry.
- A person with English mother tongue and still speaking English as the first language is called an Anglophone. The corresponding term for a French speaker is Francophone and the corresponding term for a person who is neither Anglophone nor Francophone is Allophone. The terms Anglophone and Francophone are used in New Brunswick, and Ontario.
- Quebec Anglophones generally pronounce French street names in Montreal as French words. Pie IX Boulevard is pronounced as in French («pea-nuf»), not as "pie nine." On the other hand, most Anglophones do pronounce final Ds, as in Bernard and Bouchard.
- In the city of Montreal, especially in some of the western suburbs like Cote-St-Luc, Hampstead or Westmount, there is a strong Jewish influence in the English spoken in these areas. A large wave of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union before and after World War II is also evident today. Their English has a strong Yiddish influence; there are some similarities to English spoken in New York. Italians and Greeks living in Montreal have also adopted English and therefore have their own dialect.
- Words used mainly in Quebec and especially in Montreal are: stage for "apprenticeship or internship", copybook for a notebook, dépanneur or dep for a convenience store, and guichet for an ABM/ATM.
- It is also common for Anglophones to use translated French words instead of common English equivalents, such as "Open" and "Close" for "On" and "Off", e.g. "Open the lights, please" for "Turn on the lights, please"
Maritimes
Many in the Maritime provinces – Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island – have an accent that sounds more like Scottish English and, in some places, Irish English than General American. Outside of major communities, dialects can vary markedly from community to community, as well as from province to province, reflecting ethnic origin as well as a past in which there were few roads and many communities, with some villages very isolated. Into the 1980s, residents of villages in northern Nova Scotia could identify themselves by dialects and accents distinctive to their village. The dialects of Prince Edward Island are often considered the most distinct grouping. The phonology of Maritimer English has some unique features:
- Pre-consonantal is sometimes deleted.
- The flapping of intervocalic and to alveolar tap between vowels, as well as pronouncing it as a glottal stop , is less common in the Maritimes. Therefore, battery is pronounced as instead of .
- Especially among the older generation, and are not merged; that is, the beginning sound of why, white, and which is different from that of witch, with, wear.
- Like most varieties of CanE, Maritimer English contains Canadian raising.
Newfoundland
The dialect spoken in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, an autonomous dominion until March 31, 1949, is often considered the most distinctive Canadian English dialect. Some Newfoundland English differs in vowel pronunciation, morphology, syntax, and preservation of archaic adverbal-intensifiers. The dialect can vary markedly from community to community, as well as from region to region, reflecting ethnic origin as well as a past in which there were few roads and many communities, and fishing villages in particular remained very isolated. A few speakers have a transitional pin-pen merger.
Grammar
- When writing, Canadians will start a sentence with As well, in the sense of "in addition"; this construction is a Canadianism.
- Canadian and British English share idioms like in hospital and to university, while in American English the definite article is mandatory.
Vocabulary
Where CanE shares vocabulary with other English dialects, it tends to share most with American English; many terms in standard CanE are, however, shared with Britain, but not with the majority of American speakers. In some cases British and the American terms coexist in CanE to various extents; a classic example is holiday, often used interchangeably with vacation. In addition, the vocabulary of CanE also features words that are seldom (if ever) found elsewhere.
As a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, Canada shares many items of institutional terminology and professional designations with the countries of the former British Empire – e.g., constable, for a police officer of the lowest rank, and chartered accountant.
Education
The term college, which refers to post-secondary education in general in the U.S., refers in Canada to either a post-secondary technical or vocational institution, or to one of the colleges that exist as federated schools within some Canadian universities. Most often, a college is a community college, not a university. It may also refer to a CEGEP in Quebec. In Canada, college student might denote someone obtaining a diploma in business management while university student is the term for someone earning a bachelor's degree. For that reason, going to college does not have the same meaning as going to university, unless the speaker or context clarifies the specific level of post-secondary education that is meant.
Within the public school system the chief administrator of a school is generally "the principal" as in the United States but the term is not used preceding his or her name, i.e. "Principal Smith". The assistant to the principal is not titled as "Assistant Principal" but rather as "Vice Principal".
Canadian universities publish calendars or schedules, not catalogs as in the U.S.. Students write or take exams, they rarely sit them. Those who supervise students during an exam are sometimes called invigilators as in Britain, or sometimes proctors as in the U.S.; usage may depend on the region or even the individual institution.
Successive years of school are often, if not usually, referred to as grade one, grade two, and so on. In Quebec English, however, the speaker will often say primary one, primary two, (a direct translation from the French), and so on. (Compare American first grade, second grade (sporadically found in Canada), and English/Welsh Year 1, Year 2, Scottish/Nth.Irish Primary 1, Primary 2 or P1, P2, and Sth.Irish First Class, Second Class etc.)[American Speech 80.1 (2005), p. 47.]
In the U.S., the four years of high school are termed the freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years (terms also used for college years); in Canada, these are simply grades 9 through 12. As for higher education, only the term freshman (usually reduced to frosh) has some currency in Canada. The American usages "sophomore", "junior" and "senior" are not used in Canadian university terminology, or in speech. The specific high-school grades and university years are therefore stated and individualized; for example, the grade 12s failed to graduate; John is in his second year at McMaster. The "first year", "third year" designation also applies to Canadian law school students, as opposed to the common American usage of "1L", "2L" and "3L."
Canadian students use the term marks (more common in England) or grades to refer to their results; usage is very mixed.
Units of measurement
Use of metric units is more widespread in Canada than in the U.S. as a result of the national adoption of the Metric System during the late 1970s by the government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Official measurements are given in metric, including highway speeds and distances, fuel volume and consumption, and weather measurements (with temperatures in Celsius). However, it is more common for Canadians to use British imperial units such as pounds, feet, and inches to measure their bodies and building materials.
Transportation
- Although Canadian lexicon features both railway and railroad, railway is the usual term, at least in naming (witness Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway); most rail terminology in Canada, however, follows American usage (e.g., ties and cars rather than sleepers and trucks). Eastern Canada distinctively uses van rather than caboose.
- A two-way ticket can be either a round-trip (American term) or a return (British term).
- The terms highway (e.g. Trans-Canada Highway), expressway (Central Canada, as in the Gardiner Expressway) and freeway (Sherwood Park Freeway, Edmonton) are often used to describe various high speed roads with varying levels of access control. Generally, but not exclusively, highway refers to a provincially funded road. Often such roads will be numbered. Similar to the US, the terms expressway and freeway are often used interchangeably to refer to divided highways with access only at grade-separated interchanges (e.g. a 400-Series Highway in Ontario). However, expressway may also refer to a road that has control of access but has at-grade junctions, railway crossings (e.g. the Harbour Expressway in Thunder Bay.) Sometimes the term Parkway is also used (e.g. the Hanlon Parkway in Guelph). In Quebec, freeways and expressways are called autoroutes. In Alberta, the generic Trail is often used to describe a freeway, expressway or major urban street (e.g. Deerfoot Trail, Macleod Trail or Crowchild Trail in Calgary, Yellowhead Trail in Edmonton). The British term motorway is not used. The American terms turnpike and tollway for a toll road are not common. The term throughway or thruway was used for first tolled limited-access highways (e.g. the Deas Island Throughway, now Highway 99, from Vancouver, BC, to Blaine, Washington, USA or the Saint John Throughway (Highway 1) in Saint John, NB), but this term is not common anymore. In everyday speech, when a particular roadway is not being specified, the term highway is generally or exclusively used.
- A railway at-grade junction is a level crossing; the U.S. term grade crossing is rarely, if ever, used.
- A railway or highway crossing overhead is an overpass or underpass, depending on which part of the crossing is referred to (the two are used more or less interchangably); the British term flyover is sometimes used in Ontario, and in the Maritimes, subway is also used.
Politics
- While in standard usage the terms Prime Minister and Premier are interchangeable terms for the head of an elected parliamentary government, Canadian English today generally follows a usage convention of reserving the title Prime Minister for the national leader and referring to provincial or territorial leaders as Premiers. However, because Canadian French does not have separate terms for the two positions, using premier ministre for both, the title Prime Minister is sometimes seen in reference to a provincial leader when a francophone is speaking or writing English. As well, until the 1970s the leader of the Ontario provincial government was officially styled Prime Minister.
- To table a document in Canada is to present it (as in Britain), whereas in the U.S. it means to withdraw it from consideration.
- Several political terms are more in use in Canada than elsewhere, including riding (as a general term for a parliamentary constituency or electoral district). The term reeve was at one time common for the equivalent of a mayor in some smaller municipalities in British Columbia and Ontario, but is now falling into disuse.
- The term Tory, used in Britain with a similar meaning, denotes a supporter of the federal Conservative Party of Canada, the historic federal or provincial Progressive Conservative party. The term Red Tory is also used to denote the more socially liberal wings of the Tory parties. Blue Tory is less commonly used, and refers to more strict fiscal (rather than social) conservatism. The U.S. use of Tory to mean the Loyalists in the time of the American Revolution is not used in Canada, where they are called United Empire Loyalists, or simply Loyalists.
- Members of the Liberal Party of Canada or a provincial Liberal party are sometimes referred to as Grits. Historically, the term comes from the phrase Clear Grit, used in Victorian times in Canada to denote an object of quality or a truthful person.
- Members of the New Democratic Party are sometimes referred to as (Knee) Dippers (from the party's initials NDP).
- Members of the Bloc Québécois are sometimes referred to as Bloquistes. At the purely provincial level, members of Quebec's Parti Québécois are often referred to as Péquistes, and members of the Quebec provincial Action démocratique du Québec as Adéquistes.
- The term "Socred" is no longer common due to its namesake party's decline, but referred to members of the Social Credit Party, and was particularly common in British Columbia. It was not used for Social Credit members from Quebec, nor generally used for the federal caucus of that party; in both cases Créditiste, the French term, was used in English.
- As in the United States, members of the national senate are referred to by the title "Senator" preceding their name, but members of the Canadian House of Commons, who are termed "Members of Parliament", are not referred to with a title preceding their names: Unlike "Congresswoman Jones" in the United States, the member of the House of Commons is referred to as "Mrs. Jennifer Jones, MP". This usage is similar for the legislative bodies of the provinces.
Law
Lawyers in all parts of Canada, except Quebec, which has its own civil law system, are called "barristers and solicitors" because any lawyer licensed in any of the common law provinces and territories is permitted to engage in both types of legal practice in contrast to other common-law jurisdictions such as England, Wales, and Ireland where the two are traditionally separated (i.e., Canada has a fused legal profession). The words lawyer and counsel (not counsellor) predominate in everyday contexts; the word attorney refers to any personal representative; a Canadian lawyer representing a client is an attorney-at-law.
The equivalent of an American district attorney, meaning the barrister representing the state in criminal proceedings, is called a crown attorney (in Ontario), crown counsel (in British Columbia), crown prosecutor or the crown, on account of Canada's status as a constitutional monarchy in which the Crown is the locus of state power.
The words advocate and notary – two distinct professions in Quebec civil law – are used to refer to that province's equivalent of barrister and solicitor, respectively. In Canada's common law provinces and territories, the word notary means strictly a notary public.
Within the Canadian legal community itself, the word solicitor is often used to refer to any Canadian lawyer in general (much like the way the word attorney is used in the United States to refer to any American lawyer in general). Despite the conceptual distinction between barrister and solicitor, Canadian court documents would contain a phrase such as "John Smith, solicitor for the Plaintiff" even though "John Smith" may well himself be the barrister who argues the case in court. In a letter introducing him/herself to an opposing lawyer, a Canadian lawyer normally writes something like "I am the solicitor for Mr. Tom Jones."
The word litigator is also used by lawyers to refer to a fellow lawyer who specializes in lawsuits even though the more traditional word barrister is still employed to denote the same specialization.
Judges of Canada's superior courts (which exist at the provincial and territorial levels) are traditionally addressed as "My Lord" or "My Lady", like much of the Commonwealth, however there are some variances across certain jurisdictions, with some superior court judges preferring the titles "Mister Justice" or "Madam Justice" to "Lordship".
Masters are addressed as "Mr. Master" or simply "Sir".
Judges of provincial or inferior courts are traditionally referred to in person as "Your Honour". Judges of the Supreme Court of Canada and of the federal-level courts prefer the use of "Mister/Madam (Chief) Justice". Justices of The Peace are addressed as "Your Worship". "Your Honour" is also the correct form of address for a Lieutenant Governor.
As in England, a serious crime is called an indictable offence, while a less-serious crime is called a summary offence. The older words felony and misdemeanour, which are still used in the United States, are not used in Canada's current Criminal Code (R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46) or by today's Canadian legal system. As noted throughout the Criminal Code, a person accused of a crime is called the accused and not the defendant, a term used instead in civil lawsuits.
A county in British Columbia means only a regional jurisdiction of the courts and justice system and is not otherwise connected to governance as with counties in other provinces and in the United States. The rough equivalent to "county" as used elsewhere is a "Regional District".
Places
Distinctive Canadianisms are:
- bachelor: bachelor apartment, an apartment all in a single room, with a small bathroom attached ("They have a bachelor for rent"). The usual American term is studio. In Montreal, this is known as a two- or one-and-a-half apartment, depending on whether it has a separate kitchen; some Canadians, especially in Prince Edward Island, call it a loft.
- beer parlour: used as a synonym for pub; being replaced by "bar."
- camp: in Northern Ontario, it refers to what is called a cottage in the rest of Ontario and a cabin in the West. It is also used, to a lesser extent, in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, as well as in parts of New England.
- fire hall: fire station, firehouse.
- height of land: a drainage divide. Originally American.
- parkade: a parking garage, especially in the West.
- 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 word bathroom is also used.
- rancherie: the residential area of an Indian Reserve, used in BC only.
- Indian reserve. These are not "reservations" as they are in the U.S.
- quiggly hole and/or quiggly: the depression in the ground left by a kekuli or pithouse. Groups of them are called "quiggly hole towns". Used in the BC Interior only.
- gasbar: a filling station (gas station) with a central island, having pumps under a fixed concrete awning.
Daily life
Terms common in Canada, Britain, and Ireland but less frequent or nonexistent in the U.S. are:
- Tin (as in tin of tuna), for can, especially among older speakers. Among younger speakers, can is more common, with tin referring to a can which is wider than it is tall.
- Cutlery, for silverware or flatware.
- Serviette, especially in Eastern Canada, for a paper table napkin.
- Tap, conspicuously more common than faucet in everyday usage.
- Elastic for rubber band.
The following are more or less distinctively Canadian:
- ABM, bank machine: synonymous with ATM (which is also used).
- BFI bin: Dumpster, after a prominent Canadian waste management company, in provinces where that company does business; compare Kleenex, Xerox.
- chesterfield: originally British and internationally used (as in classic furnishing terminology) to refer to a sofa whose arms are the same height as the back, it is a term for any couch or sofa in Canada (and, to some extent, Northern California). Once a hallmark of CanE, chesterfield is now largely in decline among younger generations in the western and central regions. Couch is now the most common term; sofa is also used.
- eavestroughs: rain gutters. Also used, especially in the past, in the Northern and Western U.S.; the first recorded usage is in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick: "The tails tapering down that way, serve to carry off the water, d'ye see. Same with cocked hats; the cocks form gable-end eave-troughs [sic], Flask."
- garburator: (rhymes with carburetor) a garbage disposal.
- homogenized milk or homo milk: Milk containing 3.25% milk fat, typically called "whole milk" in the US.
- hydro: a common synonym for electrical service (used primarily in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and British Columbia). The four Canadian provinces noted have electric companies generate power from hydroelectricity, and incorporate the term "Hydro" in their names. Usage: "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. These usages of hydro are also standard in the Australian state of Tasmania.
- loonie: the Canadian one-dollar coin; derived from the use of the common loon on the reverse. The toonie (less commonly spelled tooney, twooney, twoonie) is the two-dollar coin. Loonie is also used to refer to the Canadian currency, particularly when discussing the exchange rate with the U.S. dollar; neither loonie nor toonie can describe amounts of money (e.g. thirty dollars).
- packsack: a backpack; more commonly heard in Northern Ontario.
- pencil crayon: coloured pencil.
- pogie or pogey: term referring to unemployment insurance, which is now officially called Employment Insurance in Canada. Derived from the use of pogey as a term for a poorhouse. Not used for welfare, in which case the term is "the dole", as in "he's on the dole".
Apparel
The following are common in Canada, but not in the U.S. or the U.K.
- runners: running shoes, especially in Western Canada. Also used in Australian English and Irish English. Atlantic Canada prefers sneakers while central Canada (including Quebec and Ontario) prefer "running shoes".
- tuque: or toque, touque, a knitted winter hat, often with a pompom on the crown. A similar hat would be called a beanie in the western U.S. and a watch cap in the eastern U.S, though these forms are generally closer-fitting, and may lack a brim as well as a pompom. There is a strong tendency in Canadian English in the last few decades to also refer to these forms as touques. There seems to be no exact equivalent in the U.S., since the touque is of French Canadian origin. The form touque is a standard form in wide usage, contrary to the Oxford Canadian Dictionary.
- bunny hug: a hooded sweater (hoodie). This term is uncommon outside of Western Canada. Also known as a Kangaroo Jacket.
Food and beverage
- Most Canadians as well as Americans in the Northwest, North Central, Prairie and Inland North prefer pop over soda to refer to a carbonated beverage (but neither term is dominant in British English; see further at Soft drink naming conventions). "Soft drink" is also extremely common throughout Canada.
- What Americans call Canadian bacon is named back bacon or, if it is coated in cornmeal or ground peas, peameal bacon in Canada.
- What most Americans call a candy bar is usually known as a chocolate bar (as in the UK, however, some in the US, especially older Americans in northern states, occasionally call it a chocolate bar).
- What Americans call a corn dog is sometimes known as a pogo or pogo stick in Canada, in reference to the main brand of corn dogs.
- Even though the word French fries is used by Canadians, some older speakers use the word chips (which is always used in fish and chips, as elsewhere).
The following are Canadianisms:
- double-double: a cup of coffee with two creams and two sugars, most commonly associated with the Tim Hortons chain of coffee shops. By the same token, triple-triple.
- mickey: a bottle of hard liquor (informally called a pint in the Maritimes and the US).
- two-six, twenty-sixer, twixer: a bottle of hard liquor (called a fifth in the Maritimes and the US).
- forty pounder, forty: bottle of malt liquor. (A reference used primarily in southern Ontario.)
- Texas mickey: a bottle of hard liquor. (Despite the name, Texas mickeys are generally unavailable outside of Canada.)
- two-four: a case of 24 beer (it is common in Canada for "beer" to represent both individual and multiple servings).
- poutine: a snack of french fries topped with cheese curds and hot gravy.
Informal speech
A rubber in the U.S. and Canada is slang for a condom; however, in Canada it is sometimes another term for eraser (as it is in the United Kingdom).
The word bum can refer either to the buttocks (as in Britain), or, derogatorily, to a homeless person (as in the U.S.). However, the "buttocks" sense does not have the indecent character it retains in British and Australian use, as it is commonly used as a polite or childish euphemism for ruder words such as arse (commonly used in Atlantic Canada and among older people in Ontario and to the west) or ass, or mitiss (used in the Prairie Provinces, especially in northern and central Saskatchewan; probably originally a Cree loanword).
Similarly the word pissed can refer either to being drunk (as in Britain), or being mad or angry (as in the U.S.), though anger is often said as pissed off, while piss drunk or pissed up is said to describe inebriation (though piss drunk is sometimes also used in the US, especially in the northern states).
Canadian colloquialisms
One of the most distinctive Canadian phrases is the spoken interjection eh, which is stereotyped as being said by all Canadians in modern culture. The only usage of eh exclusive to Canada, according to the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, is for "ascertaining the comprehension, continued interest, agreement, etc., of the person or persons addressed" as in, "It's four kilometres away, eh, so I have to go by bike." In that case, eh? is used to confirm the attention of the listener and to invite a supportive noise such as mm or oh or okay. Other uses of eh—for instance, in place of huh? or what? meaning "please repeat or say again"—are also found in parts of the British Isles and Australia. This term in particular is also common in some border areas around the Great Lakes, in Maine, and in the Detroit metropolitan region.
A Canuck is a Canadian and used by Canadians; it is not a derogatory term. In the 19th and early 20th Centuries it tended to refer to French-Canadians only until it became adopted widely in English as a result of the Johnny Canuck comic book character. It is also the name for Vancouver's NHL team.
The term hoser, popularized by Bob & Doug McKenzie, typically refers to an uncouth, beer-swilling male in Canadian usage; Canadians do not usually use it as a generic term for themselves, though many non-Canadians do.
A Newf or Newfie is someone from Newfoundland and Labrador; sometimes considered derogatory.
In the Maritimes, a Caper or "Cape Bretoner" is someone from Cape Breton Island, a Bluenoser is someone with a thick, usually southern Nova Scotia accent, while an Islander is someone from Prince Edward Island (the same term is used in British Columbia for people from Vancouver Island).
Miscellaneous Canadianisms
- The code appended to mail addresses (the equivalent of the British postcode and the American ZIP code) is called a postal code.
- The term First Nations is often used in Canada to refer to what are called American Indians or Native Americans in the United States. This term does not include the Métis and Inuit in all regions, however; the term aboriginal peoples is preferred when all three groups are included.
- While the act of "going camping" still refers to tenting at a designated outdoor campground or wilderness park, the term "going out to camp" may refer to the habitation of a summer cottage or building more-or-less built according to government code. In British Columbia, "camp" was used as a reference for certain company towns (e.g. Bridge River). Is is used in western Canada to refer to logging and mining camps such as Juskatla Camp. It is also is a synonym for a mining district; the latter occurs in names such as Camp McKinney and usages such as "Cariboo gold camp" and "Slocan mining camp" for the Cariboo goldfields and Slocan silver-galena mining district, respectively. A "cottage" in British Columbia is generally a small, even petite house, perhaps with an English design or flavour. The Ontarian usage of a sometimes-palatial "place on the lake" is unknown in BC, and rare in other parts of western Canada, other than when used by transplants from Eastern Canada. Similarly, "chalet" - originally a term for a small warming hut - can mean a veritable mansion, but refers to one located in a ski resort.
- A stagette is a female bachelorette party (US) or hen party (UK); a stag and doe (or "buck and doe") is a joint male and female party prior to their wedding.
- A wedding social is a pre-wedding fund-raiser for the bride and groom hosted by family and friends. Money is collected through admission, the sale of alcoholic beverages, and raffles or draws for various items. Originating in Manitoba, this term has become common throughout Northwestern Ontario (except in Thunder Bay, where it is known as a "shag") as well as parts of Saskatchewan (though it is less common in that province and may mean either "shag carpet" or to have sex with [profane]).
- The humidex is a measurement used by meteorologists to reflect the combined effect of heat and humidity.
- An expiry date is the term used for the date when a perishable product will go bad (similar to the UK Use by date). The term expiration date is more common in the United States (where expiry date is seen mostly on the packaging of Asian food products).
See also
Further reading
- Barber, Katherine, editor (2004). Canadian Oxford Dictionary, second edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-541816-6.
- Barber, Katherine. "", in David Vallechinsky and Amy Wallace (2005). The Book of Lists, Canadian Edition. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-676-97720-2.
- Boberg, Charles (2005). "The North American Regional Vocabulary Survey: Renewing the study of lexical variation in North American English." American Speech 80/1.
- Boberg, Charles, Sounding Canadian from Coast to Coast: Regional accents in Canadian English, McGill University.
- Courtney, Rosemary, et al., senior editors (1998). The Gage Canadian Dictionary, second edition. Toronto: Gage Learning Corp. ISBN 0-7715-7399-5.
- Chambers, J.K. (1998). "Canadian English: 250 Years in the Making," in The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed., p. xi.
- Clark, Joe (2008). (e-book). ISBN 978-0-9809525-0-6.
- Peters, Pam (2004). The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-62181-X.
- Canadian Raising: O'Grady and Dobrovolsky, Contemporary Linguistic Analysis: An Introduction, 3rd ed., pp. 67–68.
- Canadian English: Editors' Association of Canada, , 2nd ed. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2000).
- Canadian federal government style guide: Public Works and Government Services Canada, The Canadian Style: A Guide to Writing and Editing (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998).
- Canadian newspaper and magazine style guides:
- J.A. McFarlane and Warren Clements, The Globe and Mail Style Book: A Guide to Language and Usage, 9th ed. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1998).
- The Canadian Press, and its quick-reference companion (both Toronto: Canadian Press, 2004).
- Canadian usage: Margery Fee and Janice McAlpine, Guide to Canadian English Usage (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2001).
External links
- (Oxford University Press)
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- - comparisons of Canadian English, American English, British English, French, and Spanish
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- from the University of Arizona
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