And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, October 16, 2019, the 42nd Wednesday of the year, the 289th day of the year, with 76 days remaining.
Nordhem Lunch: Hot Turkey Plate
Earth/Moon Almanac for October 16, 2019
Sunrise: 7:45am; Sunset: 6:33pm; 3 minutes, 28 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 8:14pm; Moonset: 10:26am, waning gibbous
Temperature Almanac for October 16, 2019
Average Record Today
High 51 79 41
Low 32 12 34
October 16 Celebrations from National Day Calendar
Nordhem Lunch: Hot Turkey Plate
Earth/Moon Almanac for October 16, 2019
Sunrise: 7:45am; Sunset: 6:33pm; 3 minutes, 28 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 8:14pm; Moonset: 10:26am, waning gibbous
Temperature Almanac for October 16, 2019
Average Record Today
High 51 79 41
Low 32 12 34
October 16 Celebrations from National Day Calendar
- National Sports Day
- National Liqueur Day
- National Dictionary Day
- Global Cat Day
- Department Store Day
- BRA Day
- Hagfish Day
- Support Your Local Chamber of Commerce Day
- National Fossil Day
- National Take Your Parents To Lunch Day
- Medical Assistants Recognition Day
- National Boss’s Day
October 16 Riddle
More Word-Wednesday anagram fun:
What city was made by the words time and labor?*
October 16 Pun
To commemorate the travels of Chairman Joe and Teresa:
Jumping off a Paris bridge makes one in Seine.
October 16 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day
October 16 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day
- 1841 Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, is chartered.
- 1847 Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre published.
- 1950 C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe published.
- 1986 Wole Soyinka, Nigerian playwright and poet, becomes the first African to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
- 2002 Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, a commemoration of the Library of Alexandria that was lost in antiquity, is officially inaugurated.
- 2018 Man Booker Prize is won by Anna Burns' Milkman, the first winner from Northern Ireland.
- 1758 Noah Webster.
- 1854 Oscar Wilde.
- 1888 Eugene O'Neill.
- 1927 Günter Grass.
- 1963 Missy Hyatt, wrestling manager, WCW, ECW.
- 1969 Takao Ōmori, Japanese professional wrestler.
- 1973 Peter Polaco, American professional wrestler.
Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Make a single sentence (or poem) from the following words:
- amanuensis: a literary or artistic assistant, in particular one who takes dictation or copies manuscripts.
- anamnesis: the remembering of things from a supposed previous existence.
- bubbleable: of a person: gullible; easy to cheat or dupe.
- Capuchin: a friar belonging to a branch of the Franciscan order that observes a strict rule drawn up in 1529.
- doxography: the collection and compiling of extracts from ancient classical authors, especially Greek.
- gefworfenheit: being thrown into the game without knowing the rules.
- oik: an uncouth or obnoxious person.
- retractation: reconsideration or re-examination of something previously discussed.
- scriptor: portable case for holding writing equipment; spec. a pen-case.
- tiddler: a small fish (such as a minnow).
- verdigrise: a bright bluish-green encrustation or patina formed on copper or brass by atmospheric oxidation, consisting of basic copper carbonate.
October 16, 2019 Word-Wednesday Feature
Canadian Words
In Speaking and Language: Defense of Poetry, Paul Goodman addresses the development of English through borrowing - both from other foreign languages and from sub-language words developed locally within English, commonly known as slang: a type of language that consists of words and phrases that are regarded as very informal, are more common in speech than writing, and are typically restricted to a particular context or group of people. Common examples include Rap or Hip Hop; uncommon examples include Canadian.
Why the difference? Goodman speculates: “Much of slang is first invented as a neologism of a gang or special group, e.g., 'take the rap' or 'kibitzer', yet it comes into circulation as a slang precisely be breaking out of its sub-culture. When the boundary is broken, there is a different kind of language, not self-naming and defensive, but common and wild. For instance, if a group becomes generally interesting or newsworthy, some terms of its language may become widespread, because they are topical; and the may prove to be colorful, exciting, or to have a valuable new nuance of meaning.”
As close neighbors of Canada, Wannaskan’s should maintain a rudimentary understanding of Canadian words, uncommon, tame, uninteresting, unnewsworthy, or unexciting as those words may be. At the very least, many are humorous!
Here’s a basic vocabulary list of Canadian words for your next encounter:
beaver tail: a flat, flaky, fried pastry in the shape of a beaver’s tail is served with a variety of toppings including ice cream, maple syrup, powdered sugar and fruits.
browner: a close cousin to keener - the person in class who is constantly raising their hand with the right answer or to suck up to the teacher - the browner is more annoying. The term comes from brown-noser.
colour/neighour/flavour: the extra -our Canadian spellings are an important part of their heritage. Do not Americanize these spellings if editing a Canadian author.
deke: a hockey term, meaning to get around an object in a deft manner.
donair: a meat-heavy, allegedly Turkish dish, actually invented in Halifax, and bearing a strong resemblance to what the rest of the world calls a “gyro,” a “doner kebab,” or a “shawarma.”
eaves troughs: called “gutters” in the U.S. and Britain.
eh: reflexive word with a variety of meanings, depending on the context:
Do you agree with me?
Did you hear me?
Mindless filler at the end of a sentence.
freezies: like Popsicles except that instead of being served on a stick these are sold in a dangerous plastic sleeve; see also, California Snow and Ice Tickles.
give’er: an amalgamated imperative from the words “give” and “her”, which means give it all you got or put all your energy into it.
hooped: broken or useless; as in, “This Volvo’s engine is seized; the car’s hooped.”
hoser: a foolish or uncultivated person.
loonies and toonies: one Canadian dollar and two Canadian dollar coins.
mickey: a 375-mL bottle of liquor, one of a series of uniquely Canadian booze measurements, which also includes a two four, a case of 24 beers, a twenty sixer, a 750-mL bottle of liquor, and forty-pounder, a 1.14-litre bottle of liquor, all virtually unknown outside the Great White North. Editor's note: The first long weekend of summer is called May Two-Four weekend, because it is a celebration of Queen Victoria’s birthday, which was on May 24. The Monday doesn’t always fall on May 24, but the two fours are as much a part of the weekend as is the Queen's birthday.
pablum: a policy that panders to the electorate or is without substance, arising from a specific Canadian food product, Pablum, a processed cereal for infants first sold in 1931. This tasteless, inert mixture of bone meal, corn meal, vitamins, and grains is not sold elsewhere in the English-speaking world.
parkade: a multi-storey concrete parking structure.
peameal bacon: cured pork loin rolled in cornmeal, and it is delicious on a burger or in a BLT. This is not what U.S.A. citizens refer to as Canadian bacon; this is the real thing.
pencil crayon: Americans call them “colored pencils” and Brits call them “coloring pencils", probably a linguistic byproduct of a country that must accommodate both English and French languages; see also, poutine.
poutine: (poo-teen) a French-Canadian delicacy of French Fries served with cheese curds and bathed in gravy.
Robertson screw: a technologically superior tool to its wedge or Phillips-head cousins, the Robertson screw has a square slot and was invented by Ontarian P.L. Robertson.
serviette: a paper napkin.
Timmies: Tim Hortons Restaurant, where one can purchase a Timbit, a bite-size doughnut ball about the same size as the hole in a round doughnut.
toque: (rhymes with duke) a rimless, pull-on winter hat, preferably with a pompom (see photo).
washroom: public facility known in other English speaking countries as a restroom, the toilet, or the loo.
Be better than yesterday,
learn a new word today,
try to stay out of trouble - at least until tomorrow,
and write when you have the time, eh?
*Baltimore.
An interesting subject, this; anything Canadian. And as you aptly point out, Wannaskanites and especially their neighbors, the Roseauites, live within a good stone's throw of Canada, that foreign country to our immediate north, with which we, as Americans share a happy and sad history plus, a resemblance of English language.
ReplyDeleteIn my 'Forty Years in the Roseau Valley' (Roseau County Quiz here: Who wrote that yet unpublished work purchased for a small fee at the Roseau County Museum?) that being, in my case, 1979, I've met or recognized quite a number of Canadians, a few of which have been RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, eh), especially on September 29, 2019 when I had the opportunity to visit the wonderfully exotic, multicultural city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, about two and a half miles north northwest of here.
Who needs to go to France when you can immerse yourself in real French history within driving distance? Yes, yes, yes! For their sunshine! Everyday that Chairman Joe and his wonderfully beauteous (no joke) wife have been there, it's only been sunshine and blue skies for them--while here we are, waxing glumly under dark clouds and seemingly endless rain mixed with snow showers and steadily cooling temperatures. "Only sissies and people from Kansas leave the country for better weather," says Iclic Vermer, Palmville constable.
My whole point being, eh, (I should get down to it as this is your blog and not mine), that your observations of Canadian linguistics are 'spot on' except I could (and likely will) add a few local south southeast Manitoba and north northwestern Ontario words and phrases that I picked up at the toy factory where I used to work in the company of more than a few 'Americans Living Abroad', as one Rainy River Canadian Customs Officer preferred the Canadians-born-in-American-hospitals such as Roseau, Mn and Baudette, Mn identify themselves upon re-entering Canada.
The very first Canadian word often heard among us working class people is fuq (rhymes with duck). This word is used interchangeably with any adjective known by man or woman on the face of the earth, even among cultures whose language is otherwise colorfully descriptive. It should be pointed out that until this millennium the word wasn't so publicly used in everyday speech by so many prominent individuals and all sexes. Determining that his use of the word was extraordinary even by 20th Century standards, my co-workers and I once counted its usage in one conversation by a supervisor originally from Piney, Manitoba, and heard him liberally use it over fifty times. An amazing little word, eh.
Another word not on your list is hoe-tell; the variant American word being, simply 'hotel' was the one place in little provincial towns along the border that residents could buy liquor. Very often they would go to the hoe-tell on a weekend day to get a two-four for like forty-five dollars! Prices like that would stop your beer drinking on this side of the border!
Well, I could go on but, I won't, eh. Thank you for your blog this week.
Love the Bob and Doug picture! I have heard that Canadians are smarter and better looking than their neighbors to the south. Is that true? Asking for a friend.
ReplyDeleteYes, you heard right. I've heard that the farther south you go, the more pronounced the difference.
ReplyDelete