Why is Canadian English unique? | Hacker News Reader

Why is Canadian English unique?

bbc.com

37 pointskareemm51 comments

One factor is publishing rights. Traditionally, English language publishers negotiated for two main sets of rights: American (sometimes North American) rights, and British and Commonwealth rights. The latter resulted in the same books (with English spelling conventions) appearing in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc.

There have been attempts to change this. To quote from a Guardian article from 2008:

"We are all struggling to free ourselves from the proprietorial attitudes of the US and UK that continue to dominate the publishing world," said Juliet Rogers, chief of one of Australia's largest independent publishers Murdoch Books, and former president of the Australian Publishers Association. "The UK fails to grasp that the Empire is dead and that Commonwealth markets are no longer theirs by right [and] the US views Canadian rights as an automatic extension of their territory, even though they frequently have no intention of responsibly exercising those rights."

"Because British or American publishers get first dibs and insist on British Commonwealth rights, Australia, New Zealand and Canada are not getting a look in," added Andrew Wilkins, director of Australian publisher Wilkins Farago. This is to the disadvantage of authors, he explained, as exported copies of books are sold at reduced royalty rates, "so in theory the author could be making three to four times more money by having a local publisher – it makes no sense."

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/oct/17/canada-australi...

There are some errors in the article. May two four is a distinctly Eastern Canada slang. In western Canada, it is simply May long weekend.

Two four to refer to 24 beer is also Eastern Canada. In western Canada, you call it a flat.

Finally, as a Canadian who has lived outside of Canada for a long time, Canadians really do use eh a lot. It is just that it is a subconscious element of the language that we are not aware of. For the record, Americans use huh a lot in similar contexts and I'll bet they are similarly unaware.

Grew up in Northern AB and have lived the past 10 years in BC, While "flat" is sometimes used, it's far more common to call them "two fours" here.

Grew up in Alberta and never heard two-four until I went to university and met some people from Ontario. It was actually a bit of a meme that they could tell where you were from based on whether you said flat or two-four. As I said elsewhere, it may be generational, but two four definitely started in the East.

I'm from Manitoba and we say two-four all the time…

Same here. I don't think I've heard anyone ever call it a flat.

Manitoba is clearly part of Eastern Canada. :)

Perhaps, flat is more of an Alberta thing. It may also be a generational thing. As I said, I haven't lived in Canada for a few years.

"24 beer"

Is that usage (the plural "beer") a Canadian thing? I've heard it in Canada but never in the States.

As an Eastern / Atlantic Canadian, I have always herd it "24 of beer" never "24 beer"or more common people ignore the "beer" part, for example "I'm going to get a 24 for the weekend".

edit: added a usage example

I guess so; I've never really thought about it.

I'm surprised they missed one of the biggest ones that comes up in day-to-day life dealing with Americans: the use of verb "to table" in meetings.

In American English if you say you want to table something in a meeting it means you want to stop talking about it. Ex. Let's table this discussion for later.

In Canadian English if you say you want to table something in a meeting it means you want to raise it up and discuss it -- the exact opposite. Ex. I want to table to this report, has everyone had a chance to read it?

I have't heard that exact phrasing used, but the idea is that you're putting a topic 'on the table' to be looked at by everyone and discussed. I've used and heard the term used both ways without too much confusion just based on context.

Say what ever you want to say, but Eh is one of the best words out there. It allows you to create a question out of a sentence without having to change inflection.

It's not always a dangling question. It can be eh in the middle of an assertion for emphasis. I rather like that usage too.

One thing about Canadian vowel raising that I hear is that "bagel" is pronounced "baggle" (not really, there is still a diphthong, but it's so slight as to sound lost to my ears).

> Say what ever you want to say, but Eh is one of the best words out there. It allows you to create a question out of a sentence without having to change inflection.

I agree but I would argue that "huh" and "right" do the trick too :)

Huh and right do too, though they lack the panache of a well placed Eh

I can't say I disagree :)

I'm sorry about how Canadian this thread has become..

>> Though English-speaking Canadians remain loyal to the Queen, they aren’t truly interested in being British or sounding British; they’re just interested in using the British connection to assert their independence from the independent United States, which they left because they didn’t want to leave.

What horrible highschool textbook is this from? When did Canada separate from the US? And to say english Canadians are "loyal" to the queen, and by necessary implication that french-canadians are not, is downright silly. The queen is a total irrelevance in Canada.

Canada does not take from Britain in some sort of protest against American culture. American culture IS canadian. Music, television, film, comedy ... canadians are everywhere in the US entertainment industry. But look to the UK, to the BBC, and you won't find any.

>> ...poutine, Nanaimo bars, and butter tarts for three of Canada’s great culinary gifts to the world if the world would but accept them

WTF? Maple syrup doesn't make the list? What other country has a strategic syrup reserve.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/a-look-inside-q...

It was a light-hearted article, but the maple syrup issue made me wonder, so I (unbelievably) did some checking.

The quote about "poutine, Nanaimo bars, and butter tarts" was in the context of "Some words refer to things Americans don’t seem to have:".

But apparently Americans do have maple syrup: "Vermont is the largest producer in the United States, generating about 5.5 percent of the global supply" [1]. Vermont apparently produces more maple syrup than Ontario [2].

Anyway, the majority of maple syrup comes from Quebec, but does it really count as a culinary gift of Canada? Apparently maple syrup is a First Nations' culinary gift that existed before Europeans settlers arrived [3].

On the other hand, recipes for poutine and Nanaimo bars date only as far back as the 1950s, and butter tarts to 1900 (says Wikipedia). For context, consider that Canada became a country in 1867.

So I guess it does make some sense for maple syrup not to make the list.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple_syrup [2] http://www.maplesyrupworld.com/pages/Top-Regions-Producers-o... [3] https://www.historicacanada.ca/content/heritage-minutes/syru...

Right, maple syrup goes back to colonial times, and we still make enough in Michigan that with a little effort you can always buy locally produced.

At least some Michiganders say "eh", too -- my impression is it is especially common in the UP. It's not at all surprising, the border here has been pretty porous for centuries. When I was a kid, we'd have to cross over to Canada for Chinese food or hard-packed ice cream cones...

I grew up in the UP, but never picked up a strong accent (my parents had moved there). Visiting rural Ontario was a quite amusing experience, the use of eh in the UP is occasional and often ironic, in the area I visited, it was punctuation.

I deal with a lot of folks from very northern New England and NY and I find they usually have some canadianisms in their speech pattern. As you say it's not surprising, it's not like accents stop on a dime when a border is reached

Aw, that's a bit rough. It's a decent article. It talks a lot about the Loyalists, so that's probably what that first passage you object to was referencing.

> WTF? Maple syrup doesn't make the list?

This must be the first maple syrup WTF on Hacker News, though I bet many were uttered after the great maple syrup heist a few years ago.

> the first maple-syrup WTF on Hacker News

I actually checked and yes, if Google can be trusted then it is.

I think the sentence is actually making a reference back to the loyalists which it mentions near the beginning of the article as well. It is talking about Canadians and not Canada. The loyalists did indeed leave what was then known as the 12 colonies so that they could remain loyal to the crown. The sentence is ignoring nuance (like the fact that Canada is made up of more than just loyalists) so it can make a rhetorically amusing point.

>The queen is a total irrelevance in Canada.

Maybe, but new Canadians still have to swear loyalty to the Queen in the citizenship ceremony.

I'm a Brit who moved to Canada and I find it _amazing_ that anyone here supports the queen.

You moved to a new land where you were not serfs. Where you could live free and your children could escape a suffocating class structure. To a land where you elected your own leaders.

Do you want oppression back?

Many Anglo-Canadians - and probably some Francos too - look at the monarchy as a "let's not re-write the whole Constitution" option, at least nowadays. Something that Australia's republican movement has discovered, to the best of my knowledge, to be quite burdening.

They call it "pragmatical monarchism" or similar wording.

That being said, I am similarly amazed - but for quite different reasons - by Brits moving to Canada.

The Canadian Constitution is a huge pandora box no one wants to open.

I'm a bit puzzled about your comment so my apologies in advance if I missed your point.

> I find it _amazing_ that anyone here supports the queen.

I haven't seen too much opposition about the Queen, mostly indifference. What I have seen a lot though is underestimation and lack of understanding of Canadian-born citizens about the amount of power over Canada that the Queen holds (at least on paper).

> You moved to a new land where you were not serfs. Where you could live free and your children could escape a suffocating class structure. To a land where you elected your own leaders.

I am not clear if you are defending the constitutional system here because there are republics that are doing just fine (ie. USA, France, Germany, etc.). Also, I have seen "suffocating" class structures in both systems so I wouldn't say the lack of it is an advantage of either one.

> Do you want oppression back?

Oppresion from who?

I'm not convinced the Queen is doing much oppressing these days...

No, you're right, but I think branchless' comment was referring to the Queen in the context of her role, not the person herself. Her role is that of, among others, a high-profile figurehead for the upper class. And the prominence and cultural importance of the role is certainly a factor in the oppression.

The UK is plenty oppressed. We still have all the same problems with economic rent extracted via land ownership.

Every country - republics included - has that problem.

Although the reason that a relatively high proportion of resource extraction revenues in Canada are redirected to public welfare is, perhaps ironically, because the vast majority of Canada's territory is classed as Crown Land...

Which is as it should be - that land belongs to all Canadians.

In the UK Queenie gets 15% of crown land to spend on the their lavish lives. I wonder how much rent she takes out of Canadian schools and hospitals. Any idea? Google failed me.

Not anyone, I don't support non-democratic "foreign" institutions. Most people don't care as in they don't realize about something that's been there all the time.

> You moved to a new land where you were not serfs.

This MUH FREEDOM metanarrative belongs more to the US. For example, freedom of speech in Canada is very much unlike the US -- hate speech and similar things have never been protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

People did not come to Canada to escape English or French monarchic oppression. Even Quebeckers feel a historical sorrow to have been forgotten by France, but never staged any sort of revolt against France. They still use the same French Fleur de Lys as their symbol, just like the rose is used by Anglophone Canadians to symbolise their attachment to England.

I'm pretty happy having a powerless figurehead, especially if the alternative is presidential elections.

What about the Canadian armed forces?

Yeah... that's even worse... All new recruits have to swear to the Queen too, and she is the Command in Chief of armed forces. But to be fair she delegates most of the power to the General Governor of Canada which is appointed by the recommendation of the Prime Minister which is indirectly elected by the citizens.

Balance of Power in Canada is very tricky and obfuscated, but here is a fairly accurate (and fun to watch) explanation by Rick Mercer :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi1yhp-_x7A

Yes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_Allegiance_(Canada)

http://canadiancrown.gc.ca/eng/1332788662861/1332788724918

>> But look to the UK, to the BBC, and you won't find any

I see a few. Comedians Stewart Francis and Katherine Ryan are regulars on panel shows and DJs Heidi and B-traits present shows on BBC Radio 1. It may not be that many but I enjoy the ones that are here!

> The queen is a total irrelevance in Canada

Not to everyone:

http://www.monarchist.ca/

Although you are right that many people do not care for the Queen, there are still pockets here and there who do, and she's obviously acknowledged everywhere in government, as a tour of Parliament Hill will attest. Newspapers report the prosecution of a criminal trial as "the Crown", and land that belongs to the government is called Crown property.

I have yet to meet a Francophone who has any love for the Queen, though. Some must exist somewhere.

I've always figured that the reason why even NDP-ites in Toronto (people who I'm thinking of as the most leftist Canadians) aren't republicans is a desire to stay different from the US in some way. Its simply a way to retain a different Canadian identity.

More likely, it's that the queen is inconsequential in day-to-day governance, and absolutely no one wants to reopen that can of worms that's the Constitution. Especially not after Meech Lake.

I do not see what you speaking of...

https://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2009/06/19/trudeaus-pirou...

;)

The Queen was and is a big thing in the part of Canada I grew up in. People descended from United Empire Loyalists sometimes write 'U.E.L.' after their names, you see a lot of Queen Elizabeth memorabilia in shops, tourists go on 'loyalist tours', and the biggest bit of pomp and circumstance from my childhood was when the Queen's local representative, the lieutenant-governor of Ontario, visited town. I wasn't particularly impressed and made the mistake of sarcastically saying 'wow, what an honor' when one of the local farmboys was going on about the handshake he'd received from 'the Queen's representative'. He backhanded me hard enough to knock my glasses thirty feet.

Canada, like the United States, is a little too large and varied to easily generalize about.

> American culture IS canadian.

Yeah right, buddy.

> But look to the UK, to the BBC, and you won't find any.

As other have pointed out you find a few there. However this is more easily explained by two things: (1) for Canadians working in the US is hell of a lot easier than working in the UK, (2) For acting, the US pays far more than the UK.

To me, the surest sign of a Canadian is when they need to use a "washroom".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com