As many readers of this blog know, I am an expat Canadian living in Spain. Just last week I was back in Canada with my family and friends. I found myself smiling at words or expressions that I had always thought were just “English” but I realise now are particularly Canadian. I thought I’d share six of my favourites with you. I’m sure there is a potential exercise here for students, somehow. But it doesn’t have to be practical, you can simply read this and consider yourselves better educated.
1 Canuck
The Canadian informal word for a Canadian, as in “He’s okay, he’s a fellow Canuck.”. There is also a hockey team called The Vancouver Canucks.
2 goal suck
This is a hockey term. My nephew when he was younger used this expression. A goal suck is a player who hovers around the opposing team’s net in hockey, waiting for the puck to come close so he or she can score. You can’t really have a goal suck in football (European football) because offside rules prohibit it. What a great expression though: goal suck.
3 homo milk
Now this might raise eyebrows if you asked for it at a British supermarket, but homo milk is short for homogenized milk, which contains 3.25% milk fat. It is called whole milk in the USA, I am not sure if there is an English equivalent.
4 loonie and toonie
Two informal words for Canadian coins. The loonie is the one dollar coin, which earns its name from the image of the loon on it (a loon is a kind of bird). A toonie is the more recent two dollar coin, named that way because it sounds like loonie. Yes, Canada is full of loonies and toonies.
5 TO, Hogtown, the Big Smoke, T dot
These are names for my former hometown of Toronto, the biggest city in Canada. I always called it TO (Tee-Oh) and sometimes the Big Smoke. Hogtown is more derogative I believe. T Dot is a more recent version, which I think sounds a bit like a corporate slogan to appeal to youth but that could just be me. I heard it the first time I did a version of this blogpost some ten years ago but didn’t hear it this last visit.
6 two-four
Ah, this word kind of defines my university days. A two-four (sometimes pronounced as twofer) is short for twenty-four, the number of cans of beer in a case which was a staple of parties. Pick up a two-four and a two big pizzas and you’re set for the evening. I didn’t see one two-four (also called a flat in Western Canada) this last visit, maybe because all my university friends have grown up and we don’t guzzle so much beer (ahem these friends are NOT English teachers, which also explains it). Plus Canada has discovered wine and organic, small brewery beer in the past thirty years which does not sell in the big cases and feels more refined. There is nothing refined about bringing a two-four to a dinner party.
So there you have it. If you are not Canadian, consider yourself educated. If you are Canadian, maybe this was boring. Either way, if you know other Canadian English phrases or expressions, let me know in the socials!
*note: I include eh? at the end of the subtitle of this post as it is another common Canadian expression, a bit like a Canadian question tag. Like the Canadian version of ‘innit’. But I didn’t include it in my list as it seemed almost too ‘typical’.