Anyhow, that reminded me of overhearing a conversation in an office I was temping at a few weeks ago. Some people from the St. Louis office were visiting, and one of them jokingly said, "I have to use the WASHroom now", emphasizing "WASH" as if it was such a strange word. Which made me wonder - do Americans not use the word "washroom"?

Regionalisms add to the fun. One of my favorites is the southern "she-it". Means "shit!" but with more conviction.

(Old Glen Miller song.)

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We say root and they say rowt for route.

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People in the Ottawa Valley say rowt for route, as in kids who had "paper rowts." (Do they any more? I only ever see adults delivering papers these days). My dad would inevitably correct us if we said it. I come by my pendantry honestly.

[ 18 July 2003: Message edited by: 'lance ]

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Queue and line is another. No one in the U.S. says queue.

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My Aunt (5th generation Canadian with serious familial pretensions to British Aristocracy, singing to my mother (congenital heart condition) while she was required to act as lift up the toboggan hills in Bayfield, Ont. circa 1926 { to the tune of "Row your boat":

"Pull, pull, pull, your sister
Pull her up the hill
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
She is such a pill."

I submit "soda" for "pop", "toque" for "stocking cap" and the term "Brewski".

'lance, you're not suggesting the Valley as a repository for any standard English dialect are yeh?

G'dee t'yeh, I'll be at the camp near Renfrew this weekend!

[ 18 July 2003: Message edited by: Sisyphus ]

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Queue and line is another. No one in the U.S. says queue.

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As kuba walda says, it's unknown here except maybe among expatriate Brits. But I notice that while Americans stand "on" line (some of them, anyway), Canadians stand "in" line.

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My Aunt (5th generation Canadian with serious familial pretensions to British Aristocracy...

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Sounds like my late grandmother, the Mad Monarchist (sorry skdadl, but she was absolutely potty on the subject). She was maybe only 3rd generation, and her pretensions were just that, but still.

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'lance, you're not suggesting the Valley as a repository for any standard English dialect are yeh?

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I think that Canadians swing both ways on queue and line -- people here certainly say line-up a lot. But we used to say queue too.

My favourite literary use of queue: in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, at the end, when [villain who shall remain nameless because I don't want to spoil plot for anyone who is just starting book] is admitting to Smiley that he had an affair with Anne, Smiley's wife, mainly to get intel on Smiley, villain at one point says, to signify that it wasn't that hard to seduce Anne, that he had just "joined the queue." The line is meant to stab our Smiley, and of course it does, but of course he soldiers on.

Some Americans must say root for route; remember

Get your kicks
On Route 66!

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Originally posted by josh:
No queue? My bad. I thought I remember references to "jumping the queue" or "queue jumping" in various articles about health care.

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I submit "soda" for "pop"

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The locals call a balaclava a "toboggan". I always thought that was a type of sled. I remember watching the news shortly after I moved here:

"Three armed men with toboggans robbed the BBT bank..."

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By no manner of means.

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'lance, do you or I or anyone know ... ... whether it's true that there is something wrong with the locution

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I can't help BUT think ...

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It's the "but" part. Almost everyone says/writes it; I saw it in Jane Urquhart's piece on Carol Shields in the Grope this a.m.; but a friend tells me it is ungrammatical. I am trying to figure out why (I forget his logic).

A Robot is a traffic light to a South African.

Other examples:

The only time an American will say he or she joined a "line-up" is if they're joining a police line-up.

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Originally posted by paxamillion:
The Brits say "WC" or "loo" when referring to a bathroom. WC stands for "water closet," I believe.

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There's also the university/college difference, which I still quite haven't figured out

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In the circles I have travelled, the definite article is almost (save for those Anglophiles) always used with "hospital".

BTW, i'm from sudbury.

the difference between british english and canadian/north american is even funnier.

When I was in uni, anyway, we were all first year, second year, etc -- except during Frosh Week, when the frosh were frosh.

But no one here is ever a sophomore or a senior.

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There's also the university/college difference, which I still quite haven't figured out.

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Wot Sisyphus said. I'd add only that our "colleges" are roughly equivalent to the USian "junior" or "two-year" colleges, while our "universities" are what you'd call "four-year" colleges (though most give three-year as well as four-year degrees).

To complicate the picture further ...

• some Canadian universities are made up of colleges, after the Oxbridge pattern. At least, the University of Toronto is; I'm not sure about others. I was in University College, U of T; the t-shirt, which just said "University College," really confused my high-school fri^W acquaintances on my rare visits "home";
• re: the "hybrid" Ryerson; I began noticing another sort of hybrid (or maybe the same sort) out in BC a few years ago, the 'university college.' These generally began as colleges and tacked on the 'university' part. Some degree programs, mostly diploma or certificate ones I guess.

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Traditionally, it has been difficult to gain advanced credit for college courses at university, but not the converse.

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Actually, in BC, the colleges and universities are fairly well integrated with each other. Most people I knew at UBC, for example, had done at least one year, often two, at a college before transferring. And they got credit for their colleges maths & sciences etc. I don't know if that qualified as "advanced credit," because we're talking about first- and second-year courses here.

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No queue? My bad. I thought I remember references to "jumping the queue" or "queue jumping" in various articles about health care.

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Yes -- that's exactly where many of us, anyway, would use it. I think we use both. More people, though, would speak of joining a line-up.

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I'd forgotten about that -- it's probably the only context in which I hear 'queue' used regularly. But it's probably more common than I know.

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'lance, do you or I or anyone know ... ... whether it's true that there is something wrong with the locution

"I can't help BUT think ... "

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I don't know, skdadl. I've never heard anyone say it was ungrammatical. I can't think why it would be, though "I can't help thinking..." might be more grammatical. Something to look up, I guess.

[ 18 July 2003: Message edited by: 'lance ]

_*()0(

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Originally posted by josh:
There's also the university/college difference, which I still quite haven't figured out.

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Originally posted by Meowful:
I was chattin' with a person from New England and he said his teenage daughter was a real "pill". "Huh? What's a pill?" I asked. Someone who is "hard to swallow," he said.
Who knew...

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"I can't help BUT think ... "

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He had a suit on, too!

[ 20 July 2003: Message edited by: jeff house ]

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Originally posted by Sisyphus:
"toque" for "stocking cap"

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Over heard an ESL teacher from the US teaching the class that a "bugger" was a person who bugs you, told her she couldnt teach them that word - she had no idea why, or what the real definition was - duh -

FYI the word "root" has a much more colourful meaning in Oz so dont go singing "root root root for the home team .." (take me out to the ballgame...) while in Oz

One word I find irritating in the US is "sack" instead of "bag" "y'all want a paper sack?" and in Arkansas ice seems to be promised something like aihhhhhze - sounds a lot like arse actually.

My fav is flying on the "yu'all" airlines out of Minnesota and having the captain come on the PA and say "Howdy y'all w'alls goin' be landin' in Saaaannn Fraaaaanseeescoe in 'bout feefteen minutes" and everyone on the plane is going "holy shit we're supposed to be going to Vancouver" Two minute later the captain gets on the PA and say "oops sorry y'all w'all goin' be landin' in Vaaancuuuuuuvar in 'bout feeefteen minutes ..."

Nobody has a clue what I am talking about when I say "pop". Its soda here. (Although, I know in Western New York and the Midwest they say pop.)

They call sandwiches "grinders". ( I had never heard that before)

They giggle when I say "out" or "about". (My co-worker actually tells me that when she and her friends were younger they used to love Degrassi Junior High and would try to copy their accents.)

I, in turn, get a kick out of the way Bostonians say Park,(Pak); Car (Caa); or Harvard(Haavaad), or any other word with an "R".

I also recently had someone visit me from California. She said trippin' and 'it was a trip' a lot. I have definately heard the expression before, but she used it in every other word it seemed.

I like "my bad". It just so neatly encapsulates the acknowledgement that you screwed up in two little words.

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Originally posted by Sisyphus:

I submit "soda" for "pop", "toque" for "stocking cap" and the term "Brewski".

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Recently discovered that folks from Baltimore identify any sort of 'pop' as 'Coke'.

Eg. "I'd like a Coke."

"What kind?"

"7-Up."

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I submit "soda" for "pop", "toque" for "stocking cap" and the term "Brewski".

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No. Pop is not a Candianism. It is an Ontario-ism forced down the throats of the rest of Canadians by a Toronto-centric media. We said "soda" all the time in Newfoundland, and "pop" was one of those words from the 1950's you would throw in if you were feeling a bit eccentric. When I moved to the Soo, I found it's overuse more irritating than I know find "My Bad."

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No. Pop is not a Candianism. It is an Ontario-ism forced down the throats of the rest of Canadians by a Toronto-centric media.

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Wellsir, when I was a lad -- in the Ottawa Valley, mind -- it was neither "pop" nor "soda," but "soft drink(s)."

I know that I grew up in Medicine Hat with a chesterfield (late 1940s). To me, a couch is more like a day-bed, much less constructed. A sofa would probably be less constructed too. But again, I've heard all these words used interchangeably for so long that I'm not sure what I'd say first if you woke me up in the middle of the night and demanded to know.