I don't see "transport" or "transport truck" though. I think It's an Ontario expression and it sounds kind of weird to me as an Albertan.
"two-four" is there and can confirm that is more an eastern term as well. Never heard the term until I spent a year out in Ontario many years ago. Still hasn't really made its way to the west in all that time.
Totally minor difference, but it did feel jarring when I heard it differently from the first time as someone who grew up in Alberta.
What do you call them?
There are also various different ways to pronounce “crayon”; is that also true in Canada? For example I pronounce it with one syllable: “cran”, just like the beginning of “cranberry”. I get the feeling that’s not the majority pronunciation but it’s not exactly rare either (at least where I grew up).
I assume toilet hands were an unspoken issue, because there was no possible way to traverse from the toilet room to the washroom without touching anything.
For a complete tangent, I’ll mention that Soviet toilets had a “poop shelf” so that people could eyeball their stool to gauge their health. One flaw of this design is that there was no odour suppression offered by toilets that immediately immerse stool in water.
Meaning 1a is the object, 1b is the room. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/toilet
The easy to remember terms and will work nearly anywhere without giving offence are: "loo" in a residential property or "gents/ladies" for a non-residential property.
Restroom, and a variety of others, might be slightly more usage specific but still… wouldn’t be unexpected or weird, I’d say?
> While brown bread may have contained some molasses in the early 1900s, post-WWII it was usually made without. So Canadian brown bread is, unlike Boston-style bread, not sweet (see the 1909 quotation) and also distinct from Irish brown bread, though the latter may have inspired it.
Brown bread is sweet, and you are supposed to cut it up into little hockey pucks and toast it. It is the perfect shape when it comes out of the can.
1860’s apparently.
https://www.britishfoodinamerica.com/A-Number-of-Historical-...
> You're really not missing out.
It it rare in matters of taste to be able to say it, but you sir or madam are objectively incorrect!
Ok well, maybe that is a bit over the top. But anyway, since it comes in a can, hopefully anyone curious can just try it. Pop it in the toaster oven, put some cream cheese on it, and have it for breakfast. It is a treat, IMO.
The boston canned brown bread i always assumed was a touristy thing, not something regularly consumed.
In my experience "brown bread" is a synonym for whole wheat bread. If you go order a sandwich and they ask what bread you want it on and you say "brown", you're getting whole wheat (or maybe 60% whole wheat... just not white).
I'd be very confused if I ever got this molasses-sweetened bread everyone is talking about.
It’s made with ungodly amounts of molasses. My grandmother used to make it with lard or shortening, yikes.
If I was offered brown bread and got a boring whole wheat, I'd be sorely disappointed.
[1] https://my-mothers-cook-books.ca/2021/05/29/brown-bread-vs-p...
Or do like my Mom did: mix a little peanut butter with molasses into a slurry on top.
All of this will kill you, of course, but it does taste good!
https://www.britishfoodinamerica.com/A-Number-of-Historical-...
Although the consistency is more like a dense, very moist bread. It wouldn’t be great for a conventional sandwich. Could reasonably steal the English muffin’s job, though. Or a regular muffin. Maybe a bit messier.
https://gikken.co/mate-translate/blog/from-darts-to-cigarett...
Basically, when the snow starts to melt in the spring, you'll sometimes accidentally step on some thin ice that leads directly to a puddle underneath and soak your boot. It sucks! Also, we would often call these "booters" in Manitoba, where I'm from.
The film Slapshot with hockey banter/ribbing (at a Gilmore Girls-type pace).
My grandpa called toonies "bearbucks", which isn't listed, but is in one of the quotes on the toonie entry. No listing for "reef" as in yanking on something, though I don't know if that's a Canadianism or not.
Apparently it's a direct translation from French and is pretty exclusive to Quebec English and the Easternmost part of Ontario (which is heavily French).
And Saskatchewan. Which the site notes is "a bit of a mystery".
Also found "parkade" interesting--apparently it's still much more heavily used in Western Canada, and they attribute that to it having been "seeded" by some Hudson's Bay advertisements run at their original 6 locations all in Western Canada.
Some other words/terms that surprised me: renoviction, gong show, kerfuffle, off-sale, stagette
I'm not sure why we both ended up with "dressed" given the French is literally "all garnishes / toppings" or "wholly garnished / topped". I'm sure some linguist could probably do a dissertation on this or something. And hopefully also cover how Saskatchewan ended up with using "all dressed" because I'm really curious about that outlier.
I'm in Ontario but in a heavily French area (i.e., East of Ottawa) and "toute garni / all dressed" is common. You'll find it places like Ottawa as well given the proximity to Quebec and French population.
https://youtu.be/eIoTpkM5N64?si=FnGploZrLZ1XRVXO&utm_source=...
Actually they should just watch a few AvE videos, he’s a goldmine for old Canadian lingo.
The name of the utility companies in most provinces was probably an influence. Manitoba Hydro. Hydro Quebec. I think in Toronto they still stamp manhole covers with THES (Toronto Hydro-Electric System).
sophacles•7h ago
Is there a similar dictionary for US midwesternisms, or Texisms, or really any region?