search this site

 

 

bent as a pink moose

This disparaging adjectival phrase refers to a gay Canadian. It is probably a version of “gay as pink ink.”

rotted

In Newfoundland, rotted means ‘pissed off, deeply annoyed.’ I was some rotted when Hamburger-Head Harper won the last election.

 

une coupe Longueuil

In the fashion list of hairdo’s and hair-don’ts, the least chic is the ghastly, white-trash mullet.

In Québec une coupe Longueuil is a local humorous term for a mullet haircut. The usual Canadian French term for a mullet haircut is un pad. Why is the haircut deemed to be from Longueuil? Longueuil is a working-class city, formerly a suburban borough of Montreal, located on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River directly across from Outrement. The joking implication is that Longueuil is populated by unsophisticated bumpkins, because many urban dwellers in Canada consider the mullet a coiffure faux pas of the first order. “Mullet head” is an English Canadian putdown that brands the bearer as a total dork.

 

 indoor recess

This Canadian public school term applies when the weather is too cold to let children play outside in the schoolyard. So recess is held inside the classroom or school gymnasium.

 

a joey shack

A joey shack is a home-made porch from the exterior to the interior of a house trailer. Why joey? Perhaps because Joey is a common name? Anyone who knows another reason, please email me at the e-address given at the end of today’s column.

 

K.D. and tube steak

This is a poor college student feast of Kraft Dinner and hot dogs, the K.D. probably warmed by placing its pot on top of the radiant heater in the student dorm room.

  

 

Asiancourt

This is a racist expression for a part of the Toronto, Ontario suburb of Scarborough that holds a large number of Chinese and Korean Canadians. The real name of this part of Scarborough is Agincourt, pronounced “AGE-in-court” in Canadian English. The cheap pun is based on this English pronunciation of the name of a northern French town named Agincourt, the site of a famous and decisive battle in 1415 CE during which English longbowmen led by King Henry the Fifth trounced a large French army. One little irony is that hip downtown Toronto kids refer to this part of Scarborough as “Aging Court.”

 

To give someone a snow-blow job

To try to deceive a Canadian by means of exaggerated flattery, untruths or sexual favours. This is an obvious blend of snow-blower and blow job.

 

puck bunny

It’s what happens when a nice girl becomes an ice girl. There are several terms of opprobrium that denominate young women, spandex-clad and heavily made up, who chase professional or amateur hockey players for the sole purpose of sexual contact. The only score they are interested in at the hockey game is scoring a motel date with a hunky goalie.

Hockey ‘ho’, rink slut, net-grinder, puck bag and puck fuck are other insulting names. Can you add to the list? Please email me other examples at the e-address given at the end of today’s column.

 

“stag and doe” versus “buck and doe”

This is a Canadian party held to raise funds to finance an upcoming wedding. Some cynics refer to a stag and doe as “a good way to get friends to pay for your wedding.” The event is often organized by friends of the bride to help defray the many expenses involved in getting hitched. Sometimes the bride and groom themselves set up the shindig. Invited guests buy tickets to an evening of fun and games, often including live music and dancing. So it is a combination of bachelor and bachelorette parties.

Regional differences in nouns occur within the same province of Canada, as anyone acquainted with linguistic variation might imagine.

In the Canadian province of Ontario, stag and doe is most popular as a term in the south of the province, while buck and doe is more used in the northern parts of Ontario. Other names are hen and stag party, Jack and Jill party

 

Cat’s ass

Cat’s ass is a Canadian miner's term meaning anything that is preferable or better than average. “That new car of yours is the cat’s ass.” The expression is a variant of an older approbation “it’s the cat’s meow.”

Autobiographical Morsel: Throughout my public school days, my father, Alfred M. Casselman, was the principal of the school. Thus the bullies, the no-brow louts, the frowsy schvuntzim who grew up to be welfare dwarfs, all targeted me, the principal’s son, as a wuss, a suckhole and a potential torture victim, the possible M for the schoolyard S&M club.

Then, one fresh fall day in early September, there entered into the student population of my school and my grade six class that rare beast, a literate bully, a transfer boy from the American south whose father became one of our town’s wealthiest citizens, a mill owner who boasted a garage teeming with three Buicks!

I shall call this odious boy T. Bane Leavins.

A few weeks after his arrival Bane approached me and said, “Are you Billy Casselman?” “Yes,” I replied. “No,” he said, “From now on, you’re Little Billy Cat’s-ass-elman. Haw! Haw! Haw!”

Like wild fire the name spread through the recess yard and enjoyed a life of several months while T. Bane Leavins was acclaimed boy name-master of the recess yard.

Exactly eighteen years later, what was left, the leavings (if I may say) of Bane were found in the back of a Chinese restaurant where a Dimsum Damsel had bisected both his carotid arteries. Thus at last Sweet Fate had lifted the burden of rancor from my soul.

Whether or not the precise manner of the demise of T. Bane Leavins bore any relationship to his earlier mockery of me, I cannot say. But I can hope.

 

© 2012 William Gordon Casselman

 

 

Click here to enjoy more

FUNNY CANADIAN SAYINGS

 

 

Any comments, questions, additional word lore or book orders?

Please email me at wordguy@shaw.ca

 

 

Click on Titles Below to Read

More Columns on Canadian Words & Sayings

 

Dep & Guichet-Québec English Words & “Sticky Wicket”

Canada’s Eh? The True Story of an Interjection

Kamik, Asham, Babiche, Bear Paw: Winter Boot Words

Everyday Québec Expressions - Part 10

 

 

   

order online from Chapters/Indigo

$10.95

Says one reader on the Chapters website: “If you're Canadian you gotta read this book. This book made me laugh till I cried. Things I thought only I heard during my youth were there in print before my eyes! I love this book. Everyone I show it to has the same reaction. Different sayings tickled my funny bone on different days - so they never get boring. Keep up this wonderful treasure-trove of Canadiana, Bill.”     — Angie Plamondon

published by McArthur & Company, Toronto, Canada