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Agreed. It is not winter in Canada by strict seasonal chronometry. But the frost is on the punkin’; it’s damn cold in northern parts of our country and the snow, she is flying, and the fur trapper’s cremasteric reflex, it is operative. Besides, I wanted to use the delicious girl/snowman title graphic of 1930s cheesecake because, the first time I ran it, two peevish FemiNazis foamed at the e-mouth and branded me a chauvinist pig. Oh, I hope not! Oink-oink-oink.

 

These are the latest Canadian sayings sent in to me by email, as of November 5, 2009.

1.

He’s milking a good cow.

• That is: he’s on that always-hard-to-find thoroughfare, Easy Street.

contributed by Blake Nicholls, Ontario

 

2.

October 19, 2001

Hi Bill -
Big fan of your books!  I’m a teacher in Nahanni Butte, an isolated Dene settlement in the Northwest Territories (population 100).  I’ve come across some rather unique sayings in my travels up here, so I thought I should share a few them with you:

“Stand up like an Iroquois haircut!” ~ courtesy my friend George Tsetso.
“He’s gone jiggling” ~ referring to the local term for ice fishing in Paulatuk.

Nahanni Butte (traditional name Tthenaago ‘strong rock’) is in the Northwest Territories, just on the outskirts of the Nahanni National Wildlife Reserve.  It’s a magnificent area, with some of the most spectacular scenery I have seen anywhere in the world.

Here are two more sayings for you:
“Colder than a Sahtu sandwich” - Sahtu being the central region of the NWT around Great Bear Lake, legendary for its fierce winters.

“You must be strong like two people.” - translation of words spoken by Elizabeth Mackenzie, a famous and respected Tlicho elder in this area.  It refers to the importance of finding a balance between traditional knowledge and more modern ways.

David Overall

3.

Oct 25, 2009

Hi Bill,

I enjoyed your page of snow sayings.

A common saying in the Cariboo/Chilcotin and northern BC by the guides and cowboys is, “She’s coming down like saddle blankets out there.”

John MacKenzie

 

Do you know some nifty Canadian sayings worth sharing, however crude or however sweet they may be? Please send them in. They can be posted with or without your name. Anonymity is permitted! Email them to me:

canadiansayings@mountaincable.net

 

4.

Recently I received an inquiry about the origin and meaning of a familiar North American autumn rhyme:

When the frost is on the punkin’,

Then it’s time for dippy-dunkin.’

First, the folk wisdom encapsulated in this wonderfully silly rhyme is reproductive. Dippy-dunking is human copulation. The wisdom conveyed is stark: in the cold of autumn, screw like minks and then, nine months later, bring forth your spawn in the lush days of high summer.

To dunk as a verb precedes the hideous American doughnut company by centuries.

Dippy-dunking is what my old English prof used to call an example of “chiming pairs.”

English is fond of them: shilly-shally  “to doubt or hesitate,’ orig. shall I? Shall he?

Hip-hop; wing-wang (stupid prick) etc. The Tex Ritter cowboy song “ I got spurs that jingle-jangle-jingle.”

French has playful reduplication too, like rouli-roulant?

Both verbs, to dip and to dunk, suggest sex. Both mean to put or thrust something down or into something. The Greek verb to describe that movement, that is, to dip, interestingly is βαπτίξειν baptizein from which we get baptism etc. Originally its simpler verbal ancestor in Greek, βάπτειν baptein, meant to dip into a liquid to dye something. Later in history its meaning was generalized to any dipping, but once the Koine Greek of the New Testament used the word it gradually referred only to ‘holy dipping.’ John the Baptist, ὁ βαπτιστής was, of course, the big dipper.

The rhyme about autumn sex is a folksy parody of an already folksy 19 th-century bit of doggerel by a popular American rhymester, James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916), poetaster of such Victorian parlour recitation gems as the original “Little Orphant Annie,” later to mutate into a Depression-era comic strip, a 1930-1940s radio drama, and much later a Broadway musical titled “Annie!”

As one internet biography of Riley states: “In 1883, a collection of his poems was published, entitled "The Old Swimmin' Hole and 'Leven More Poems," followed by "Rhymes of Childhood" in 1890, "Poems Here at Home" in 1893, and "Knee Deep in June," in 1912. His most famous poems are "Little Orphant Annie," "The Raggedy Man," "When the Frost Is On the Punkin," and "The Runaway Boy." In Riley's later life, these volumes attracted both national and international readers, and he became the wealthiest writer of his time.”

For fun, here is Riley’s original pumpkin masterpiece, written – remember – in a modest imitation of his native Indiana dialect of American English:

 

When the Frost in on the Punkin

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
    And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
    And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
    And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
    O, it’s then’s the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
    With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
    As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
   

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.
    They’s something kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere
    When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here —
    Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees,
    And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees;
    But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze
    Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days

  Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock —
   

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.
    The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
    And the raspin’ of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;
    The stubble in the furries — kindo’ lonesome-like, but still
    A-preachin’ sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;
    The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
    The hosses in theyr stalls below — the clover over-head! —
    O, it sets my hart a-clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock,   

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!
    Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps
    Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;
    And your cider-makin’ ‘s over, and your wimmern-folks is through
    With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too!…
    I don’t know how to tell it — but ef sich a thing could be
    As the Angels wantin’ boardin’, and they’d call around on me —
    I’d want to ‘commodate ‘em — all the whole-indurin’ flock —
    When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

This homey little blast of Americana has been set to music several times, in 1951 by one composer who was a master of American popular song, Hoagy Carmichael.

James Whitcomb Riley

 

 

 

If you want to share some wonderful Canadian sayings, both in English and in Québec French, you will find more than 3,000 Canadian expressions in my three sayings books. Each of my three volumes of Canadian Sayings contains about 1,200 zesty phrases used by Canadians both today and throughout our history. Each book costs about ten dollars. Profits from the sale of my books keep this website online.

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