Today, November 10, 2007, I share the mailbag with you. Dear Bill: Love your books! I just heard a new phrase today: “liters and kilos” A person said it was a Canadian saying that means “Many heartfelt tears.” I’ve never heard it before. Have you? Thanks a bunch. Keep on writing the good write. Brian C. Hey ……………………………………………………………….................................. Dear Bill: While living in Halifax last year, I hung out a lot in an online chatroom frequented mostly by people from Halifax, and all around Nova Scotia (Halifax Locals 1 on the Yahoo Chat network). In this chatroom you can speak into your computer’s microphone and everyone in the chatroom can hear you. One fellow was sharing a story about a woman who’d been bugging him for a date, and I just about woke up the neighbours with my laughter when he described her appearance: “She was so ugly even the tide wouldn’t take her out.” Another nugget from the same chatroom: “to get rigged” means to get laid. Those Maritimers...full of great expressions! Hope you liked these P. Moran, Ontario ……………………………………………………………….........................................
I enjoyed your Canadian Garden Words and fell on your webpage while looking up a Quebecism on Google. Great! Went through loads of them and thoroughly enjoyed! You have a way with words ! Very entertaining. My best friend (she’s from Franco Ontarian roots) and I (Québécoise pure laine) have been exchanging the best idioms for years and are always on the lookout for new ones. I still remember years ago my best pal phoning me at work and asking what the heck this expression meant. Want to have a go at it, sir ? On s’est fait passer un sapin. She had this quote from an interview with a local, eastern township farmer and couldn’t use it since she didn’t know what it meant. It means ‘having been had.’ In other words ‘you have been duped.’ We believe it comes from the difficulty in differentiating spruce from pine. What do we want in order to have the best Christmas tree? A fir tree or a spruce, that is the question. Un sapin ou une épinette? Very best, Judith Marinier Bill replies: Do readers have any other ideas about the precise meaning of this Quebec phrase? It posits a vast underworld of shady Xmas-tree dealers fobbing off, on innocent merrymakers, lowly pines labeled as “spruce.” The heart sickens at such a fell prospect and odious visions of similar Stephen Harperoid shenanigans arise to becloud and befoul our festive spirits. If you want to share some wonderful Canadian sayings with your family and friends this Christmas, you will find more than 3,000 Canadian expressions in my books. Each of my three volumes of Canadian Sayings contains about 1,200 zesty phrases used by Canadians both today and throughout our history. Remember that profits from the sale of my books keep this website online for next year.
© 2007 William Gordon Casselman
I invite you to tour my site and select from the hundreds of word stories here. To begin, click on the Word List banner below. Then perhaps browse the site map with its links to every page of my website.
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