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In the current lingo of Canadian racetrack bookies and touts, a “Borden” is a 100-dollar Canadian bill. Check out this modest scenario that finds three unsavoury lay-abouts at the track, slouched on the rail at New Woodbine in Toronto.

Freddy No-Socks (race track tout): Hey, Louie, how much yah down this aft?

Louie: Couple uh Bordens.

Freddy No-Socks: Whaddabout youse, Nail Gun?

Nail Gun: Since 12 bells, I personally waved bye-bye to 4 brownies.

Louie: Them tips of yours was crap, Freddy. You're the last of the big-time shits. You're an endangered feces.

This means Louie has lost approximately two hundred dollars betting on the ponies so far today, and Nail Gun, nicknamed after his weapon of choice, is down four hundred dollars.

Louie might also have said: “Two brownies.”

This picture of the current Canadian one-hundred dollar bill explains both bits of Canadian slang. Our hundred-dollar bill is chiefly brown and it features the eighth Prime Minister of Canada, Conservative stalwart Sir Robert Laird Borden.

Robert Laird Borden was Prime Minister of Canada from 1911 to 1920. Borden appeared on two previous versions of Canada’s one-hundred-dollar bill.

A Nova Scotia lawyer, Conservative Prime Minister Borden led Canada through the First World War and promoted Canadian interests during the treaty negotiations that followed. In the realm of international affairs, Prime Minister Borden enhanced Canada’s diplomatic reputation and status as a sovereign nation and, through astute bargaining, achieved equal status for Canada with England within the Commonwealth.

Money Terminology in Canadian English & Quebec French

In 1987 the Canadian paper one-dollar bill was replaced by a coin with a loon depicted on the coin’s reverse. Thus “loonie” became a slang term for one dollar.

Numismatic Jargon

Applied to the two faces of a coin or medal, the noun obverse refers to the face containing the head and the principal inscription, whereas the noun reverse applies to the other side of the coin. The obverse of the Canadian loonie depicts the head of Queen Elizabeth II.

With the introduction of the two-collar coin in 1996, the slang term “toonie” arose to signify a two-dollar coin.

In Quebec, le dollar is a buck. Quebec monetary slang also includes older synonyms for a dollar such as un piaster or piasse. Huard (French, loon) denotes a loonie. The modern Quebec slang word for penny is cenne, spelled but not pronounced like the standard French word cent ‘a hundred.’ An older continental French word for penny in Quebec is sou.

© 2007 William Gordon Casselman