How we spent our Canadian vacation

[Fritz Juengling]

'eh' seems to be the most distinguishing feature of Canadian English. This
spring, one of my classes got interested in famous Canadians (it was my Latin
clas, so I have no idea what they were thinking).  'eh' naturally came up.
Even the 12 and 13 year old Boy Scouts with whom I just completed a week of
Scout camp told a joke about Canada in which the punchline hinged upon 'eh'.
This really would be a great topic for a book-- 'Canadian English: from 'Eh'
to Zed'
Fritz Juengling
PS Was The Fonz Canadian?


> I don't know if it's even used in Canadian French, and I've never noticed
> it as a feature of French Canadian-accented English.  It's famous as a
> feature of Canadian English, and it isn't nasalized--just an [e] with
> interrogative intonation.  There's nothing remarkable about the phonology
> of it--it's no different from the same word used by some Americans to mean,
> "What?" or "How's that again?"  What's remarkable about the Canadian "eh?"
> is its use as a sort of universal punctuation mark with no real meaning.
> To an American, Canadians seem (or seemed) to conclude every other sentence
> with it.
>