Will that be pop, soda or a soft drink?

Sat Mar 15 15:53:15 UTC 2003

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20030315/FCLANG/

What you say is what you are, reports STEPHEN COLE. If you want 'icing,' not
'frosting,' on your cake, you're definitely Canadian

By STEPHEN COLE
 UPDATED AT 10:53 AM EST  Saturday, Mar. 15, 2003

'Chesterfield" is gone and "tap" may soon disappear. But a McGill
linguistics professor maintains that while our evolving vocabulary betrays a
continental drift, we remain true to regional pronunciations.

Take, for instance, the British-Canadian colloquialism, chesterfield.
Somebody did. "A 1972 study suggests Canadians once called furniture three
people sat on a chesterfield," McGill University professor Charles Boberg
says. "Whereas recent tests indicate we've adopted the American term:
couch." (Chesterfield remains alive only in the Prairies.)

That's hardly the end of the story, as far as Mr. Boberg is concerned. "What
interests me is that our Canadian identity is preserved in pronunciation,"
Mr. Boberg says. Americans, he notes, keep female cattle in their living
room furniture, pronouncing the word "cow-itch," where we rhyme the word
with the shout you make when stubbing a toe -- ouch!

Mr. Boberg is ideally suited to detecting nuances of "dialect topography."
The 38-year-old Montreal academic was born in Minnesota to a British mother
and Canadian father. His family moved to Edmonton when he was seven, and Mr.
Boberg later completed a PhD in linguistics at the University of
Pennsylvania.

"I'm a dual citizen and chameleon," he says. "I fit in linguistically
wherever I go."

Which means, in Canada, he looks for a "shed'yool" to determine the
"pro-gres" of trains to the city, where he might have pasta (short a) at a
restaurant. In the States, however, he'd be saying "skej-oo-al," "praw-gres"
and "past-ah."

Mr. Boberg's recent "lexical" survey, which is based on interviews with 600
subjects across Canada, suggests some American terms have failed to catch on
here, despite our appetite for Yankee culture.

"Frosting," for instance, just isn't making it. We prefer icing on our cake,
thanks. And few Canadians use the term "register" (for cashier or cash) or
"candy bar" (chocolate bar).

Other British-Canadian terms, however, face extinction. Where 30 years ago,
most of us poured water from a "tap," we now freely use the Americanism
"faucet." Except again in the Prairies, where citizens continue to drink
from a "tap."

Why do the Prairies continue to differ from the rest of Canada? Professor
Boberg is glad you asked.

"There are a number of reasons why we use different words in various parts
of the country," he says. "Southern Ontario and New Brunswick were settled
by British Empire Loyalists." Americans! "Where [English] Montreal was
settled by British citizens, and Halifax developed from a British naval
base. Then we must consider proximity and influence of American cities. The
Prairies aren't influenced by America [historically and geographically] the
way Southern Ontario is."

Mr. Boberg also suggests regions stick to local expressions out of a
collective desire to distinguish themselves from everyone else. "There are
two warring pressures on language," he explains. "First, there is the
inclination to model speech after national, or international standards, in
search of global prestige. You see that when the regional middle class
emulate a national, professional class way of speaking.

"But I would suggest there might be an equally strong impulse to reinforce
local prestige by exercising what remains one of the few indicators of local
culture: the face-to-face exchange of words."

And so we maintain regional phrases. Montrealers turn to "soft drinks" for
refreshment. (A direct translation, Mr. Boberg suggests, of the French
phrase, "liqueur douce.") Almost everywhere else in Canada, they'd ask for
"pop."

How about the playground game where a board rests over an elevated fulcrum,
allowing kids to bounce high back and forth? In British Columbia and the
Atlantic provinces, it's called a teeter-totter. And kids sing out,
teeter-totter, milk and water, wash your face in dirty water. That song,
however, might draw a puzzled stare in Montreal, where 91 per cent of Mr.
Boberg's respondents call the ride a "see-saw."

Other regional differences: In the Atlantic provinces, school work books are
called "scribblers," and over-the-back cases are "bookbags." In Vancouver,
the same items are "notebooks" and "backpacks." Then there are the drainage
units lining our roofs, which are called "eaves troughs" in the Prairies and
Ontario and "gutters" everywhere else.

Canadians are particularly expressive when describing athletic footwear,
which are called "runners" in British Columbia and the Prairies, "running
shoes" in Ontario and Montreal, and "sneakers" in the Atlantic provinces.

At least that's what we're calling them now. Sometimes vocabulary and
pronunciation changes within a generation. "What we're finding now is that
Canadians start out saying the American 'zee,' " Mr. Boberg says, "then
return to 'zed' when they get older."

Although he likes to exude an air of professorial calm, Mr. Boberg can't
hide his excitement at how Canadians have responded to the American fast
food refinement: pizza. "As an academic, you're not supposed to get
emotional," he says, "but you can't help but enjoy robust displays of
regional expression."

According to Mr. Boberg's recent survey, Canadians and Americans are never
more themselves then when ordering pizza. Americans, with telling
exuberance, call out "everything-on-it!" or, failing that, "supreme!" when
asking for a fully garnished pie.

Canadians, meanwhile, ask for the same pizza with a characteristically
demure request: "all-dressed, please."

Stephen Cole is a Toronto-based writer.