茄子直播

The great word hunt: 茄子直播 expert is helping to put a little more Canada in the Oxford English Dictionary

Photo of Oxford English Dictionary
(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

With more than 600,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary, how many of these would you expect to be Canadian? Six thousand? One thousand?

Try about 700.

The OED staff know their coverage of Canada falls short, so, earlier this year, they teamed up with Sali Tagliamonte, a 茄子直播 professor of linguistics. Tagliamonte is reviewing words and phrases from her research, and, with the help of one of her graduate students, is compiling a list of candidate words for the OED.

For a decade, Tagliamonte has been visiting small towns north and east of Toronto to conduct and record interviews 鈥 to study how people in these communities talk. Through these conversations, .

She learned that a 鈥済oer,鈥 for example, is a spirited child. And that in Timmins, Ont., 鈥渕iner鈥檚 mouth鈥 refers to someone who swears a lot.

Having grown up in northern Ontario, Tagliamonte knew that a 鈥渟oaker鈥 is what you sometimes get when you step in a deep puddle or snowdrift. The word exists in the OED, but the Canadian sense does not appear among the definitions, which include 鈥渁 drunkard,鈥 鈥渙ne who soaks something鈥 and 鈥渁 drenching rain.鈥 Tagliamonte thought everyone knew her childhood meaning of the word 鈥 until she started her research. 鈥淵ou live in the north, there鈥檚 always deep snow in winter. Your feet get wet; it鈥檚 a soaker.鈥 Turns out it鈥檚 a Canadianism.

She also knew that 鈥渁 suck鈥 is a whiny or sulking person. And a 鈥渂ush party鈥 occurs when friends gather in the woods around a campfire to drink and talk. These senses aren鈥檛 in the OED either.

Tagliamonte plans to submit these words along with dozens of others to the OED for consideration. To give the dictionary鈥檚 editors a sense of how frequently they鈥檙e used (which will help determine whether they will be included), she鈥檒l provide counts for how many times each term appears in every 10 million words. 鈥淢any of them are very infrequent,鈥 she says.

According to Katherine Connor Martin, the head of lexical content strategy for Oxford University Press, the dictionary team looks for new words 鈥 and assesses how meanings of existing words are changing 鈥 mostly by reading national newspapers and other major publications. This makes it difficult to track word use in more isolated rural areas, in specific neighbourhoods or among particular ethnic groups. 鈥淏ecause those words are not as visible, we rely on linguists such as Sali who are working with these language communities,鈥 she says.

To be recorded as Canadian, Martin says, a word must be 鈥渙verwhelmingly associated with Canada,鈥 or have originated here. Some words become Canadian even though they came from elsewhere. 鈥淧arkade,鈥 for instance, originated in the U.S., but is now chiefly used in western Canada and South Africa.

And even if a word itself is not Canadian, one of its meanings can be. An 鈥渁tom,鈥 for example, is a fundamental particle of matter, but in Canada, uniquely, it also refers to a level of sport for children.

What further complicates matters for the OED is that many Canadian words aren鈥檛 used across the country: You鈥檙e unlikely to hear anyone outside of Saskatchewan call a hooded sweatshirt a 鈥渂unnyhug.鈥 And only in Quebec is a convenience store a 鈥渄ep鈥 (derived from 诲茅辫补苍苍别耻谤.)

鈥淲ords don鈥檛 follow national boundaries,鈥 says Martin. 鈥淪ome do, but a lot of them don鈥檛.鈥

Establishing whether a word is Canadian is one matter, deciding if it gets into the dictionary is another. According to Martin, the editors assess the length of time the word has been in use (several years is usually a minimum) and its frequency of use over time.

The OED also takes into account where the word comes from, since words from smaller populations of speakers (such as Canada) won鈥檛 be used as frequently overall as those from larger ones (such as the United States).

Martin, who is American, encourages University of Toronto Magazine readers to contact the dictionary  or  with words they think might be unique to Canada. 鈥淎nyone can give us their Canadian words,鈥 she says.


Katherine Connor Martin's favourite Canadian words:

Bargoon: A great bargain. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a playfulness about it, which is nice.鈥

Gong show: Like 鈥渁mateur hour鈥 or 鈥渁 chaotic situation.鈥 鈥淓ven though it was an American television show, folks in the U.S. don鈥檛 say that.鈥

Keener: An especially eager student. 鈥淚 like it because it鈥檚 both a more accurate way of describing that kid in your class at school, but also slightly kinder than some of the words that we would use in American English.鈥

Toonie: A Canadian two-dollar coin. 鈥淭his is wonderfully inventive, combining 鈥榯wo鈥 and 鈥榣oonie鈥 (which is itself a charming word for a dollar coin). Blended 鈥榩ortmanteau鈥 words can sometimes be grating, but this one works well.鈥

Vinarterta: A cake consisting of thin alternate layers of shortbread and a cardamom-flavoured filling made from prunes, plums or other dried fruit, typically eaten during the holidays. 鈥淭his word entered Canadian English via Icelandic immigration to settlements such as Gimli, Man. Interestingly, the cake itself has evolved differently in the two countries, so that nowadays Canadian vinarterta and Icelandic vinarterta are a bit different.鈥

This story originally appeared in

 

 
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