THE PUBLICITY says that Canadian Churchman, and presumably its successor, the Anglican Journal, helped supply the words for this monumental work which seeks to define contemporary Canadian English. The editors scoured Canadian publications seeking particularly Canadian words and usages. About 2,000 are included in the total of 130,000 entries in a book combining English as spoken world-wide together with its use in Canada.[pullquote]A quick check of Anglican-related and ecumenical entries suggests they got these ones right. Under “clergy” is found a comprehensive list, including some interesting possibilities for gender-neutral designations.As for that ever present Canadianism, “Eh,” sorry, but only one definition out of four is peculiarly ours. Derived from the Middle English “ey,” its other usages are common to speakers in other Commonwealth countries and even the United States, where as George Bernard Shaw reminds us, they haven’t spoken English for years.
Menu
