Lost in Translation: The USA/Canada > “Australian” edition March 5, 2010

This year, the closest I’ve been to snow (my love) is two weeks lounging around with the air conditioning turned down cold, watching The Winterlympics*… and the wearing of snowflake-shaped earrings.

But this time last year, I had just returned from a North American winter: a month stomping/skiing around Salt Lake City (Utah, USA) and Banff (Alberta, Canada) wearing three layers of everything, watching icicles form on my hair, and laughing at the peculiar linguistic variations between Australian English, Canadian English, and American English.

( The image quality is terrible, but this sign was outside the house we lived in for two weeks just outside Salt Lake City. It reads “No Solicitors or Deliverie’s”. I shrieked at this abomination every day.).

The following is the blog entry that I drafted upon my return, but quickly found was no longer relevant. UNTIL NOW.

Eh?

Eh? (Canada)

Innit? (UK)

N’est-ce pas? (French)

Huh? (Youth)

Whut? (Web)

For sure!

For sure! (Canada)

No worries! (Aus)

Of course! (Everywhere else)

Yup! (Youth)

Goobers

Chocolate-coated peanuts. I can’t believe I never knew this. I mean, I’ve watched American TV my entire life, AND I love chocolate-coated peanuts. But here, a ‘goober’ is, well, snot.

{ image via Village Munchies }

Grāpple®

Grape-flavoured apple. “Looks like an apple, tastes like a grape”. SO WRONG, and yet so right.

Apparently invented because kids ought to eat apples, but prefer the taste of grapes. Or grape-flavoured candy in this case.

Which is ridiculous.

When I was a child, we didn’t get to make orange-flavoured bananas, just because we liked oranges better. Know what we did if we liked oranges? WE ATE ORANGES!

Anyway, the grāppling process involves some difficult-to-pin-down method of drenching the apples in grape flavouring at some point in the ‘production’ process.

And apparently, the “ā” means that it’s pronounced GRAPE-L, not “grapple” (as in to manhandle/tussle). Know what? That didn’t stop me from saying “grapple”. Nor was I sufficiently perturbed by the outright absurdity of the whole idea to just put down the Grāpple and walk away. I should have been, but I couldn’t resist. Why? Because I like apples (okay, just the way they are), and I also like grape-flavoured candy. {image via Coolest Gadgets }

Loonies & Twonies/Toonies

Canadian one dollar and two dollar coin (not children’s cartoon characters). No point talking about “one dollar coin” and “two dollar coin” in Canada: no-one will know what you’re talking about.

The one-dollar “loonie” is so called because it bears the image of a loonie bird. The two dollar coin is worth two loonies, and so, by logical extrapolation, is called a “twonie” (pronounced toonie).

But of course!

{image via Filibuster Cartoons }

Nonpareils

Sprinkles. Hundreds-and-thousands. What makes a chocolate freckle freckly.

The fact that they’re “nonpareils” in Canada is obviously a remnant of French colonial (candy) domination.

I still don’t understand what being unequalled has to do with it (and I think Wikipedia’s explanation that they were unrivalled as cake decorations is a pretty poor effort on the etymology front).

{ Image by Damon Carr Design }

Poutine

French fries covered with gravy and cheese curds.

Words can’t express how truly repulsive this looks/is, so I’ll hand over to Google Images.

{via Jani Patokallio }

*barf*

And I’ll also leave it to Wikipedia to explain that etymologically, Poutine has a closer relation to “pudding” (ie: a whole lot of everything) than it does to the French expletive (though given Canada’s semi-Francophilia, the latter would also make some sense). Traditional pub grub, ski-field fuel, late-night booze food, school’s-out snack, etc. Like kebabs in Australia, only… more disgusting.

Puck Bunnies

Like groupies, but for ice hockey players instead of rock band members. [On Monday morning, I nearly FELL OFF MY CHAIR with excitement during the gold medal ice hockey match. And by chair, I mean perfectly stable and impossible-to-fall-off sofa. THAT IS HOW EXCITED I WAS. In the absence of ice hockey within a tangible geographic radius, this makes me a vicarious puck bunny (minus all the negative innuendo).]
{ image via Linda Mac }

Rumble strips

What my sister and I grew up calling “fart lines”. The noisy, corrugated part of the road that stops sleepy drivers from veering into oncoming traffic/into a snow drift when the road markings are invisible and/or one has been driving forever and ever and ever.

{ image via Local 4 Traffic }

Tuque

Beanie (Aus)

Knitted cap (UK)

A tuque is, for Aussies, a beanie. A brimless, knitted head covering. And yes, it shares a common etymological ancestor with the chef’s toque, though one might get a bit warm wearing a tuque in the kitchen.

Controversially pronounced “toock” [ike the "two" in "twonie" (see above). The pronunciation is only controversial because one can get 5 different opinions in 5 minutes, if you ask around].

{ in the above image of Jay and Silent Bob, Jay is wearing a tuque. Silent Bob is not. }

Turbinado Sugar

The word ‘turbinado’ is, in my mind, a portmanteau of turbine and tornado.

Cyclonic sugar? To me, this is the way sugar ‘normally’ comes. That is, in Australia, “raw sugar” is the norm, and you’d have to do actual research to find out much about the manufacturing process. But in the US and Canada, white sugar is “normal”, and so it’s deemed necessary to explain turbinado sugar in explicit detail, right there on the packet.

Turbinado sugar, also known as turbinated sugar, is made from sugar cane extract. It is produced by crushing freshly cut sugar cane; the juice obtained is evaporated by heat, then crystallized. The crystals are spun in a centrifuge, or turbine (thus the name), to remove excess moisture and molasses, resulting in the characteristic large, light brown crystals

Yes, if you check the footnotes in the above-quoted Wikipedia article, that description can be found on the packaging for Trader Joe’s Turbinado Sugar. Which is rather incongruous with the vast amount of packaged ‘food’ one can buy in North America without knowing exactly what’s going on inside the packaging.

And in true toonie… er, twonie spirit, that’s all, folks! At least until the next snowventure (which is so far in the hypothetical future I think I’d be better off just wearing my ski boots into the frozen foods aisle at the supermarket).

* My nominations for the greatest <alt=”most insane”> Olympic sports? Skeleton, Ski Cross, and Ice Hockey.