That's Canadian, eh?

I stumbled across this article yesterday about Canadian English. Fascinating read. The article covers distinctive Canadian vocabulary, pronunciation and spelling.

According to the authors…

“There are… slight differences between American English and British English, and since Canadians are influenced by both, Canadian English is a mixture of both American and British features.”

True.

“Canadian English includes words borrowed from other languages which do not appear in other varieties of English. … Most of these borrowed words refer to features in the flora, fauna, geography and topography.”

Really?

The article then goes on to point out distinctive Canadian words, many of which I have never heard before. I can’t remember ever using the words biffy, sniggler, sook, or utilidor in a sentence or conversation.

But there are also some other gems such as toque (spelled incorrectly as tuque), off side, chesterfield and eavestrough.

Interestingly, no reference to the most Canadian of all expressions... “eh.”