Are we in a trade war with the United States or with Donald Trump? One might say, “What’s the difference? It’s going to be a struggle either way.” My perception is that most Canadians hold friendly attitudes to American citizens. Our struggle seems to be with Donald Trump and his “yes” people in office. We have had our issues over the 159 years of neighbourliness, and they have involved tariffs in the past. Canadians take some pride in being different from Americans. We pronounce the last letter of the English alphabet differently. We say, “zed,” they say “zee.”
Zed has been used for the last letter of the alphabet in the English language since the 12th century. Zed comes from the French zede, which was derived from the Latin zeta, borrowed from the Greek letter zeta. Zeta is the sixth letter in the Greek alphabet.
The early Romans used the zeta letter from the Greeks but around 300 BCE, the Latin language had no use for that specific sound, so it was removed from the Roman alphabet. Eventually, zeta was introduced back into Latin to spell words borrowed from Greek. This addition was placed at the end of the alphabet rather than back to its original sixth position.
In the 1500s there were various English pronunciations of the last letter of the alphabet. Besides zed, there was zard, ezod, uzzard, and zee. Noah Webster (1758-1843), who published American English dictionaries in the early 1800s, was a committed American patriot, proclaiming himself ‘the prophet of language to the American people’. He removed the u from colour, shortened tonne to ton, changed centre to center, and name the last letter of the alphabet zee, because it rhymed with other consonants B, G, and T. He made his spelling a way to assert independence from the former British masters, including calling zed zee.
The ABC Song, copyrighted 1835 in Boston, had Canadian children singing zee until there was a backlash from British loyalists to use zed. In 1846 Canada West (now Ontario) used the Irish National Readers as a textbook that taught Canadian children to use British spellings and to not be influenced by Americanisms such as zee.
Today, many Canadians like to differentiate themselves from Americans with words, spellings and pronunciations that mark a national distinctiveness.
Canadians call a knitted winter hat, a toque, whereas such a thing is called a beanie in the US. If you request a double-double in the United States, it is hard to tell what you might get. But in Canada’s Tim Hortons you know exactly what you are getting. We use pencil crayons in Canada. Americans use the name, colored pencils. Canadians can ask where the KD is at a grocery store and you’ll be directed to the aisle with Kraft Dinner on the shelves.
In Canada we usually use British spellings: colour, centre, theatre, travelled, cancelled, labelled, realize, organize, defence, and grey. Americans spell these words differently: color, center, theater, traveled, canceled, labeled, realise, organise, defense, and gray.
To American ears Canadians say ‘about’ in a funny way. In the US, ‘about’ is pronounced uh-bowt. Americans often hear Canadians say aboot.
Bob and Doug MacKenzie immortalized some Canadiana on SCTV (Second City Television) in the United States. Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis developed the characters that introduced American TV to the Great White North. Some famous sayings that Americans thought most Canadians used were: Take off, hoser! Good day, eh. How’s it going, eh?
Canadian slang was popularized on SCTV skits. Hoser is a slang term for an unrefined or foolish person. Perhaps originating from losing hockey teams having to hose down the ice after the game. Two-four is a case consisting of 24 bottles or cans of beer. Beauty is an exclamation used to describe something fantastic or impressive, which in Bob and Doug’s minds referred to a cold beer.
Then there is the Saskatchewan word bunny hug. Americans, and most of the rest of Canada, do not use that term for a pullover hooded sweatshirt. They use hoodie.
Detective William Murdoch, played by actor Yannick Bisson on the CBC series Murdoch Mysteries, gave an impassioned Canadiana speech, “I was a lumberjack. Je parle francais et anglais. A toque is a hat, a chesterfield is a couch, and it is most definitely pronounced zed. I am Detective William Murdoch of the Toronto Constabulary, and I am Canadian.”
Columnist John Kreutzwieser loves to research words and has an interest in the usage, origin, and relevance of words for society today. Greek and Latin form the basis of many words, with ancient Hebrew shedding light on word usage.
John would like to know if anyone has a sincere interest in a relevant word that he could possibly research for an upcoming column. If so, please send your requests to wordwisdom2021@gmail.com. Words will be selected according to relevance and research criteria. We cannot confirm that all words will be used.
