btar

Oh yes! That reminds me of my first "exposure" to the term. I needed to erase some pencil notes so obviously I needed a rubber. Go see the admin lady they said, so I did. Cue laughter and red face.
On a different theme, I haven't seen "crook" mentioned - "G'day, how are ya?" If unwell you would be a bit "crook".
Meanwhile, here in BC, I haven't heard "wellies", rain-boots yes but not wellies.

Gordon Barlow

On my multi-cultural island in the Caribbean, "kitty corner" is common among all residents, often accompanied by a hand-signal of some kind. I never hard "sketchy" when I lived in Canada.

Gordon Barlow

That sounds very Australian, to me. The G'day certainly is, and "crook" too. No disrespect. btar, but are you quite sure those are Canadian?

The chief way I've been able to pick a Canadian is their pronunciation of "out and about", which - to my ears, at least - comes out as "oat and aboat".

btar

"...but are you quite sure those are Canadian?"
No, which is why I started the post with "On another theme"
Sorry if I deviated without authorisation!

Gordon Barlow

Hey, fine by me! I just misunderstood your "another theme". On the same general theme, comparing Australian and Canadian ways of talking... What would be the Canadian equivalent of my favourite Aussie expression that I sometimes use (when appropriate) to focus the attention of business clients? A line-chart showing erratic sales, for instance, deserves the severe criticism that it is "up and down like father's pants!"

old.sparkles

Are you sure that's the Aussie one? I thought it was up and down like a bride's nightie / dunny seat.

Personally I'm more used to 'up and down like a whore's drawers'

AdrianR

A personal favourite, out here in the West, is "beaky" - meaning 'lippy', 'smart-mouthed', impertinent etc.
To "beak off" at someone is to give them cheek, or give them lip.

DownUnder69

It really depends on who is saying it...

As an example of this, alas not Canadian but Aussie, an American gal I briefly dated in Sydney in the '70s once stopped all conversation dead at a posh dinner party we were attending, this in the days when people could afford to host such events, when she innocently commented during a story she was telling about her experiences in learning to deal with 'Aussie-isms', "...I was so shocked, I was rooted to the spot."

Anyway, if regional expressions are your thing, OP, then as now the places to go to in Canada were (and maybe still are) anywhere in the Atlantic provinces, or "the Maritimes" as they are popularly known down there. I am no longer sure if this is the situation, but in my childhood there Acadian French spoken New Brunswick had a surfeit of French nautical terms from the 17th century when the first French migrated to Quebec and the eastern provinces. My grandparents didn't get in or out of their car, they "embarked" or "disembarked". My grandfather was also fond of mangling verbs in a way a linguist friend once told me was spoken in northern France in the 1600s. "J'avions", "j'etions" and "j'etions" being there of his oft-used terms. (Alas, my laptop keyboard doesn't do French 'accents', or if it does I've yet to work out how to call them up, apologies for this.)

More recently the so-called 'common' Acadian French, especially in the area of Moncton, was a heady mix of French and English words spoken in the same sentence. This distinctly odd speech was as I recall known as "shiak" or "chiak" and I IIRC 20-25 years ago there was a campaign to have it formally recognized as a native Acadian dialect by France. Which was rejected, and rightly so I think.

Our old mate Bristol UK may have something to tell us about all this as he lives in Moncton. Unless of course he now finds himself frozen solid under a massive mound of freshly fallen snow...

How is the weather down your way, Bristol? This from a stinker of a 38C day in Australia.

I am I said

i cannot recall if i first heard it in oz or england, but to canadian ears 'should i knock you up in the morning' certainly raised eyebrows?

Gordon Barlow

On the same general theme... As a recently married young man, many years ago, I was introduced to a similar English slang term one Sunday morning, when a friend of mine pounded incessantly on the front door of our two-story flat. Finally I got out of bed and shouted down from the window in a very cross voice, "Richard! Go away!" He could see I was shirtless, at least, and said apologetically, "Oh, sorry! Sorry! Were you on the job?" Instinctively I knew what he meant. I just said "Yes. Go away", and he went.

DownUnder69

Aussie, I reckon, from the 1960s-1970s. Now no longer in popular use, sadly, along with so many older original dinky-di expressions that have vanished along with their users.

Language evolves and changes, but the loss of the old Australian expressions with the passing of time is, well, too bad. IIn our sad and sorry and increasingly dreary corporatist world, we need all the amusement we can get.

Gordon, re #26, "on the nest" was, also in its own time, in more common use than your "on the job". To me the jury is still out on whether this is Canadian, English or Australian, as over the years I've heard it in all three countries.

Gordon Barlow

"Fair suck of the sauce bottle..." From a letter in the Australian edition of "The Guardian" today. Lovely! I haven't heard that for ages. What's the Canadian equivalent, please? In Queensland we used to say "Fair suck of the sav [saveloy]"

I'm trying to think of the English equivalent. "Well, yes... but...!" Would that cover it? Not as picturesque, though.

Gordon Barlow

Also, I'd like to know the Canadian equivalent of Australia's "as silly as a two-bob watch". Of course Canada had dollars and not shillings (bobs), so did they have "silly as a two-buck watch"? A stage up from the two-bob watch analogy - back in my Australian days - was "as mad as a bloody meat-axe". That was really crazy!