All your favourite Canadianisms-and 137 new ones-just got easier to find, right in time for Canada Day.
The UBC editors of the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles have released an updated third edition that makes it mobile-friendly for the first time. The technical rebuild was part of the dictionary's first update since 2017, and only the second since its launch in 1967.
The dictionary now contains more than 14,500 meanings for more than 12,000 words that Canada can rightfully claim. For example, if you live in Raincouver, you've probably gotten a booter in your dooryard at some point-although you wouldn't call it that. Booter is a uniquely Manitoban term for a puddle-soaked foot, and dooryard is what New Brunswickers call their front yard.
Some terms, like puck, have been around since the late 19th century. Indigenous terms like qajaq, much longer. Others, like elbows up, are as fresh as this year's headlines.
While some Canadianisms originated or are used solely in Canada, others are older terms that faded abroad but still thrive in Canada. Others have a unique meaning in Canada that doesn't apply in other cultures. And some are simply used much more widely in Canada than anywhere else.
Dr. Stefan Dollinger, a professor in the department of English language and literatures and the dictionary's chief editor, points to the word ding (to charge someone money unexpectedly) as a good example of the latter.
"The words don't have to be unique to Canada," he said. "There may be one guy somewhere in California who says, 'They dinged me five bucks because I didn't renew my parking,' but it's very common in Canada and very rare in the States. Those are the patterns we're trying to find."
Dr. Dollinger and associate editor Dr. Margery Fee, a professor emerita of English, worked for three years with a small team of graduate students, undergraduates and volunteers to investigate potential new entries. They would often start with an anecdote or even a hunch, then trace the term and its meaning through English-language sources to uncover its evolution through time and geography.
It's a lot of work, but Dr. Dollinger believes the importance of doing it has been underscored lately.
"In this day and age when the Canadian psyche has been a little bit shaken, it's not a bad idea to remind people that there's something distinctly Canadian in the tiniest little things, and it's not random, it's systematic," he said. "The way you use language is actually something that's pretty profound in human experience."
Dr. Dollinger's Canadian English Lab is working closely with John Chew, the Toronto editor of an 180,000-word Canadian English Dictionary that is being compiled for publication in 2028. The UBC team will supply the Canadianisms for that project, which will be the first new Canadian dictionary since the second edition of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary 20 years ago.
Interview language(s): English (Dollinger)
If you'd like to test your knowledge of the new Canadianisms, try taking the quiz below.
