Friday Factoids #4 – Two countries separated by a common language

November 25, 2005 by paul
Filed under: Uncategorized

OK, so George Bernard Shaw* actually said it (“England and America are two countries separated by a common language”) but the same is true for Canada, and I’ve decided to use it as my theme for this week’s Friday Factoids. [*There are some who attribute this to Winston Churchill, but the majority of references I can find agree it was GBS.]

If anything, this is probably just going to highlight Canada’s split-personality, sometimes with ties drawing it closer to the USA and sometimes falling back to its British roots.

Canada’s political system is based on the British system, with regional (county / provincial) government and national (federal) government. The American system is loosely similar but theirs lacks the variety of parties that both Canadian and British electoral systems provide.
When entering a building at ground level, the floor above is the first floor in Britain, but the second floor in Canada and the USA.
Both Canada and America celebrate Thanksgiving … but on different dates and for different reasons. The American’s celebrated yesterday but for Canadians it was over a month ago.
I don’t know why, but the British use some French terms (e.g. aubergine, courgette) whereas the Canadians don’t (equivalents: eggplant, zucchini).
Canadians use the American definition of a billion, i.e. one thousand million; sometimes the UK use the same definition but personally (and to [other] purists) a billion is a million million.
If you cut up a potato and fry it, they’re chips to a Brit or fries to a Canadian. How can they get that wrong? Fish & Fries? Huh? (However Brits will understand French Fries, thanks(?) to MacDonalds.)
Following on with mixing terms up: a (British) flat is an apartment, not a puncture. Thankfully most Canadians spell tyre correctly … other than Canadian Tire, that is!
In the event of a puncture, you should pull off the road (pavement) towards the pavement (sidewalk). [OK, I've only heard a few Canadians refer to the road as pavement, but footpath seems alien to most of them.]
I’m not sure of the Canadian equivalent of a motorway – here in Toronto I’ve only heard people refer to 400-series roads.
If the Brits were to eat PB&J (which they don’t!), the J would be jam, not jelly; jelly is what’s served at children’s parties.
A fortnight is two weeks – is it really that strange a term??
Cider is alcoholic apple juice; why do Canadians need three terms (apple juice, cider and alcoholic cider) when there are only two states?
Canada Post uses postal codes, the same as Her Majesty’s Royal Mail (except it’s post, not postal, code).
To steal a quote from a friend of mine: “To a Canadian, 100 years is a long time; to a Brit, 100 miles is a long way.”