TORONTO — Jane Pryce’s near hook-up with attractive American tourist Zach Greer was narrowly averted when he unselfconsciously referred to his toque as a “beanie.”
The twenty-seven year-old found herself being chatted up by Greer at a bar on Yonge St (“yawnj,” as he pronounced it). They spoke for hours, largely about the quirky differences between Canadian and American English.
“Garburator vs garbage disposal, butt vs bum, hoodie vs bunnyhug, we really got into it,” Pryce said. “It took him a full ten minutes to wrap his head around the word ‘eavestrough.’”
The two planned to head back to Greer’s hotel room until he brought things to a screeching halt by saying “It’s cold out. Lemme put on my beanie.”
“That was it for me, in an instant,” said Pryce. “It was worse than when I dumped my university boyfriend for insisting Canadians say ‘oot and aboot,’ like we’re Scottish or something.”
“All countries that share a language have some differences in idiom and pronunciation,” said Dr. Mandy Manhas from the University of Saskatchewan’s Linguistics Department. “They’re usually decipherable, and can even be fun. But a grown man saying he wears a beanie? Like, a little multicoloured cap with a spinning propeller? Yeah, I’d be getting my own Uber at that point.”
“If only he’d called it a ski hat,” Pryce said. “Or a knitted cap, or even had some expression he made up, like ‘head sock,’ I could’ve handled it. But beanie? Ugh. Way to ruin practical winter headwear for me forever.”
“I don’t know what went wrong,” said Greer. “Maybe I didn’t show enough enthusiasm for that bag of All-Dressed chips she made me eat. God, those things taste like a dumpster came down with a case of heartburn.”
“This hasn’t happened to me since that Aussie guy offered to dink me on his bike,” Pryce said. “I found out later that it means having someone ride on your crossbar. It’s a shame that didn’t work out. For some reason, he was super interested in my Roots sweatshirt.”
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