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Joined: Mar 2001
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
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I mean, Alaska's so damn big, Canada could be an *enclave of the U.S.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
When I was a wee lad, Canada was 2nd biggest country after the Soviet Union. Now that various bits have been hived off the Soviet Union is Canada still No. 2 or did it get promoted?
Bingley
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Joined: Mar 2001
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
That might depend upon the legal status of the recent territorial concessions to the Native Americans, I suppose?
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Posts: 2,154
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154 |
Being Canucks we don't try to annex territory to get promoted we just wait politely for others to implode. I'm not sure Russia lost enough to be demoted. Jeeves says no, Russia is still well in the lead.
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
I've probably asked before, but where does "Canucks" come from?
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Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
where does "Canucks" come from?
Quebec. But seriously, from Canada.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
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Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 500
addict
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addict
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 500 |
Quote:
But what's "ucks"?
Same as the "ees" in "Yankees"?
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
From the OED2: colloq. Also Kanuck, etc. [App. f. the first syllable of Canada.] 1. A Canadian; spec. a French Canadian. 2. A Canadian horse or pony. 3. The French-Canadian patois. B. adj. Of or pertaining to Canada or its inhabitants. In U.S. usage, gen. derogatory. 1835 H. C. Todd Notes upon Canada 92 Jonathan distinguishes a Dutch or French Canadian, by the term Kanuk. Same source: Yankee Also Yankey, Yanky, pl. Yankies. [Source unascertained. The two earliest statements as to its origin were published in 1789: Thomas Anburey, a British officer who served under Burgoyne in the War of Independence, in his Travels II. 50 derives Yankee from Cherokee eankke slave, coward, which he says was applied to the inhabitants of New England by the Virginians for not assisiting them in a war with the Cherokees; William Gordon in Hist. Amer. War states that it was a favourite word with farmer Jonathan Hastings of Cambridge, Mass., c 1713, who used it in the sense of ‘excellent’. Appearing next in order of date (1822) is the statement which has been most widely accepted, viz. that the word has been evolved from North American Indian corruptions of the word English through Yengees to Yankees (Heckewelder, Indian Nations iii. ed. 1876, p. 77); cf. Yengees. Perhaps the most plausible conjecture is that it comes from Du. Janke, dim. of Jan John, applied as a derisive nickname by either Dutch or English in the New England states (J. N. A. Thierry, 1838, in Life of Ticknor, 1876, II. vii. 124).
Hence "Yankee v. (rare—1), trans. to deal cunningly with like a Yankee, to cheat […] 1837 Fraser's Mag. XVI. 683 [They] are considered capable of ‘*Yankeeing’ the more simple-minded Canadians.
Not that I’d want to stir up old wars or anything but
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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