Ah, maybe it is a Canadianism... to whale on somebody means to smack them around, to beat or pound on them.


In French we use chum for a man and blonde for a woman. Since it avoids the girl/boy terms it doesn't have a childish connotation that girlfriend and boyfriend do. In Québec, people very rarely get married without living together first, and many couples never get married at all, so the terms are pretty accepted without second thought.

Mind you, chum probably wouldn't work in English because its other definiton...those bloody fish guts you throw overboard to attract sharks.