Vancouver Glossary
All right. This may be premature, but I can always add more later. Even in only just a few days, I already feel like I've been learning a new language. I started writing these down yesterday afternoon, and the list grew faster than I would have ever believed. For those people back home, in case I start talking funny any time soon, here's the secret decoder ring by which you can sort me out.
ABM – Automated Banking Machine. Where you get your loonies to buy a two-four. They're often called ATM's as well.
all-dressed – "With everything on it." What "everything" refers to is sometimes a source of mystery. When it comes to potato chips, it means salt, pepper, and ketchup.
ask – Apparently a noun in addition to a verb, which functions as a synonym of "request". "My main ask is that you just bring me the carton of homo milk on the way home. Got that?"
back bacon – The bacon people from the US call "Canadian Bacon," but all bacon in Canada is Canadian. If an American asks for Canadian bacon, people still know what he means, though.
BC – British Columbia, the province Vancouver is in. You call Ontario "Ontario," and Alberta "Alberta," and Quebec "silly Quebec," but British Columbia is almost always just "BC."
BC Place – Where the BC Lions play. It seats 60,000, but the top half is always closed, so a sold-out game is only 30,000.
Boxing Day – The day after Christmas. It's called this because you give boxes of things to the people who help you out all year long (postal carrier, etc), and not because you want to punch your in-laws.
brown bread – The bread made out of whole wheat.
bum – Your ass. If a girl is complaining about the size of her bum, it's probably not because she has a hulking homeless guy hanging around in her backyard, so be careflu how you answer.
Canada Day – July 1. The day to celebrate Canada's confederation.
Canadian food – What people in the States arrogantly call "American food," but with more gravy and donuts.
cheque – A note from a bank. If you ask me for a "check" I'll ask what you want me to proofread. If you ask for your check at a bar, you'll usually be corrected, asking if you mean your bill or your tab.
colour – A maple leaf is red.
cougar – An older woman looking to pick up younger men. When I was warned away from a particular bar in Yaletown because lately there were "a lot of cougars" there, I was terribly confused. Perhaps they come down from the mountains for the chicken wings.
deke out – To skip or sneak out of something.
Donair – I saw this at a pizza place and had to look it up on the web. A sauce made of sweetened condensed milk, vinegar, and garlic. I cannot possibly imagine how this combination would taste good (I mean, at least poutine has that greasy cheesy thing going for it, but Eagle brand milk and garlic? Geez.) It's native to Halifax, Nova Scotia, but appears to have made it over here to the west coast. I think Americans have successfully shunned it south of the border. It goes on pizza, burgers, and fried pita sandwiches.
Flying Wedge – The best pizza place in all the great white north. Where else can you get a Spinach Fettucine or a Sexy Mexi?
football – a game played on a field 110 yards long by skinny athletes with mullets who weren't good enough skaters to play hockey. Loosely related to the US sport called "NFL football." Somehow the American version lost their 12th player to create a 4th down. Weird, eh? The BC Lions are almost as big here as the Canucks.
francophone – The people all the signs in French around here are meant for. Everyone studies French in high school, but about the only ones who still speak it are the ones who spoke it to begin with.
garburator – The thing in the sink drain that eats the leftovers.
Gas Town – Not what happens from eating too much poutine — rather, the old section of eastern downtown along the harbour. There are lots of tourists here. Canadians sell them lots of tourist things, like mooses in mountie suits. The steam clock here is not really run by steam and it's not clear why the tourists get such a kick out of it.
General Motors Place – Where the Vancouver Canucks play. Aside from the traditional four seasons in Vancouver, there's also Hockey Season, and Almost Hockey Season. An NHL strike really seems to mess with people's calendars.
Green Machine – What TD Canada Trust calls its ABMs.
GST – The national 7% Goods and Services Tax, added to almost all purchases after the PST (Provincial Sales Tax). Your two-four of beer will probably have a 10% alcohol tax instead. Sometimes called the "grab and steal tax" by critics (i.e. everyone).
harbour – Where the boats park.
Hastings – Hastings Street. Also sometimes referred to as "that one part of east downtown." The best place to find heroin junkies, homeless people who talk to their own socks, and marijuana-related businesses. Vancouverites seem to get a perverse kick out of making a point to tell people not to go here. I think they're secretly kind of proud of their city's single tiny little dark side. On the other hand, nobody seems to mind the prostitutes at Seymour and Richards at all, so not everything seedy is necessarily a nuisance.
Holy Joe! – An exclamation, pretty much equivalent to "Holy Anything-else!" but squeaky clean so as not to offend anyone. There was a Hayzi Fantaysee song called this, but I think that's a coincidence.
homo milk – Whole milk (homogenized milk). Straight people are welcome to drink it, too.
hydro – The electric power for your home. The water bill is just called "water."
initialize – To sign your initials on something.
knapsack – A bookbag or small backpack. The term "backpack" is reserved for the big bulky things the hikers haul around.
knock up – To throw together or make, as in "Why don't you go knock up a batch of brownies?" And here I thought people were being more intimate with their food than I cared to visualize, though there is that odd "bun in the oven" overlap. There's a television commercial that repeats this phrase several times during its duration, and it always catches my attention.
lane – The alley behind your building. I don't know if a country lane is any better.
library – A building which looks just like the colloseum in Rome, but seems to have books inside instead of gladiators.
Lookout! – (pronounced "Luke Oat") The tower in Vancouver that looks like it has a flying saucer on top. The name of the whole building is Harbour Centre. It's totally Canadian no matter which name you use.
loonie – A one dollar coin. It has a loon on it. Of course.
loonie bin – The bargain bin out front of a store. I'm not sure if the other meaning applies — I've never heard someone use it. This could lead to some funny misunderstandings when talking about your crazy aunt's whereabouts.
oat – The opposite of "in."
parkade – Neither a butter replacement nor a place to find a vintage Pac-Man game, it's the building where you can pay to park your car.
Plaza of Nations – Where you'll find the casino, if they ever finish rebuilding it.
pogo – A corndog, sort of.
pop – A soft drink or soda.
postal code – The six character letter and number combination that goes after the province. Canadians will give in and call it a ZIP if they're dealing with confused Americans. Most web forms which were magnanimously updated to include Canadian provinces in the dropdown still choke on postal codes, so you just have to pray that your SCTV DVD boxed set makes it here without it, or else shop at Amazon.ca instead.
poutine – Canadian dish made with french fries and cheese and various sorts of sauce or gravy. In BC it's usually brown gravy, but at the Quebec style places you'll find barbecue sauce or tabasco mixed in as well. It tastes better than it sounds, and it sounds better than it looks.
province – Any of the ten primary divisions of Canada. Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia. Often the term also includes the three territories as well. Whenever having to write one of these in a blank labeled "State," Canadians' faces will wrinkle up. I haven't yet figured out if the Innuit get upset at having to write Nunavit in a blank marked "Province."
Purolator – A service for shipping your BC Salmon to someone in a hurry. They do office documents, too, of course.
Quebec – A loose synonym for "splitters."
Remembrance Day – November 11, the day World War I ended. In US they call it Veterans Day or Armistice Day, but in some parts of Canada they call it nothing because it's only celebrated in certain provinces and municipalities and not others. Guess Manitoba's never been attacked, eh.
rockstar – Like, really awesome. He's a rockstar project manager.
RC – The mounted police. Short for RCMP.
RRSP – A tax-deferred retirement plan. They're better than 401Ks but no one is sure exactly why.
side-by-each – When two things are next to each other, rather than one after the other.
ski-doo – One of those vehicles with the skis in front and treads in back. Call it a snowmobile if you want.
SkyTrain – The light rail in Vancouver. People here are very proud of it, and seem to find excuses to ride it even when they don't have to. When rates go up, though, it suddenly becomes the bane of the city's existence. I've yet to find an explanation as to why the Millenium Line follows the Expo Line for 2/3 of its course.
sleeve – A glass of beer to small to be a pint. Usually 14oz.
Starbucks – How you know you've reached the end of a block. If someone tells you to meet them at the Starbucks at the corner of Robson and Thurlow, be sure to ask which side of the street.
Surrey – Where Van City's rednecks come from, if they're not from Alberta, of course. Actually, mostly South Asians (Indians, Pakistanis), but Surrey jokes can sitll be heard occasionally.
territory – One of the three sparsely populated divisions of Northern Canada, "above the 60." (60th parallel). Yukon Territory, Northwest Territory, or Nunavit.
Tim Horton's – Where you buy your donuts. If you're into donut holes, ask for TimBits.
toque – A winter hat with flaps. Or sometimes without. Or just a winter hat in general. Or even just a knit hat. I can't figure out when it's a toque or when it's not anymore, honestly.
toonie – The two dollar coin. It doesn't have a toon on it (unless that's how you refer to either the queen or a polar bear). It sounds kind of like two, though, and this is really the official name for it. Ask the Prime Minister.
two-four – When you need a lot of beer, you buy them in a case of 24 — a two-four. Also sometimes a reference to May Two-Four, which is another name for Victoria Day.
Van City – Not a car dealership — it's the city of Vancouver.
Victoria Day – A statutory holiday which used to always represent the reigning monarch's birthday and was renamed and moved around with each new ruler, but finally got permanently moved back to Queen Victoria's May 24 birthday and named after her.
West End – The northwestern half of downtown. This was the original residential part of the city, and has some very old buildings. There's also a very large gay population here, so the local businesses are a little more interesting than many other parts of the city.
whereabouts – Not a noun, as in "the most recent whereabouts of the perpetrator," but rather an interrogative pronoun, as in "Whereabouts are you headed after you finish that beer, eh?" This expression is so Canadian folksy it makes me laugh like a silly person.
wicket – A bank teller window. Don't hit it with your cricket bat or knock a croquet ball through it, or somebody's not going to cash that next paycheque.
zed – The last letter of the alphabet. For some reason people in the US say it the same way the Quebecois say "the."
ABM – Automated Banking Machine. Where you get your loonies to buy a two-four. They're often called ATM's as well.
all-dressed – "With everything on it." What "everything" refers to is sometimes a source of mystery. When it comes to potato chips, it means salt, pepper, and ketchup.
ask – Apparently a noun in addition to a verb, which functions as a synonym of "request". "My main ask is that you just bring me the carton of homo milk on the way home. Got that?"
back bacon – The bacon people from the US call "Canadian Bacon," but all bacon in Canada is Canadian. If an American asks for Canadian bacon, people still know what he means, though.
BC – British Columbia, the province Vancouver is in. You call Ontario "Ontario," and Alberta "Alberta," and Quebec "silly Quebec," but British Columbia is almost always just "BC."
BC Place – Where the BC Lions play. It seats 60,000, but the top half is always closed, so a sold-out game is only 30,000.
Boxing Day – The day after Christmas. It's called this because you give boxes of things to the people who help you out all year long (postal carrier, etc), and not because you want to punch your in-laws.
brown bread – The bread made out of whole wheat.
bum – Your ass. If a girl is complaining about the size of her bum, it's probably not because she has a hulking homeless guy hanging around in her backyard, so be careflu how you answer.
Canada Day – July 1. The day to celebrate Canada's confederation.
Canadian food – What people in the States arrogantly call "American food," but with more gravy and donuts.
cheque – A note from a bank. If you ask me for a "check" I'll ask what you want me to proofread. If you ask for your check at a bar, you'll usually be corrected, asking if you mean your bill or your tab.
colour – A maple leaf is red.
cougar – An older woman looking to pick up younger men. When I was warned away from a particular bar in Yaletown because lately there were "a lot of cougars" there, I was terribly confused. Perhaps they come down from the mountains for the chicken wings.
deke out – To skip or sneak out of something.
Donair – I saw this at a pizza place and had to look it up on the web. A sauce made of sweetened condensed milk, vinegar, and garlic. I cannot possibly imagine how this combination would taste good (I mean, at least poutine has that greasy cheesy thing going for it, but Eagle brand milk and garlic? Geez.) It's native to Halifax, Nova Scotia, but appears to have made it over here to the west coast. I think Americans have successfully shunned it south of the border. It goes on pizza, burgers, and fried pita sandwiches.
Flying Wedge – The best pizza place in all the great white north. Where else can you get a Spinach Fettucine or a Sexy Mexi?
football – a game played on a field 110 yards long by skinny athletes with mullets who weren't good enough skaters to play hockey. Loosely related to the US sport called "NFL football." Somehow the American version lost their 12th player to create a 4th down. Weird, eh? The BC Lions are almost as big here as the Canucks.
francophone – The people all the signs in French around here are meant for. Everyone studies French in high school, but about the only ones who still speak it are the ones who spoke it to begin with.
garburator – The thing in the sink drain that eats the leftovers.
Gas Town – Not what happens from eating too much poutine — rather, the old section of eastern downtown along the harbour. There are lots of tourists here. Canadians sell them lots of tourist things, like mooses in mountie suits. The steam clock here is not really run by steam and it's not clear why the tourists get such a kick out of it.
General Motors Place – Where the Vancouver Canucks play. Aside from the traditional four seasons in Vancouver, there's also Hockey Season, and Almost Hockey Season. An NHL strike really seems to mess with people's calendars.
Green Machine – What TD Canada Trust calls its ABMs.
GST – The national 7% Goods and Services Tax, added to almost all purchases after the PST (Provincial Sales Tax). Your two-four of beer will probably have a 10% alcohol tax instead. Sometimes called the "grab and steal tax" by critics (i.e. everyone).
harbour – Where the boats park.
Hastings – Hastings Street. Also sometimes referred to as "that one part of east downtown." The best place to find heroin junkies, homeless people who talk to their own socks, and marijuana-related businesses. Vancouverites seem to get a perverse kick out of making a point to tell people not to go here. I think they're secretly kind of proud of their city's single tiny little dark side. On the other hand, nobody seems to mind the prostitutes at Seymour and Richards at all, so not everything seedy is necessarily a nuisance.
Holy Joe! – An exclamation, pretty much equivalent to "Holy Anything-else!" but squeaky clean so as not to offend anyone. There was a Hayzi Fantaysee song called this, but I think that's a coincidence.
homo milk – Whole milk (homogenized milk). Straight people are welcome to drink it, too.
hydro – The electric power for your home. The water bill is just called "water."
initialize – To sign your initials on something.
knapsack – A bookbag or small backpack. The term "backpack" is reserved for the big bulky things the hikers haul around.
knock up – To throw together or make, as in "Why don't you go knock up a batch of brownies?" And here I thought people were being more intimate with their food than I cared to visualize, though there is that odd "bun in the oven" overlap. There's a television commercial that repeats this phrase several times during its duration, and it always catches my attention.
lane – The alley behind your building. I don't know if a country lane is any better.
library – A building which looks just like the colloseum in Rome, but seems to have books inside instead of gladiators.
Lookout! – (pronounced "Luke Oat") The tower in Vancouver that looks like it has a flying saucer on top. The name of the whole building is Harbour Centre. It's totally Canadian no matter which name you use.
loonie – A one dollar coin. It has a loon on it. Of course.
loonie bin – The bargain bin out front of a store. I'm not sure if the other meaning applies — I've never heard someone use it. This could lead to some funny misunderstandings when talking about your crazy aunt's whereabouts.
oat – The opposite of "in."
parkade – Neither a butter replacement nor a place to find a vintage Pac-Man game, it's the building where you can pay to park your car.
Plaza of Nations – Where you'll find the casino, if they ever finish rebuilding it.
pogo – A corndog, sort of.
pop – A soft drink or soda.
postal code – The six character letter and number combination that goes after the province. Canadians will give in and call it a ZIP if they're dealing with confused Americans. Most web forms which were magnanimously updated to include Canadian provinces in the dropdown still choke on postal codes, so you just have to pray that your SCTV DVD boxed set makes it here without it, or else shop at Amazon.ca instead.
poutine – Canadian dish made with french fries and cheese and various sorts of sauce or gravy. In BC it's usually brown gravy, but at the Quebec style places you'll find barbecue sauce or tabasco mixed in as well. It tastes better than it sounds, and it sounds better than it looks.
province – Any of the ten primary divisions of Canada. Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia. Often the term also includes the three territories as well. Whenever having to write one of these in a blank labeled "State," Canadians' faces will wrinkle up. I haven't yet figured out if the Innuit get upset at having to write Nunavit in a blank marked "Province."
Purolator – A service for shipping your BC Salmon to someone in a hurry. They do office documents, too, of course.
Quebec – A loose synonym for "splitters."
Remembrance Day – November 11, the day World War I ended. In US they call it Veterans Day or Armistice Day, but in some parts of Canada they call it nothing because it's only celebrated in certain provinces and municipalities and not others. Guess Manitoba's never been attacked, eh.
rockstar – Like, really awesome. He's a rockstar project manager.
RC – The mounted police. Short for RCMP.
RRSP – A tax-deferred retirement plan. They're better than 401Ks but no one is sure exactly why.
side-by-each – When two things are next to each other, rather than one after the other.
ski-doo – One of those vehicles with the skis in front and treads in back. Call it a snowmobile if you want.
SkyTrain – The light rail in Vancouver. People here are very proud of it, and seem to find excuses to ride it even when they don't have to. When rates go up, though, it suddenly becomes the bane of the city's existence. I've yet to find an explanation as to why the Millenium Line follows the Expo Line for 2/3 of its course.
sleeve – A glass of beer to small to be a pint. Usually 14oz.
Starbucks – How you know you've reached the end of a block. If someone tells you to meet them at the Starbucks at the corner of Robson and Thurlow, be sure to ask which side of the street.
Surrey – Where Van City's rednecks come from, if they're not from Alberta, of course. Actually, mostly South Asians (Indians, Pakistanis), but Surrey jokes can sitll be heard occasionally.
territory – One of the three sparsely populated divisions of Northern Canada, "above the 60." (60th parallel). Yukon Territory, Northwest Territory, or Nunavit.
Tim Horton's – Where you buy your donuts. If you're into donut holes, ask for TimBits.
toque – A winter hat with flaps. Or sometimes without. Or just a winter hat in general. Or even just a knit hat. I can't figure out when it's a toque or when it's not anymore, honestly.
toonie – The two dollar coin. It doesn't have a toon on it (unless that's how you refer to either the queen or a polar bear). It sounds kind of like two, though, and this is really the official name for it. Ask the Prime Minister.
two-four – When you need a lot of beer, you buy them in a case of 24 — a two-four. Also sometimes a reference to May Two-Four, which is another name for Victoria Day.
Van City – Not a car dealership — it's the city of Vancouver.
Victoria Day – A statutory holiday which used to always represent the reigning monarch's birthday and was renamed and moved around with each new ruler, but finally got permanently moved back to Queen Victoria's May 24 birthday and named after her.
West End – The northwestern half of downtown. This was the original residential part of the city, and has some very old buildings. There's also a very large gay population here, so the local businesses are a little more interesting than many other parts of the city.
whereabouts – Not a noun, as in "the most recent whereabouts of the perpetrator," but rather an interrogative pronoun, as in "Whereabouts are you headed after you finish that beer, eh?" This expression is so Canadian folksy it makes me laugh like a silly person.
wicket – A bank teller window. Don't hit it with your cricket bat or knock a croquet ball through it, or somebody's not going to cash that next paycheque.
zed – The last letter of the alphabet. For some reason people in the US say it the same way the Quebecois say "the."