When “Messages” Means “Errands” or Going to the Shops

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Who am I speaking to? It’s Irv Teitelbaum from Montreal.

Hi, Irv. This is Martha.

And this is Grant. Welcome to the show.

English-speaking Montrealers my entire life have never used the word, I’ve got a few errands to do, it’s messages.

It’s always, I’ve got to go out and do some messages, and then we can deal with the issues at hand.

And I never really got anyone who understood why this was a typical English-speaking Montreal peccadillo, let’s say.

And a few weeks ago, found a paragraph in a novel by Tana French, who was an Irish writer.

And the messages appears in her book, and the character in the book says, what does that mean?

And the response was, oh, it’s just some, I’ve got to pick up some things at the supermarket.

That doesn’t quite explain it, and I’m thrilled that you guys are going to fill me in.

So you’re saying in Montreal, it’s typical for people to say, I’m going to do some messages, and they mean they’re going to go to the shops or run some errands.

Precisely.

Okay. I did not know that.

I didn’t know that it was a common thing on this side of the Atlantic.

But I do know something about it on the other side of the Atlantic, and it’s not just in Ireland, but the Scots and the Welsh even may use it, particularly the Scots.

And what’s happened here is the oldest meaning of errand, E-R-R-A-N-D, is message or news or tidings because what it meant was a verbal message that a runner or a messenger was to repeat word for word to the recipient so the errand was the message.

That was what an errand was it was delivering a message and so it’s an ancient word as far back as the year 890 A.D. that is some old old English and similar meanings can be found in other Germanic languages like old Icelandic.

So in modern Scots for example you go the messages not go do the messages but just go the messages meaning you do the shopping and so if someone comes back from the shops Scott might say show us the messages meaning show me what you bought and a shopping bag might be called a message bag.

And one interesting thing in Ireland and Scotland doing messages may more often means shopping for someone else rather than for yourself.

And because of the settlement of Scots and Irish in the New World in the Caribbean, you may also hear messages used this way in English-speaking parts of the Caribbean.

How about that, Irv?

That’s absolutely fascinating.

But you know, there’s another layer to this, which is significant in Montreal because of the French-speaking history there.

There is an old French expression, faire une commission, which has two possible translations, either to do an errand or to deliver a message.

Faire des commissions would be to run errands or deliver messages.

So you see that someone who didn’t understand French or English equally well might mistranslate it into English.

So it could either be translated as run an errand or deliver a message.

So I wonder if in Montreal, if there isn’t a second thing happening there, if both the old English word of errant meaning message is happening and this French being translated awkwardly into English is happening as well, and the two of them combining to result in this Montreal dialect use.

That’s interesting because I’m fairly bilingual, and when I’ve been speaking to a French francophone person, I might say, and I have said it, which is basically what you just mentioned.

But also, in the late 19th century, there was a tremendous amount of immigration into Montreal from Ireland.

So that may have…

And, of course, the Scots were always pretty big on Montreal in that era.

Of course, things have changed.

But very, very interesting, and I thank you.

Yeah, our pleasure.

Thanks, Irv.

And call us again sometime.

I love hearing from Montreal because it is such a—

I love it when two cultures and two languages rub up against each other and lend each other different parts of their languages, and that’s where you get the most exciting things happening.

So Montreal is just this perfect little pot of soup where we like to take samples from time to time.

Well, thank you for explaining it.

All right. Take care now and be well.

You too. Bye-bye.

All right. Bye-bye.

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