Kara in Charlotte, North Carolina, was shopping in New Brunswick, Canada, hoping to find a warm hat. She asked for a toboggan, but the store clerk was incredulous. Depending on where you’re from toboggan can mean either “a long, knitted hat” or “a long, flat-bottomed sled.” The English word toboggan comes from similar words for this type of sled in the Algonquian family of languages, first adopted by speakers of Canadian French, then passed on into English. The term toboggan hat or toboggan cap referred to the type of headwear one might wear while riding such a sled, possibly because of a resemblance between the curved shape of the hat and the curved front of the sled. This is part of a complete episode.
The cardboard cylinder left after the last sheet of toilet, tissue, or wrapping paper comes off the roll has inspired families to make up a lot of names for the tube or the sounds you can make with it. These include oh-ah, oh-ah, drit-drit, dah-dah...
A native Texan says his Canadian wife teases him about his use of hitten for a past participle, as in You have hitten every green light instead of You have hit every green light. Charles Mackay’s 1888 work, A Dictionary of Lowland Scotch, does...
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