It’s something I started noticing recently in some standup and improv shows in Toronto, not sure if it’s a new trend, or it just more noticeable now. Here are some examples I remember:
- Jokingly asking audience for their social security number. This happened in two different shows
- “I’ve been on dating apps for a presidential term”
- I heard zip code being mentioned in one act
- A performer shouting “fuck ICE”. This was not even part of any joke, just a political statement. While I sympathize, of all the scourges of the US this one is really domestic in nature and I don’t get the point bringing it up in front of a Canadian audience (unless it’s part of your set)
- And not to mention using their units of measurement, which is unfortunately commonplace (thanks a lot Brian Mulroney)
Other than the “fuck ICE” performer who said about themselves that they are Turkish (which I took to mean Turkish-Canadian, but maybe I’m wrong), the others were Canadian-born. In all cases these were young people who I don’t believe do comedy professionally.
I have nothing against American comedy, but this low key pretense that Canada is part of the US irks me.
FWIW on the fourth point, it is relevant to Canada. The US has been sending ICE to other countries. Not to mention that Canadians have been detained and even killed by them.
All my homies say fuck ICE
We are a nation of people who have no choice but to spend our workdays side by side with our high school bullies. Eventually, under them.
Which imperial unit did they use? Feet still have a following, but the rest seems fully dead in the younger population.
Cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, in cooking.
Feet and inches should still be common in construction. At least it’s how wood is sold.
We still use letter / legal paper printer measured in inches.
My bathroom scale is in pounds.
I’m sure there are some others, but we’re not fully metric on everything.
Fahrenheit in cooking, probably because we buy American appliances. Inches happen where feet do, and pounds are a good point.
There is actually a metric cup, though! And probably spoons too, or I’ve been doing it wrong.
There is no metric cup, it is 250 ml that is the definition of 1 cup. A Tablespoon is something like 25 ml, while a teaspoon is something like 5 ml I could be off on those it has been a while since I have used Tablespoons and teaspoons in cooking. Prior to my oven stopping working I switched it to Celsius I am made that I cannot do the same with the air frier I have but I rarely use it. I have made an effort to not measure things in the silly nonsense imperial measurements of inches, feet, or miles and I only do weights in metric. I do my cooking and baking by weight as I feel it is easier to get the right measurements.
A standard teaspoon works out so close to 5mL that basically just call it 5mL. A tablespoon is 3 teaspoons so 15mL. A lot of liquid medications are sold concentrated to doses of 5 or 15mL such that a teaspoon or tablespoon measure, which you can expect a typical American household to have, will do. Cough syrups for example tend to have a 1 tablespoon/15mL dosage.
There is an imperial cup, and it’s 284 point something milliliters.
I have made an effort to not measure things in the silly nonsense imperial measurements of inches, feet, or miles
I mean, they’re all arbitrary, although having consistent, round ratios definitely makes metric better.
There are at least 5 different widely-used definitions of the “cup”, that’s why it’s such a fun unit of measure.
Americanisms have been creeping into the language for ever.
Both of my parents were veterans and the pronunciation of lef-tennant was drilled into me from a young age. I didn’t know any other word for a chesterfield until I was in school. We wore running shoes and drank pop. Sofa, sneakers, sofa were instant marks of an American books and teachers would comment to point out what the Canadian term was.
That’s all gone now I guess.
It’s been happening since the revolutionary war, basically. Otherwise we’d sound Australian or South African.
We have those same regional dialects in America as well, that’s not an Americanism. Soda vs pop, running shoes vs sneakers. Chesterfield is new to me, I’d just call it a couch, but sofa is also largely used. That’s just regional, more of a west coast/east coast thing.
The examples in the post are definitely more fitting of being called Americanisms.
I know about the American regionalisms.
It feels like those are disappearing as well. “Sneaker” and 'sofa" are media defaults now.
The language maps were always interesting to me. I lived in L.A. for around a decade and all the names for a long sandwich was amazing. Submarine where I grew up. But I know there were lots of others lol.
Edited because autocorrect decided that “feels like” means “feels love me”.
Fuck ICE, though. They’ve been in the news lately for operating in Canada, and even in Europe.
And it affects Canadians who travel to the US
