Fun with vocabulary : )
So there I was, getting emails from folks wondering how I am. Answer? Sassy and sarcastic as ever.
My classmates organized a board games night on Tuesday, but since we played Taboo, perhaps it was just a game night. I'm proud to announce that the experimental team trounced the clinical team. Fun fact number 1: no one on their team was able to get the clue - it's in the US, rocks with portraits on them. As the token American I laughed and laughed - hopefully you all figured it out, but it's Mount Rushmore. Fun fact number 2: Taboo cards here have English on top and French on bottom, so you may pull up a word only to realize it's French, or worse, a cognate so you don't realize it's French until you don't recognize any of the Taboo words. Fun fact number 3: the French words and English words were the same for the vast majority of the cards, but one card had "terrorisme" for the French, and "rug" for the English word ~ we're still trying to figure out if there's some hidden connection. Anyway, it was a really nice time and I think we had 10 of the 12 in our class there at one point or another, so the sociallizing is starting to get started.
Other word stuff, some French some Canuk:
My car Red, a Chevy Cavalier is a (kA vAly A´)
A stocking cap is a "tuque"
Someone who's super on top of things e. g. very keen to do them is a "keener" - Ads, meet your new nickname
"and Bob's your uncle" - roughly "and that's it!" or "and you're done!" Not quite as good as "and you're laughing" or "you're in clover" but similar. * I think this phrase comes from the Maritime provinces
"Maritime provinces" - The Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, bordering on the Atlantic Ocean. They were politically distinct until joining the Canadian confederation in 1867. - quoted from Answers.com
Couche Tarde - literally "sleep late" but more like our term "night owl" - It's a pervasive depannuer chain whose name, I must admit, still makes me giggle
dépanneur - from the French verb dépanner, meaning "to help out of difficulty" or "troubleshoot"; often shortened to "dep") is a convenience store or independently-run corner/general store or deli.
