CanadianaIn keeping with my long-established tradition of force-feeding foreigners information about my home and native land, I've decided to introduce a new feature.
Each week, I will provide you with the name of one famous person who is actually Canadian, one fascinating tidbit of Canadian history, and one Canadian word. I will probably run out of Canadian words quite early on, at which point, I will simply drop that part of the feature hoping no one remembers.
Famous Canadian
Mary Pickford. She was a famous silent actress, which makes sense, because we Canadians are known for our silences. (I think she actually did talk on her own time, but I can't say for certain.) She married the swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks Junior, famous, of course, for buckling swashes, which was apparently an impressive thing to do in the early part of the last century.
Fascinating Canadian Historical Tidbit
Faced with vast expanses of frozen water and lots of rocks, Canadians invented curling. No, really, there's no need to thank us. It was our pleasure.
Canadian Word
Poguey. Slang for Unemployment Insurance benefits. Actually, this only works on the East Coast of Canada. People in Alberta wouldn't know what you were talking about because they all earn their money by the sweat of their brows and they don't depend on government handouts like those lazy bastards on the East Coast.
4 comments:
mary, you've done us all a great service, once again. i did not know how many leaves the canadian maple leaf has, but now i do - and it's alot, by the look of it.
mary pickford is dear to all residents aged 90 and over in palm springs, CA, who flock to shows at the mary pickford theater, which may or may not be on mary pickford boulevard. it's so popular, you'd think there was a $1.99 special on pancakes at 4pm in a nearby restaurant. by gum, there probably is!
there is only one leaf on the canadian flag, the question is, how many little pointy things are on it? and the answer is, beats me. that's why i employed the clever "flag in motion" design you see here, for obfuscatory purposes.
i'm glad to hear mary pickford remains "america's sweetheart," even if it's only to that portion of america that couldn't hear her even if she DID talk.
yes, mary, you see how completely confused i was regarding the canadian flag.
in case anyone was wondering, the american flag has approximately 50 of those star-shaped dealie-bobs. that would add up to quite a lot of pointy things! and i'm not even counting the corners of those 10+ stripey guys!
the american flag has long baffled me, that's why, whenever i encounter one, i burn it.
there's something to be said for a design as simple as that of the former soviet union -- one hammer, one popsicle, no confusion.
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