[QUOTE=alphaboi867]
Aussies have it much easier. There the largest city is always the capital (except at a federal level).
[/QUOTE]
The only ones in the U.S. are – let’s see if I can do this off the top of my head – Honolulu, Phoenix, Denver, Atlanta, Providence, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, and Boston.
[QUOTE=tomndebb]
I don’t think that grinders or hoagies were ever common around in Michigan.
[/QUOTE]
Time are a-changing. For at least 10 years, there have been two pizza and sandwich places in the Detroit Area specifically named for their Grinders:
Bellacino’s Pizza and Grinders, and Mancino’s Pizza and Grinders. There’s a subtle difference between the grinders and subs, too…but I won’t get into that unless you ask.
I had to retrieve this thread to add one more item.
In Canada, blue represents conservatives and red is the colour of the left. This doesn’t help when I hear about the blue and the red states in America .
[QUOTE=The Flying Dutchman]
I had to retrieve this thread to add one more item.
In Canada, blue represents conservatives and red is the colour of the left. This doesn’t help when I hear about the blue and the red states in America .
[/QUOTE]
Yes, many political parties have traditional colours… Conservatives are dark blue, Liberals are red, Greens are, uh, green (a bright apple-green), the NDP is orange (but has been using a lot of apple-green in its materials), Bloc Quebecois is light blue (I think). There have been others. The small Chrisian Heritage Party is dark purplish-red, like the colour of the flag of Latvia. The old Reform party was dark green.
And red has been the colour of the revolutionary for a long time. I wonder whether the choice of the original US commentator who made that first map during the 2000 election was thinking in terms of a right-wing revolution…?
[QUOTE=Sunspace]
And red has been the colour of the revolutionary for a long time. I wonder whether the choice of the original US commentator who made that first map during the 2000 election was thinking in terms of a right-wing revolution…?
[/QUOTE]
Traditionally, as far as I can tell on those maps, the incumbent party was blue, and the challenging party was red. So, since the Democrats had the presidency at the time of the 2000 election, they were blue on the map, and the Republicans were red. Then, after the election, the whole “Blue state-red state” thing as a cultural indicator got popular, so the Republicans are probably going to be red for a while now.
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
Traditionally, as far as I can tell on those maps, the incumbent party was blue, and the challenging party was red. So, since the Democrats had the presidency at the time of the 2000 election, they were blue on the map, and the Republicans were red.
[/QUOTE]
That makes sense… the challenging party winning would be a revolution of sorts.
[QUOTE=Spiff]
Did anyone answer the query about whether Canadians use “buck” to refer to a Canadian dollar?
I’d like to know the answer to that one, please.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, “buck” for “dollar” is used, though it seems to me to be less prevalent than it was before we had a dollar coin. Still, while you might five loonies (coins) in your pocket, you’d could also have five bucks (a bill) in your wallet.
Somebody upthread was asking what a “fifth” was, when it came to liquor bottles. We don’t use that term in Canada, but it’s my understanding that such a bottle is one-fifth of a gallon–a US gallon, of course, since that is where the term is popular. So, a “fifth” would be 25.6 ounces; or more likely 26 ounces. In other words, what we in Canada would call a “twenty-sixer.”
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
Traditionally, as far as I can tell on those maps, the incumbent party was blue, and the challenging party was red. So, since the Democrats had the presidency at the time of the 2000 election, they were blue on the map, and the Republicans were red. Then, after the election, the whole “Blue state-red state” thing as a cultural indicator got popular, so the Republicans are probably going to be red for a while now.
[/QUOTE]
No, traditionally – if you can call the short time since colour graphics have been common on television a “tradition” – they were random. And, pretty consistently, among the four major news outlets – ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS – in any one election year, generally two of them would use blue for Democrats and red for Republicans, and the other two would do the opposite. In the next election cycle, they would more or less trade off. But, so far as I can tell, there was no consistent reasoning for the colour assignments.
[QUOTE=Northern Piper]
What about “deke” - it’s primarily a hockey term, isn’t it? has it found it’s way down south?
[/QUOTE]
In the United States, the only common understanding of “deke” (if it is, indeed, common) is a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.
[QUOTE=The Flying Dutchman]
In Canada, blue represents conservatives and red is the colour of the left. This doesn’t help when I hear about the blue and the red states in America .
[/QUOTE]
That reminds me: never order Labatt Blue. It’s just “Blue.”
I’ve never heard that, but I live almost as far away from Canada as you can while still doing your History homework in English, and I have never heard that meaning of “deke”. Furthermore, the only definition of “deke” that would have come to my mind before I read that is the hockey definition, and maybe a general sports evasion move by extension.
[QUOTE=Spoons]
Yes, “buck” for “dollar” is used, though it seems to me to be less prevalent than it was before we had a dollar coin. Still, while you might five loonies (coins) in your pocket, you’d could also have five bucks (a bill) in your wallet.
[/QUOTE]
Huh. I’ve always heard “buck” as simply meaning the currency: so I could have five bucks regardless of whether it was a $5 bill, 5 loonies, two twonies and a loonie, etc.