What do I like Canada? The band The Dayglo Abortions. Nothing the U.S. has ever produced can compare to them.
And nobody has mentioned Tim Horton’s, eh?
Had a delightful time with relatives in Nova Scotia (my grandmother, who was a saint, a SAINT I tell you! was from C.B.) and spent a weekend in Halifax on my own last summer. Wonderful time, except that when it’s really hot there’s hardly any buildings that’re air-conditioned or even enough fans to go around. I also couldn’t forget that my grandmother and all her sisters had to leave their home to be able to find work and all ended up in America (although most of them ultimately returned; however, Grandma is buried in Brooklyn and loved to tell me about the day she became a citizen in 1946.)
One thing I did notice was that the Maple Leaf is on EVERYTHING that’s big enough to take a decal on its surface. The number of flags in Halifax on a normal day seemed to equal those in America on July 4th. But it was nice to be reminded I was in a furrin’ country sometimes.
BTW, I’ve seen a number of threads on Usenet about why the people of the US call themselves Americans. First of all, everyone in the US knows perfectly well that Canada and all the Good Neighbor Policy countries are in “The Americas”. We don’t get confused between geopgraphy and people.
But it seems to boil down to:
- It’s in the official name of the country: United States OF AMERICA. Neither of the first two words lends itself readily to an obvious substitute noun.
- All the other countries that share our neck of the woods already have perfectly nice names for themselves: “Peruvian”, “Colombian”, “Bermudian”, etc. And I think Mexico is also a United States and they follow the same pattern; the last word in the title is what you call the people.
- We seem to have had it first: one of the Mathers, an early and influential family of New England preachers, referred to the colonists as “Americans” back in the late 17th century. By now it’s kind of ingrained. I believe America is the oldest country that’s been under the same form of government in this part of the world, although of course the borders keep changing.
- Some of the argument seems to be how glad the speaker of <insert quaint little country here> is soooo glad not to be a nasty arrogant ignorant American, and shame on you that we can’t be called Americans too
- While Canada is bigger (see, we do learn something about it!) the sheer population of the US is something to be considered. What’s the alternative, call somebody “American-Canadian”? Or “Canadian-American”? Both would confuse the Americans too much!
End of hijack. I loved Canada although the social problems there seemed to be papered over a little too much–there was almost a smugness sometimes about how prosperous and safe and cozy it all was. Sort of like a giant retirement home ;). Of course, the relatives I was staying with averaged about 80 years of age…
Posting while tired, never mind.