A few pops

A few pops

Returning to Canada after spending well over two years in France – and moving to a city where English is the predominant language – have been quite a shock to say the least! (So have the incredibly high prices here in Canada…but that’s a whole other story for another day.)

I have not lived in the Anglosphere for 46 years. Time and distance have radically transformed my perception of the Ontario English which I must have spoken and heard as a kid. To my jaded ear, people here in Ottawa often sound like chipmunks on steroids or a parody of Canadian English speakers in US films, eh?

I love the novelty and richness of the vernacular.

I even love listening to the premier of Ontario, whom I hear people call Drug Ford, a gent who talks about “having a few pops,” referring to going out to swig beer, or who swallows a bug , then exclaims in the English of my childhood:

“Holy Christ, I just swallowed a bee,” he said, coughing violently.

“Sorry guys. The little bugger got away in there…”

“Man, he went right down the hatch,” he said, laughing.

And here he is talking about people having “a few pops.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says there is ‘nothing wrong with golfing’ and that it’s the ‘mobility’ before and after that’s the problem. After golfing, he claims, “people like to have a few pops.”

On Saturday, my son Dan treated me to an Ottawa Senators hockey game for my birthday.

Together, we had a few pops.

I knew I was home again at last.

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