Eh? Too Canadian?
by
Howard Richler
As Canada has reached the august age of 151, I’m taking the
opportunity to reflect on a quintessential Canadianism. In 1959, when
Canada was but a mere whippersnapper of 92, Harold Allen in his article Canadian-American Speech Differences Along
the Middle Border, which appeared in the Journal of the Canadian Linguistic Association, wrote: “Eh? is so exclusively a Canadian feature that
immigration officials use it as an identifying clue.” While not as pervasive
nowadays, some Americans take pleasure in pointing to our proclivity for using
the term. Perhaps you’ve seen the Molson commercial entitled The Office Fight in the I Am Canadian series where an American gets
his “bell rung” after mocking a Canadian’s supposed ubiquitous usage of eh?
Granted the
supposed Canadian addiction to the word eh?
is a stereotype, it is a word that Canadians are famous (or perhaps
infamous) for. While its use is not unique
to Canadian English, Canadians appear to use it more widely and more often than
other speakers of English.
In the early
1980s, eh? was used in a satirical sense on the comedy
program SCTV that was featured
on CBC. In a segment entitled Great White North we were introduced to
the beer-chugging brothers Bob and Doug McKenzie who peppered virtually every
sentence with at least two ehs? More
recently, in May 2017, I read an article entitled Origins of eh? How 2 little letters came to define Canadians by CBC’s Paul Karchut in which
he quotes Derek Denis, a post-doctorate fellow at the University of
Victoria’s linguistic department, who
said that “the SCTV sketches changed how
Canadians and people outside of Canada
viewed the word {eh}.” It is my
recollection, however, that Americans were mocking the Canadian use of the word
for a long time before that. I attended a summer camp in New York State as a
thirteen-year old in 1961 in which I was often derided by my American bunkmates
for my supposed repeated use of the word eh?
When I was teased
by Americans for my oft-used ehs? I
would point out to them that it was merely an equivalent to their use of the
equally inelegant huh? And, whereas a Canadian might say “So you got
a new car, eh?, an American would utter “So you got a new car, huh?” In both cases, one is using the add-on to
confirm a fact. Truth be told, Canadians will use eh? to confirm whether the person you’re talking to has really
absorbed what you’re telling them. So a Canadian might say “Well, I got a new
car, eh?” whereas an American is unlikely to say “Well I got a new car, huh?”
The use of eh? for the Canadian in this instance is an attempt for confirmation
from the person you’re addressing that they have bothered to recognize what you’re asserting.
Actually, eh? predates the birth of our
nation by almost half a century aa
Geoffrey Chaucer used the Middle English ey?
in The Canterbury Tales in the late
14th century. In the United Kingdom there are two main constructions
of the word as a request for repetition and as a tag. Here are some literary
examples from British and Irish writers:
“Wasn’t it lucky? Eh! (Oliver
Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer,
1773)
“And who is to look after the horses, eh” (Emily Bronté, Wuthering
Heights,1847)
“So you think he might be hard on me, eh? (Charles Dickens, Bleak House, 1852)
“Breakfast out here, eh? (George
Bernard Shaw, Arms and the Man, 1894)
And had I been an erudite 13-year old in 1961, I could have pointed out
how even American writers stooped to use eh?:
“Didn’t come, eh?” (Ernest
Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises, 1926)
“So this is Brooklyn, eh?” (Arthur
Miller, Death of a Salesman, 1949)
“Not like some people we know, eh?” (J.D.Salinger, Franny and Zooey, 1961)
This being
said, we must admit that eh? is rather
prolific in Canada. In fact, Kalin Wright in Eh is Canadian Eh? lists ten functions of the word eh?
in Canadian English.
1) Statement of opinion Nice day, eh?
2) Statement of fact It goes here, eh?
3) Command
Open the window, eh?
4) Exclamation What a game, eh?
5) Question What are you trying to do, eh?
6) Pardon substitute Eh? What did you say?
7) In a fixed expression Thanks, eh?
8) Insult
You’re a real snob, eh?
9) Accusation
You took the last piece, eh?
10)Telling a story
The
guy is on the 27th floor, then he gets on the ledge, eh?
By all
accounts, however, in the last decade there has been a marked decline in the
use of eh? by Canadian kids who are more likely to employ right?, or the inelegant
American huh? as a tag-on to their
speech. This tendency is most common in large Canadian cities as young people
regard the use of eh? as non-cool and
rural. After all, what self-respecting young person wants to sound like their
nerdy parents or country cousins?
It’s a crying shame, eh?
Richler’s latest book is Wordplay:
Arranged and Deranged Wit.
