Duckohuff
"What's our official Scrabble dictionary going to be for this game? How about this one, the . . . Oxford Dictionary of Canadian English?"
"Sounds fine."
It may seem like a small bit to quibble over for non-Scrabble-players, but needing to spell FLAVOUR when you only have room for FLAVOR can make or break a game. This time around, we had one FIBRE instead of FIBER, but we were reasonably certain that words like DUCKOHUFF (an asthma inhaler designed for aquatic birds), GAPO (a Spanish cat missing some teeth), and CODIVER (the safety buddy assigned to a scuba student) wouldn't have been in any of the dictionaries we picked up.
No, the interesting thing about the choice of the Oxford Dictionary of Canadian English was not what was omitted, but rather what was included.
Who knew that "Montreal smoked meat" was an official word? Sure it's a valid concept, as much as anything like Boston Baked Beans, or Beijing Roasted Duck (Peking Duck for those of you who missed the whole Wade-Giles to Pinyin conversion event), or Kentucky Fried Chicken, I suppose. But does that make it an official dictionary word?
It didn't end there. Lurking just above Montreal smoked meat (perhaps as literally as it could be) was "Montreal bagel."
"All right, that's where I draw the line," shouted one of the Scrabblites. "If San Francisco Sourdough isn't in there, or New York pizza, or maybe Irish soda bread, then those Quebeckers can take their Montreal bagels and shove them up their Cirque du Soleil butts."
Then it hit us.
"Can-con?"
"Does Can-con apply to dictionaries, too?"
"20% of all terms in any dictionary published in Canada must be demonstrably Canadian in nature. . . ."
"If that's true, and they call Montreal bagel a word of its own, then 'Vancouver popsicle' for a hypodermic needle better freakin' be in there. . . ."
"Sounds fine."
It may seem like a small bit to quibble over for non-Scrabble-players, but needing to spell FLAVOUR when you only have room for FLAVOR can make or break a game. This time around, we had one FIBRE instead of FIBER, but we were reasonably certain that words like DUCKOHUFF (an asthma inhaler designed for aquatic birds), GAPO (a Spanish cat missing some teeth), and CODIVER (the safety buddy assigned to a scuba student) wouldn't have been in any of the dictionaries we picked up.
No, the interesting thing about the choice of the Oxford Dictionary of Canadian English was not what was omitted, but rather what was included.
Who knew that "Montreal smoked meat" was an official word? Sure it's a valid concept, as much as anything like Boston Baked Beans, or Beijing Roasted Duck (Peking Duck for those of you who missed the whole Wade-Giles to Pinyin conversion event), or Kentucky Fried Chicken, I suppose. But does that make it an official dictionary word?
It didn't end there. Lurking just above Montreal smoked meat (perhaps as literally as it could be) was "Montreal bagel."
"All right, that's where I draw the line," shouted one of the Scrabblites. "If San Francisco Sourdough isn't in there, or New York pizza, or maybe Irish soda bread, then those Quebeckers can take their Montreal bagels and shove them up their Cirque du Soleil butts."
Then it hit us.
"Can-con?"
"Does Can-con apply to dictionaries, too?"
"20% of all terms in any dictionary published in Canada must be demonstrably Canadian in nature. . . ."
"If that's true, and they call Montreal bagel a word of its own, then 'Vancouver popsicle' for a hypodermic needle better freakin' be in there. . . ."