Posted on 01/30/2008 5:49:49 AM PST by forkinsocket
Last week, Canadians discovered, courtesy of an obscure trial in Texas, that "Canadian" does not always mean what they think it means. This followed the release of an internal memo from Mike Trent, assistant district attorney of Harris County, Texas, in which he congratulates a junior prosecutor because "he overcame a subversively good defence ... that had some Canadians on the jury feeling sorry for the defendant." The implausibility of there being many Canadians on a Texan manslaughter jury led some to conclude that "Canadians", in this context, might mean "black people", though Trent claims he thought real Canadians were present. And, though noting in passing that the National Post, the ex-Conrad Black newspaper that broke the story, delights in provocation for the sake of it, there does seem to be some evidence that the code is in general use. It's on the Racial Slur Database, for example (yes, there is such a thing. "It's supposed to be funny and/or informational," says its creator). It is also, increasingly, on the various blogs that have picked the story up. Apparently, it's most often used among waiters maligning black patrons as bad tippers - as one blogger put it, "Hey, we have a table of Canadians ... They're all yours." But it seems the euphemism has been around for at least 15 years, according to another blogger, from Michigan City, Indiana, who remembered "none too liberal white folks" using it about "poor, primarily black sections of town". Another recalled it being used in a financial brokerage house in New York City.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Yes, it does for me as well. That’s why it’s used. Nobody discriminates against Canadians (except maybe other Canadians). That’s why it’s code for much more vile words.
Canada's ambitions exposed!
It’s a new one on me, too.
I’d have thought it was a code word for “liberal.”
A couple weeks ago I heard Terry Bradshaw call Jimmy Johnson a “lead weasel”.
Me either. If someone has said "Canadian" was used as code, I would have thought it would be code for "leftist".
Me either. If someone has said "Canadian" was used as code, I would have thought it would be code for "leftist".
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