SO even if nobody follows this thing anywho, OH HELLO! Even as a wee diary for myself, I'm going to tell my keyboard what I've been upto.
I've moved to Quebec. Whoooa. I'm in a town called
Victoriaville ('Victo' if you like that sort of thing), east & equidistant between Montreal & Quebec. It's not somewhere I'd choose to spend the next 9 months, but a job's a job and French's French. I've got a position as an English language monitor, helping hormonal brats with conversational English. Like I said, a job's a job and if I can learn backwards Catholic French in the process, bonus.
So here I am stuck in the land of Walmart, Winners and colonial French. The accent is bizarre to say the least. Quack quack is all I hear and cheese curds are by at the counters of gas stations. My Enlgish accent is proving problematic and a legitimate means through which people feel they can victimise me. On the note of which here is a list of things that cause confusion on a, mostly, daily basis:
1) Tube = Subway. Still gets me. As does:
2) Tram = Street car.
3 ) Sausage = Weiner - and yes that applies to 'weiner dogs' too. Just perverted.
4) Trolley = Shopping cart. Really? The verb 'trollied' (ie. drunk, I presume because trolleys are as easy to navigate as a drunken slag from Essex) also proves most amusing. Which leads me to:
5) Slag = Slut. Need I say more...
6) Chips = Fries. EVERY FUCKING TIME.
7) Crisps = Chips. EVERY FUCKING TIME.
8) Wank = Jack off. Not really any translation that does justice to this genius bit of linguistics.
9) Oi Oi = Dismissive looks
10) Improv cockney, eg. apple 'n' pears. = No questions asked.
So alas, I'm the misunderstood clown in Quebec. Neither the Quebecers nor the Canadians understand me, and me them. Bloody Americans *.
* Not a good way to make friends in Canada, at all.
