The Curious Case of the Duotang and the Washroom

I spent eight years studying French, four delightful years with the stern but wonderful Mme Sunderland learning to have strange and stilted conversations we'd never use and never forget. "Aie! La moustique a me pique!" We shyly sang along with her as we learned beautiful Christmas songs. We'll never use those either, but I wouldn't trade those lessons for anything. College French was much more serious but equally delightful. While I drove my poor professor crazy by my constant gazing out of the tall open windows in old Jewell Hall, I was an enthusiastic conversationalist who often nudged my sleepy classmates into discussions about whatever French novel we were reading. I became a master of French vocabulary, filing away each new word after rolling its new sounds in my mouth like a marble. I may not have been the most gifted at proper syntax, but my vocabulary was superb! But once those eight years of French language and literature had ended, I never expected to be back in the classroom again learning those lists of new words and trotting them out in stilted practice conversations.

I find myself back in the classroom, now at the front of the class as the teacher, but still rolling around new words and finding ways to trot them out and show my skill. Who knew Canadians spoke a foreign language? Almost daily, I encounter a new word and never fail to be surprised by how foreign it feels. Here I am in a place that looks an smells like an old high school in the rural American Midwest, but I am constantly reminded that I'm in a completely different world. Bathrooms are "washrooms." I've made the mistake of asking for a "restroom" and been sent on a confusing goose chase to a "restauRANT."

Students earn "marks" not grades, and instead of taking a test, they "write a test" or "sit for exams." My poor students had to adjust to their teacher's strange references to "points" and "grades."

Folders with brads in them to hold papers in place are referred to as "duotangs." This particularly exotic marble of a word still delights me. I've given up on referring to them as "folders" to avoid the puzzled look from my freshmen (called grade 9's by everyone but me).

The spelling differences, while expected, still take some getting used to. Thankfully, my reliable Canadian spell checker just discreetly changes my spelling as I type, saving me from sticking out as an American sore thumb as I communicate with parents or write tests for my students.

Seniors, or "grade twelves" become "graduands" at the end of the year (God willing) and go on to either college or university, which are not interchangeable terms. On the day of graduation, they'll line up "side by each" to receive their diplomas.

On the whole, these differences are refreshing, placing me on the outside of "my own" language and reminding me that American English is actually not what is spoken by others around the world, that we Yankees are not the norm we like to think we are.