I have a serious question for any of our Canadian Yourdonites.

A couple of nights ago on The National there was a story about the dispute between the Canadian banks and the Canadian mint over coins.

As I understood it, the banks were stuck with large stocks of a coin (a C$1.00 coin?) called a "loonie" that had been soundly rejected by the public in favor of a coin called a "toonie" (a C$2 coin?).

I listened as carefully as I could, but could not come any closer than a guess as to the particulars of the "loonie".

Would one of you be so kind as to enlighten me?

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), June 11, 1999

Answers

Hardliner, the coin has a picture of a loon(bird) on the back. If you have ever been on a northern lake and heard the call of the loon you would never forget it.

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), June 11, 1999.

Hardliner, loonies are worth C$1, twonies worth C$2. I'm surprised that twonies are more popular. The loonie is much more useful, IMHO, because most machines will take loonies but not twonies.

BTW, my DH says twonies should be called doubloons, so that quarters can be pieces of eight :-)

-- Tricia the Canuck (tricia_canuck@hotmail.com), June 11, 1999.

Mike,

Thank you.

We have loons here too. They are not unique to northern lakes; they just hang out there in the summertime. I guess if it'd been a snake, it'd have bit me, but I never thought of the bird!

It is, then a C$1 coin?

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), June 11, 1999.

I wont bother anyone with the obvious Loonie Toonie cartoon connection. It's way too far off topic : )

Mike ==================================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), June 11, 1999.

Hardliner

Can you imagine the thought "U.S. loonies" for your dollar? There has to be something really differant about us Canadians eh?

-- Brian (imager@home.com), June 11, 1999.

Tricia,

Pieces of Eight; I love it! Tell your DH that I agree with him, particularly after the same National story had footage of the Canadian millennial quarters being poured en masse into a "piratey" looking chest!

BTW, the reason that I called them "toonies" is that the TV captioning software spelled it that way. You've probably noticed that it doesn't always pick the right word, and I wasn't all that sure that it was called that because of the value.

Anyway, thank you and Mike both for clueing me in.

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), June 11, 1999.

Brian,

Eh?

I know Canadian sailors do not say, "Eh eh, sir", so where does "eh" come from? (maybe I'm finally ready for the Fruitcake thread. . . I have always been a loon lover. . .)

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), June 11, 1999.

Eh? seems to be a multiordinal idiomatic particle terminating a declarative sentence. Its function is to characterize the meaning of that sentence in various ways.

Idiomatic translations may include, but are not limited to: "Are you listening?" "How about that!" "Ridiculous, isn't it?" "Damn straight." "You agree, don't you!"

Context is the key to understanding Eh!

You gotta be there.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), June 11, 1999.

Hardliner,

A question: how do you receive The National? Do you live in a border area and get it over the air, or is CBC on your cable/dish system?

An observation: when the $2 coin was introduced there was an informal national debate about what its nickname should be. [I know, Canadians are so interesting that we have to have debates on what to call coinage.] One comedian put this line into his act: "Hey did you hear that they've come up with a new name for the two dollar coin? Yeah, one US dollar."

Since the coin has the Queen on one face and a polar bear on the other some wag suggested that it should be called the "Moonie" (because it shows the Queen with a bear behind). Somehow, that nickname never stuck and we all now call it, prosaically, the "toonie".

PS - It's still only worth about $1.50 of your greenbacks.

-- Johnny Canuck (nospam@eh.com), June 12, 1999.

Johnny Canuck,

At 0 degrees latitude, 107.3 degrees West longitude and about 23,000 miles up, lives a satellite named Anik E2. CBC broadcasts its programming for all time zones onto the surface from there and anyone who knows it can "listen in" and watch.

Thanks for the story about the "Moonie". I do appreciate that sort of humor, although I am somewhat surprised that Canadians do. Nearly all the Canadians that I've known were servicemen and they took the Queen very seriously. You've exposed another facet to the Canadian national character for me!

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), June 12, 1999.

Hardliner

I believe the term EH! or EH? is some thing akin to hey! A very functionable word that even has its own variances in differant parts of Canada. To try and deal with this issue while typing is totally inadequate, one must capture the nasal tone in a perfectly developed EH? This of course is difficult to achieve at this time. If by any chance you are in BC Canada look me up and I will treat you to a coffee and discuss the deeper meaning in all things Canadian and the word Eh!

-- Brian (imager@home.com), June 12, 1999.

An American friend of mine says that Canadians say "eh" at the end of their sentences to ensure that their listeners are still awake [g]

Hardliner - Canadians do have a rather subversive humour streak. If you get the chance in the fall, look out for a show on CBC called "This hour has 22 Minutes". Their specialty is mocking those in authority, particularly politicians.

-- Johnny Canuck (nospam@eh.com), June 12, 1999.

It's a nice day out, EH? It's a nice day out, right?

That's the way it is used in the burgh.

-- FLAME AWAY (BLehman202@aol.com), June 12, 1999.

The funniest thing I ever heard about y2k and Canada was when Gary North said that Americans were saving Canada for their retirement. Maybe true. At any rate not all Canadians talk about their money like its a baby toy, loony, twony, how dumb. Myself and others call them bears and loons why not? that's what they are. I don't say eh either, and I don't know many that do. Eh is french Canadian in origin and is heard less as you go west and as you climb the literacy scale.

-- Will (sibola@hotmail.com), June 13, 1999.

What if y'all misspelled it, eh?

No, not misspelled "it" - mispelled "eh" "it", eh? But then if you misspelled "it" 'eh" then you'd never spell "eh" improperly because you could spell "eh" "it", eh?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), June 13, 1999.

SSSprrroooiiinnng, that's my cranial plug blowing. Fortunately Mr. Cook eh is very rarely written.

-- Will (sibola@hotmail.com), June 13, 1999.

The spelling of eh! is actually wrong in my mind. Should be AHYE!

It should also be noted that the aussies use eh! (ahye!) also. So it is not just of Quebec origin.

If we are going of topic here lets really get off topic.

-- Brian (imager@home.com), June 13, 1999.

But the Aussianain's would spell their eh's upside down, wouldn't they, he? she?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), June 13, 1999.

poole ?

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), June 13, 1999.

Fuck you, motherfucker.

-- Harliner (searcher@internet.com), August 08, 2004.