So I had a little arguement this weekend with a few girls, one from Inianapolis and one from Atlanta about the meaning of the word Toboaggan. Now I got a little worked up for which I'm a little ashamed, however, I think that any Canadian can understand my frustration. For some reason some Americans think that the word toboggan means tuque or hat, and will argue with you about it. As a Canadian who knows what real snow is, I would have to disagree. So I did a little bit of research to settle this arguement once and for all.
I went to the Merriam-Webster Online dictionary and here's what I found out.
A Toboggan is a French-Canadian word meaning a long flat-bottomed light sled usually made of thin strips of wood and curved up at the end. Here's a picture.
A Sled is a vehicle on runners used for transportation, especially used my children to coast down hills. Here's a picture.
Now a Tuque is another French-Canadian word that means a knitted hat, usually pointed, but it doesn't have to be. Here's a picture of a tuque.
Now I hope this clears things up for everyone. I'll try not to get too upset when having this arguement in the future, I'll just refer people to this page instead.
2 comments:
Karen don't feel bad about getting worked up over something like this. As a Canadian living in the States it's your duty to straighten those yanks, oh wait you're too far south to safely use the term "yanks". But you can't let Americans tell you what Canadian terms mean. For goodness sake, if they know that "tobogan" and "toque" are Canadian words shouldn't they believe it when a Canadian tells them what they mean?
And for the record, when I lived in Illinois a lot of people there new what a tobogan is. We'd go tobaganing on those rare occasions when we had enough snow. So I think the further north you go the more in the know people are when it comes to knowing what a tobogan is.
Hey there! I had this discussion with a friend from North Carolina and she said that a toboggan is a toque and also a sled. How confusing! She does know that Canadians call the hat a toque though. The joys of different cultures and names of things!
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