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Across this great nation of ours, there are approximately 30-million speakers of Canadian English. Typically, when we think of Canadian English, we identify it by what it is not: American English (and sometimes British English). However, right here at home, within our 9,984,670 km2 of space, there is a massive assortment of words we use to describe the same thing, and even when we agree on a single term, the pronunciations we employ are sometimes completely different.

So much so, that it begs the question: What do the words you use say about where you’re from? This week, we’ll try to answer that question by talking to linguistic experts, sharing stories of our own discovery of differences in the language Canadians use and exploring the regional dialects that define us all.

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Linguist David Robertson was pushing his babies in a stroller — the substantial sort that converts to a bike trailer — when he encountered one of his favourite examples of present-day Chinook Jargon usage. “Some random neighbourhood fella saw me with my convertible rig,” Robertson says. “(And) he just out of the blue hollers at me, ‘Skookum stroller, eh!’”