• Happy International Carrot Day! 🥕

POLL: How do you pronounce portage?

How do you pronounce portage?

  • pȯr-ˈtäzh

    Votes: 18 52.9%
  • ˈpȯr-tij

    Votes: 16 47.1%

  • Total voters
    34
Its a French word.
ah... but so are "Gentile" and "colleague" not to mention "Dubois" (a town in PA pronounced DO-boyce) or North Versailles (a suburb of Pittsburgh where people might wet themselves laughing if you pronounce it as something other than "Ver-sails".

Actually, a lot of towns in Western PA with mispronounced French names... including, of course, Portage, PA (pronounced, of course, Por-tij)
 
Only Americans use ˈpȯr-tij (at least every (US) east coaster I've every paddled with)

We (Canadians) do not sit on a stoop, it's a porch or veranda. We do relax on a chesterfield not a couch or sofa (but that usage is fading away).

More stuff to learn before you visit Canada Eh?..........

Do you have a serviette? I've spilled poutine on the chesterfield.
 
Just because many of us "east coasters" live south of the border, for the most part we (at least I) do not speak with anything like a NYC dialect. I have had linguists place my home town accent at more then 350 mile from that place. For over 30 years I have been an instructdor of a BSA high adventure wilderness guide training program, and we are modeled after french Canadian voya-geurs' ( with our best attempt of a French accent), complete with a custom red wool toque presented upon graduation and for the instructors a custom trade silver hat pin with a colorful woven Metis inspired waist sash. And we have home made wool capotes to wear while marching in winter parades.

I cook the ba-noock'

voyageur bannock.jpeg

parade capote guys.jpeg
 
Last edited:
In a similar vein, when talking or writing are you consistent in your use of measurement terms (yards/metres etc).

Visitors to Canada from the US are "required" to use metric measurements, some do, some don't.

Personally I have been around since way before metric became a thing here (1970). I use a mix of both depending on who I am speaking/writing to and perhaps more important the actual type of measurement.

I have a habit of mixing both types even in the same sentence........

"After this 200 metre portage, we will have to paddle 3 miles down the lake where there are two short(ish) ports, the first is just 50 feet, the second one is 150 metres". After that there is a 300 metre Class III which we might be able to run. Maybe you should stand by with your 75 foot throw rope in case I swim, there is a 3 metre ledge at the bottom and I don't want to swim over that especially given the water temp is only a few degrees above freezing (are those c or f degrees?) ( doesn't matter what matters is that it is dang cold!).

or

"It going to be really hot today, the forecast is for well over 90 degrees but it's going down to zero overnight" (the 90 is f, the latter is c).

My Canadian friends know what I mean, my American friends are thinking "Zero?????, really?)

Then of course there are things like Gallon.

Statement: "I'll need a gallon of water for dinner tonight"

Q - Is that an Imperial Gallon or a US Gallon?"

A - Doesn't matter just fill up the pot

Occasionally heard in a grocery store when an American is doing last minute shopping near the put-in.......

Q - Does this quart of milk seem small to you?

A - No, that is the normal size (muttering.... for a Litre!)


Then there is the mass confusion when a freeze dried meal only gives the water required in cups, which type of "cup" is that?

When writing you could substitute a few meters for metres, just for fun
 
I'd never heard of those paper hanky things until I started dating a girl whose mother insisted on table etiquette and stuff. I eventually married that girl and my world has been forever changed. We now use cloth (can you believe it?!) napkins at dinner (another interchangeable word).
I've only seen the serviette word in restaurants. The kids talk to me in metric as I squint my eyes and nod my head understanding (while I do the guesstimate conversions to inches, feet, yards, acres...)
 
Back
Top