Molson, eat your heart out!!

As a Canadian, you have to be extra vigilant. There are a lot of impostors out there. If you suspect that someone is falsely trying to pass themselves off as a Canadian, make the following statement - and then carefully note their reaction:

"Last night, I cashed my pogey and went to buy a mickey of C.C. at the beer parlour, but my skidoo got stuck in the muskeg on my way back to the duplex. I was trying to deke out a deer, you see. Damn chinook, melted everything. And then a mountie snuck up behind me in a ghost car and gave me an impaired. I was S.O.L., sitting there dressed only in my Stanfields and a touque at the time. And the Mountie, he's all chippy and everything, calling me a "shit disturber" and what not. What could I say, except, "Sorry, EH!"

If the person you are talking to nods sympathetically, they're one of us. If, however, they stare at you with a blank comprehension, they are not a real Canadian. Have them reported to the authorities at once. The passage cited above contains no fewer than 19 different Canadianisms.

In order:

• pogey: EI (Employment insurance). Money provided by the government for not working.
• mickey: A small bottle of booze (13 oz) (A Texas mickey, on the other hand, is a ridiculously big bottle of booze, which, despite the name, is still a Canadianism through and through.)
• C.C.: Canadian Club, a brand of rye. Not to be confused with "hockey stick," another kind of Canadian Club.
• beer parlour: Like an ice cream parlour, but for Canadians.
• skidoo: Self-propelled decapitation unit for teenagers, (Snow-Mobiles)
• muskeg: Boggy swampland.
• duplex: A single building divided in half with two sets of inhabitants,each trying to pretend the other doesn't exist while at the same time managing to drive each other crazy; metaphor for Canada's French and English.
• deke: Used as a verb, it means "to fool an opponent through skillful misdirection." As a noun, it is used most often in exclamatory constructions, such as: "Whadda deke!" Meaning, "My, what an impressive display of physical dexterity employing misdirection and guile."
• chinook: An unseasonably warm wind that comes over the Rockies and onto the plains, melting snow banks in Calgary but just missing Edmonton, much to the pleasure of Calgarians.
• Mountie: Canadian icon, strong of jaw, red of coat, pure of heart. Always get their man! (See also Pepper spray, uses of.)
• snuck: To have sneaked; to move, past tense, in a sneaky manner; non-restrictive extended semi-gerundial form of "did sneak." (We think.)
• ghost car: An unmarked police car, easily identifiable by its inconspicuousness.
• impaired: A charge of drunk driving. Used both as a noun and as an adjective (the alternative adjectival from of "impaired" being "pissed to the gills").
• S.O.L.: Shit outta luck; in an unfortunate predicament.
• Stanfields: Men's underwear, especially Grandpa-style, white cotton cones with a big elastic waistband and a large perfluous flap in the front and back!
• touque: Canada's official National Head Apparel, with about the same suave sex appeal as a pair of Stanfields.
• chippy: Behaviour that is inappropriately aggressive; constantly looking for a reason to find offense; from "chip on one's shoulder." (See Western Canada)
• shit disturber: (See Quebec) a troublemaker or provocateur. According to Katherine Barber, editor in Chief of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary,"shit disturber" is a distinctly Canadian term. (Just remember that Western Canada is chippy and Quebec is a shit disturber, and you will do fine.)

Please distribute to all your patriotic Canuck friends, eh!