Borden System Words: Ontario

Well here we are making the figurative trek "out East" to check out what kind of words they got out there. We'll just see how well Ontario stacks up against BC's "fart", Saskatchewan's "dink" (heeheehee), and Manitoba's "hell". In the interest of me not really caring to figure it out, I've included all the edge overlap with Quebec and to South (as shown in the image to the right) and they can just fight amongst themselves as to who owns what (we'll cross that bridge when we get to it). Also, remember that I put the Manitoba overlap with Manitoba. Here are Ontario's 54 words (FYI: CJ, CH, DJ, EJ, FJ, GK, and GH had no words):

AH – agha, ache, aahs
AG – alga
BH – baht
BG – bigs, begs, bags
BF – biff, baff
CI – clip, chit, chis, chip, chin, chid, chic, chia, ceil, cain, caid
CG – cage
DI – djin, deil, dais
DH – dahs, dahl
DG – digs, dags, dago
EI – egis, edit
EH – elhi, echo, eche
EG – eggs, edge
FI – flit, flip, flic, fair, fain, fail
FH - fehs
GI – glim, glib, glia, gait, gain
HI – heir, heil, hair, hail, haik

Well, there's an ethnic slur, but that's not really a swear, just offensive, so no good (that one's actually in Quebec). Oh well, we can learn a few new word meanings anyway. For example "agha" is a title of honour in Turkey and other Muslim countries; a "baht" is a monetary unit in Thailand; "cain" is Scots/Irish English in origin and refers to rent paid in kind (instead of money that is, especially a percentage of a farm crop); a "caid" is a Muslim tribal chief (I'm pretty sure I've used that in Scrabble before); "deil" is Scots for a devil or mischievous person; "egis" is another way of spelling "aegis", which refers to protection, support or sponsorship, or being under the auspices of something; "elhi" is an adjective referring to being of or relating to elementary and high school.

Dang it Ontario! You've failed me! But, on the plus side an excerpt from my series of Borden System posts has ended up in the May issue (Vol 32) of the Saskatchewan Archaeological Society newsletter as the article "The Borden System Defined". The article was trimmed from this post. So much fame! I'll try not to let it go to my head.

p.s. This is my second blog-post related article in the SAS newsletter. The last one being from this post about making and excavation screen.