In this number one bestseller, Bill Caseelman delights and startles with word stories from every province and territory of Canada. Did you know that Scarborough means “Harelip’s Fort”? the names of Lake Huron and Huronia stem from a vicious, racist insult. Huron in Old French meant ‘long-haired clod.’ French soldiers labelled the Wendat people with this nasty misnomer in the 1600s. ‘To deke out’ is a Canadian verb that began as hockey slang, short for ‘to decoy an opponent.’ Canada has a fish that ignites. On our Pacific coast, the oolichan or candlefish is so fill of oil it can be lighted at one end and use as a candle. “Mush! Mush! On, you huskies!” cried Sargeant Preston of the Yukon to 1940s radio listeners, this introducing a whole generation of Canucks to the word once widely used in the Arctic to spur on sled dogs. Although it might sound like a word from Inukitut, early French trappers used it first, borrowing the term from the Canadian French command to a horse to go: Marche! Marche! Yes, it’s Quebecois for giddyap! All these and more fascinating terms form Canadian place, name, politics, sports, plants and animals, clothing. Everything from Canadian monsters to mottoes is here.

BILL CASSELMAN is the author of the best-sellers Canadian Sayings, Casselman’s Canadian Words, What’s In a Canadian Name? and the award-winning Canadian Food Words. He has been a writer, broadcaster, and performer for thirty-four years, including three years as a producer for CBC’s This Country in the Morning on radio. Casselman has written for The Toronto Star and The Montreal Gazette and for magazines such as Toronto Life, The Panic Button, and Canadian Geographic.

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