11 thoughts on “quote o’ the day: Oscar Wilde, on Canada”

1. Ha! Love it.

2. That Oscar: he didn’t miss a trick! Of course, I don’t think he visited Vancouver at all because it didn’t exist at the time, so I can’t get too snobbish about it.

3. And he’s still right, after all these years …

4. My dad once told me that Winnipeg was called the City of Lights because of all the neon on the bars. I was eleven when I figured out he was just dicking with me.

5. Question: is ginch a Canadianism? Not sure I’ve ever heard it anywhere else. (love dem Canadian idioms)

6. I believe it is. There’s an underwear company here called GinchGonch, and they always complain that they have to translate for foreigners (like Americans).

7. I remember underpants being called ‘gitch’, not ‘ginch’.

   Yes, of course your dad was dicking with you – neon lights in Winnipeg? Those that didn’t explode (implode?) at -30º wouldn’t have survived the closing hour drunken vandals.

8. Well there was neon back in the day when I lived there before the turn of the Century. Although maybe it was Freon, not neon, come to think of it.

9. He must have stayed south. As I recall the northern half of the city speaks French.

10. My parents moved us about. We lived in 3 different provinces and states before I was 12. In some places ginch was used in others gitch and in Alberta “gaunch” was the word.

11. I thought it was “Gonch?”

    Metro: you’re talking about St. Boniface, not Winnipeg. And Oscar spoke very good French; in no language does St Boniface look like Paris any more than Winnipeg does.

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