Need Canadian joke explained

[Alpo]

This is from a comic strip.

 

First, this was 2008 (it's been 12 years, things may have changed).

 

The girl is from Quebec. Has a heavy French accent and keeps throwing French words into her conversation. Whenever Desiree is talking I have to make frequent trips to Google translate.

 

It is revealed that she has a tattoo of a beaver.

 

The boy responds that he would have expected her to be a separatist.

 

I have heard of Quebec wanting to be a separate place. "We are French, not English like the rest of you" sorta thing.

 

But what does the beaver have to do with anything?

[Subdeacon Joe]

The beaver is as much a national symbol of Canada as the maple leaf.  There was a cartoon by the Separatists of kicking the beaver out of the picture. 

[Kid Rich]

*

[Utah Bob #35998]

Eh?

 

[Utah Bob #35998]

When I worked in Miami, thousands of Canadians wintered there every year. European tourists were always plentiful. There could be a language barrier sometimes. I found it interesting that explaining their accent, French Canadians almost always said “We are French”, while the French tourists said, “We are from France”. Other Canadians just said they were Canadian.

It seemed to me that the French Canadians thought they were more French than the French.

My supervisor was a Canadian from Ontario. He was a WW2 Canadian Army vet. Funny Guy. He explained a lot to me.

After a few years I could distinguish a Quebecois accent from a Parisian one.

My favorite Canadian is Celine Dion.

My least favorite is a tossup between Justin Bieber and Trudeau. 

 

[Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474]

Beiber is harmless.

Trudeau on the other hand......

 

[Alpo]

We had a customer who was French Canadian. Claude called me one day about having some work done, and I filled out the sheet and then told him I needed a purchase order number.

 

He said "vair-bull".

 

I said, "variable"? That made no sense.

 

He said, louder (because everyone knows that if you're talking to someone that does not understand you, speaking louder makes him understand you), "VAIR-BULL!"

 

"Variable??"

 

"V-E-R-B-A-L! VAIR-BULL!!"

 

Another time I had called over to his office and was asking his secretary a question. She said she wasn't sure so she would get Claude for me.

 

I told her I could not understand Claude on the telephone. "I can barely understand him when we're face-to-face. On the phone I miss about half of what he says."

 

She snickered a little bit, then said, "you're not the only one".

 

 

[DocWard]

1 hour ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

When I worked in Miami, thousands of Canadians wintered there every year. European tourists were always plentiful. There could be a language barrier sometimes. I found it interesting that explaining their accent, French Canadians almost always said “We are French”, while the French tourists said, “We are from France”. Other Canadians just said they were Canadian.

It seemed to me that the French Canadians thought they were more French than the French.

My supervisor was a Canadian from Ontario. He was a WW2 Canadian Army vet. Funny Guy. He explained a lot to me.

After a few years I could distinguish a Quebecois accent from a Parisian one.

My favorite Canadian is Celine Dion.

My least favorite is a tossup between Justin Bieber and Trudeau. 

 

 

Their heads wouldn't have been oddly cone shaped would they?

 

My favorite Canadian? One of these three guys, R.I.P. Neil:

 

[Pat Riot]

My favorite Canadian is @Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474 

[Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172]

32 minutes ago, Pat Riot, SASS #13748 said:

My favorite Canadian is @Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474 

I can vote for that too, Pat. 

[Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474]

Oh Lord!

Now ya done it!

I'm on the RCMP watch list for sure, as a subversive, seeking to overthrow our Dear Leader.

If I'm not on here after the next day or so, you'll know I'm in internal exile around Baker Lake or somewhere in Nunavat.

 

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

I am the son and grandson of immigrants. My wife, both of whose maternal grandparents were born in Croatia, tells me that British Columbia doesn't count!

[Buffalo Creek Law Dog]

When I was stationed in Quebec back in the early 60's, we were revamping an old WW 2 Air Force base into an air to air nuclear capable base.  We were hiring local civilian laborers and when they filled out their personal history forms to get a security clearance, under nationality, they would always write "French Canadian". 

 

I worked for a Corporal who was French Canadian who didn't speak English when he joined the RCAF, and he said when he was stationed in France, the locals thought he was an American trying to speak French.

 

French Canadians are referred to as Francophones and we are referred to as Anglophones.  In the early 70's Francophones made up 28% of the Canadian population and as of 2016 the figure dropped to 21.4%.  Probably a little lower today.

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

I never knew they used different phones!

[Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967]

1 hour ago, Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619 said:

I never knew they used different phones!

 

                                            

 

               Anglo-Phone

 

 

               Franco-Phone

 

 

 

[Pat Riot]

And then we have Franco-American which could be a phone if you have two and a length of string. 

 

[Michigan Slim]

Now I'm really confused. I thought Franco was Spanish!?!?

[Alpo]

I used to wonder why a French company (Franco-American) made Italian food.

[Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172]

4 hours ago, Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474 said:

Oh Lord!

Now ya done it!

I'm on the RCMP watch list for sure, as a subversive, seeking to overthrow our Dear Leader.

If I'm not on here after the next day or so, you'll know I'm in internal exile around Baker Lake or somewhere in Nunavat.

 

Send us a fishing report from Baker Lake Kid.  

[watab kid]

so not much different than here where we seem to have a lot of folks in certain places that would want to be somewhere else but wont just leave ? 

[punxsutawneypete]

I am part French by heritage and spent a lot of time in Quebec province on family fishing trips.  I had some interesting experiences in trying to speak Quebecois when I would go up there.  I don't know what I must have sounded like to the locals but I was trying to show respect for the language and culture by going back to school to re-learn French.

 

So one year we stopped in Senneterre, Quebec and went out for  dinner.  All my relatives with me ordered dinner in English, and I ordered mine in French.  I had studied to the point where I could read a goodly amount of French and could passably speak it, but usually I had a hard time understanding other people talking in French.  But I am very sure I heard two waitresses talking and one of them saying in Quebecois, "Watch what you say around those guys.  One of them speaks French!"

[Buffalo Creek Law Dog]

10 hours ago, punxsutawneypete said:

I am part French by heritage and spent a lot of time in Quebec province on family fishing trips.  I had some interesting experiences in trying to speak Quebecois when I would go up there.  I don't know what I must have sounded like to the locals but I was trying to show respect for the language and culture by going back to school to re-learn French.

 

So one year we stopped in Senneterre, Quebec and went out for  dinner.  All my relatives with me ordered dinner in English, and I ordered mine in French.  I had studied to the point where I could read a goodly amount of French and could passably speak it, but usually I had a hard time understanding other people talking in French.  But I am very sure I heard two waitresses talking and one of them saying in Quebecois, "Watch what you say around those guys.  One of them speaks French!"

 

My first posting was to RCAF Station Senneterre back in the 60's, then I got the big transfer west 40 miles to RCAF Station Val d'Or.  Good fishing at both places.

[punxsutawneypete]

1 hour ago, Buffalo Creek Law Dog said:

 

My first posting was to RCAF Station Senneterre back in the 60's, then I got the big transfer west 40 miles to RCAF Station Val d'Or.  Good fishing at both places.

 

I was on the  way to Lake Berthelot which was about 70 miles up a dirt road from Senneterre.  

[Marshal Hangtree]

18 hours ago, Michigan Slim said:

Now I'm really confused. I thought Franco was Spanish!?!?

 

Yep, and he's still dead.

 

 

[Alpo]

That was 45 years ago. Are you sure he is still dead? A lot of things can change in 45 years.

[Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172]

2 hours ago, Marshal Hangtree said:

 

Yep, and he's still dead.

 

 

Didn't he vote in the primary election last Tuesday?  

[Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967]

Actually, when I saw Alpo's opening post this was my first thought:   

 

 

 

 

                                                             

[Buffalo Creek Law Dog]

The U.S. has the Eagle, Britain has the Lion and/or the Bull Dog, Russia has the Bear and Canada has a Flat Tailed Rat with buck teeth.

[Alpo]

The tattoo.

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

1 hour ago, Alpo said:

The tattoo.

 

 

  ................. a 5 cent tattoo ?   

[Alpo]

Oh, I just got it.

 

"A five cent tattoo" because the beaver is on the nickel.