Canadianisms

One of the things that makes my life like The Twilight Zone is living in a place so similar to the U.S. that little differences can go unnoticed. Something's "off" once and I think, Huh, that's strange, and forget about it. But something's "off" twice or more and I start wondering, Hey, what's going on here?

Case in point: You walk into a coffee shop here in Canada and the first thing you're likely to hear is the barista calling out to you, "Hey dare!"

Huh?

The first time I heard this was at Tim Horton's on the UBC campus (affectionately called "Timmy Ho Ho's" by some). A middle-aged Asian lady was calling this out to each student at the front of the line to bring him or her to the register. What I heard was "Hey, dear!" and I thought, How cute, even How maternal, given how many students in line were the right age and race to have been her own. I thought maybe she knew these students personally -- had seen the same faces every day order a "double double" (Canadian for two sugars, two creams) -- but then I noticed she was using this greeting on everyone, including me. (I admit, I kind of liked it. It made me want to call my mom.) So, she couldn't have been saying this to only people she knew. Still, maybe she just wanted to pass out a little maternal love. This was Canada, after all: the Queen Mum, socialism, and all that.

Then I realized the other cashiers, mostly Asian as well, were using this greeting too. Maybe they all learned it from the first lady, the Madame Chiang Kai-shek of the UBC Timmy Ho Ho's? There was no way to know for sure (unless, I suppose, I asked).

And then I let the issue go. I discovered the math department lunch room houses a fantastic coffee maker, and I've been using that one now for weeks. So I forgot about Tim Horton's, stopped wondering what "Hey dare" meant, and got back to more pressing concerns, like work....

Until last Sunday when I was visiting a Starbucks near my apartment. I'd been riding my bike that evening and was on my way home when I decided to get something sweet. (Factoid: Starbucks gift cards work in the U.S. and Canada. Wondroid: Do they work in other countries too?) I was making a bee-line to the goody case, but then I heard the barista say very distinctly, "Hey there!" It was unmistakable.

And then it hit me: Was this what the Timmy Ho Ho ladies were saying all along? Was I mistaking "there" for "dear" all this time, mistaking their impersonal locator for a term of endearment? I started to feel like the pretty girl at school had waved to me then come to find she'd really waved to the jock behind me.

But maybe in the end, there's room for both explanations. After all, maybe to Asian ears new to the English language "Hey there" sounds a lot like "Hey, dear" and all those Asian baristas are saying the latter. I'm okay with that. As Robert Sapolsky, professor of neurology at Stanford University, pointed out in a 2003 article in Natural History, there's a "pleasure of 'maybe'," that is, of keeping the possibility intact. Whether "Hey there" or "Hey, dear," either way's not so bad.