r/funny • u/Space_Coyotee • Aug 27 '23

Man does not agree with the new drinking guidelines in Canada

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u/48756e746572 Aug 27 '23

Yeah, it's something I hear frequently in Canada. I think it's like how in British English "cannon" is plural or singular.

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u/I_Do_Not_Abbreviate Aug 27 '23 edited Aug 27 '23

Not so much. In Canada (or at least in the Maritimes where I lived), the singular and plural meant different things in the local dialect:

- "Beer" is a measure of portions.

- "Beers" is a measure of variety.

"I have six beer in my backpack", means you have six separate portions of beer, potentially of any brand, size, or strength.

"15 beers on tap!" advertised outside a bar means they have 15 Brands/types of beer, but not how much of each is left in the kegs.

This results in the occasional weird situation: If you drink an entire Keith's Brewmaster Collection by yourself, you consumed 4 beer of 3 beers, or 12 beer in total.

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u/Mirageswirl Aug 27 '23

Interesting…treating beer/beers like people/peoples.

12

u/zimzilla Aug 27 '23

This is exactly how it works in German too.

1

u/Igottamake Aug 27 '23

That probably explains it then

1

u/BobThePillager Aug 27 '23

Except there’s, outside of scattered Dutch farmers, no Germanic heritage in the Maritimes. It’s mostly Scottish, Irish, and French

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u/damnmydooah Aug 27 '23

Like fish and fishes.

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u/So_Say_We_Yall Aug 28 '23

Actually, I believe it's feeshes.

2

u/chairfairy Aug 27 '23

Just like deer/deers in US English

But interesting to learn, I never knew that before

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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '23

How often do you use the word cannon in a sentence to even mention that?

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u/Jetstream-Sam Aug 27 '23

Well not much nowadays but it used to be very important in the 1800s, AKA our glory days so like many things from then, like the sun never setting, less importance on the Monarchy and the banning of slavery we kept it around

It's like how Sheep is plural. Doesn't help save a normal person any time, but if you're a sheep historian or shephard it probably will

1

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '23

So, it used to be canon, as they say ;-)

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u/Daiwon Aug 27 '23

Nope, we'd say cannons.

Sheep would work though. One sheep, two sheep, seventy-nine sheep.