So eh? is Canadian, eh?

Abstract

In a somewhat condescending review of A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles some years ago, Mavor Moore complained about “a slighting of spoken practice and of distinctive Canadian syntax,” among his objections being the absence of an entry for eh?, for “both the English and the Americans can spot a Canadian from his ‘eh?’ at the end of a sentence: ‘It’s hot, eh?’” Admittedly, the interjection is not in the DC; moreover, there are no slips for eh? in the citation files of the Lexicographical Centre for Canadian English. This situation certainly indicates that the readers for the DC did not consider it a Canadianism: either that or they were unaware that eh? might be relevant to the collection.The second of these possibilities may be set aside, for eh? is, in fact, entered in the Intermediate Dictionary and the Senior Dictionary, general dictionaries of English published in Canada for Canadians as part of the Dictionary of Canadian English series, to which the DC belongs. It should be added that eh? is also entered in every general dictionary of English, both British and American, on my shelves—a very considerable collection indeed, and one which includes the Oxford English Dictionary and Webster’s New International Dictionary (Third Edition).