"Canuck" ( /kəˈnʌk/) is a slang term for Canadians. Its origins are uncertain.
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The term appears to have been coined in the 19th century, although its etymology is unclear, it usually referred to those who worked in a forest, usually cultivating wood.
According to Bart Bandy's Lexicon of Canadian Etymology (Don Mills, Ont., C. Farquharson, 1994), the term evolved from the French word canule around the time of the American Revolution, but its path of evolution is still not clear. Another possibility is that it rose from a mispronunciation among Benedict Arnold's forces as they laid siege to Quebec in the winter of 1776. According to Bandy, the comte de Theleme-Menteuse was one of the locals captured by the Americans. In his Contes bizarre d'Isle d'Orleans, the latter says that the Americans picked up the common phrase "Quelle canule", but they were usually shivering so hard when they said it that it came out with the "l" hardened into a guttural stop – thence a "k".
On the other hand, Richard Montgomery, Arnold’s co-commander on the Canadian expedition, says that Arnold, who loved word-play, made a joke on the word canule that was picked up by his troops. In discussing the strategic value of placing troops at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River to resist the British fleet expected in the spring, Arnold noted the peculiar shape of the Gaspé Peninsula and exclaimed, "There's a canule to make his majesty gasp." One assumes that the same shivering effect noted previously led to the mispronunciation.
Yet another possibility comes from the German mercenaries who were captured with John Burgoyne's army at Saratoga. Held in prison camps in Pennsylvania, after Yorktown they were offered repatriation to Canada where they had spent several months camped near present-day Ottawa waiting for Burgoyne to get his gear together. Their universal protestation when return to the "Plains of Ottawa" was offered them was "Nein! Nein! Genug von Kanada." They opted, instead, to become Pennsylvania Dutch. The English-speaking Americans around them picked up the phrase (part of "Pulling the Lion's Tail" no doubt) and compressed Genug von Kanada into "Genug Kanada," and so on. While this seems somewhat far-fetched, it does offer a reasonable explanation for the "k" in a word supposedly derived from French, especially as it was often spelled "Kanuck" during the 19th century.
Bandy also suggests that there is some evidence of the word originating among the "down-easters" of Maine who had picked up "Quelle Canule" from their French-speaking neighbours and applied it when facing the navigational difficulties caused by the peculiar "flushing" effect of the famed tides of the Bay of Fundy.
Another possibility, though there is no mention in Bandy, is that the many Scots who came to Canada during the late 18th and early 19th centuries quickly absorbed Quelle canule into their working vocabulary. Being Scots, they would, of course, swallow the end of canule and apply a mild glottal stop, ending up with something very like "Quelle canuhgk."
A more recent theory of term has that its origins are in the Klondike Gold Rush or the Fraser Valley Gold Rush and the dynamics of the fast evolving Chinook jargon, the lingua franca of the Pacific Northwest at the time. Hawaiian prospectors were derogatorily referred to as "Canucks" instead of the proper Kanaka (Hawaiian) by Anglo-American and other prospectors in the Yukon, Alaska. Eventually this term was applied to French Canadians and found its way to the rest of the continent, as prospectors drifted back to their home regions. This is similar to other words in English derived from Chinook Jargon. Additionally, the term may not specifically derive from the Klondike gold rush as there was significant Hawaiian immigration to merit a Kanaka community and the region known as Kanaka Bar which is a Chinook jargon term. [1][2][3]
The Random House Dictionary notes that: "The term Canuck is first recorded about 1835 as an Americanism, originally referring specifically to a French Canadian. This was probably the original meaning, though in Canada and other countries, "Canuck" refers to a Canadian." [4] In fact, the 1835 source cited refers to a foreign-speaker: “Jonathan distinguishes a Dutch or a French Canadian, by the term Kanuk.[5]
Canadians use "Canuck" as an affectionate or merely descriptive term for their nationality. Other nationalities may use the word as an affectionate, or derogatory, or merely a descriptive term.
Usage of the term includes:
