For all you Americans out there reading this, this will be a slight deviation from your regular school of thought, but hopefully, it will be somewhat enlightening if you happen to be travelling to Canada. Being Canadian, I have run into my share of American tourists who don't know which end of the knife to hold - I have been asked if I own a dogsled, I believe, about seven times. However, it is all in how you talk; An American tourist doing a Canadian accent sounds like a drunk American tourist talking normally. And no, we don't tack 'Eh' on the end of every sentence.
This is precisely why I am rambling to you today - the question of Eh. Phrases like 'My name is Doug, Eh" is completely incorrect - "Eh" is not a piece of punctuation, but an interrogative statement we tack onto questions that require agreement. For instance, in "That building is really tall, eh?" you would answer "Yeah" or something to that affect, as "Eh" is being used as a monosyllabic replacement for "Don't you think?". In "Randy got drafted into the Marines, eh!" the proper response would be "Really?" or "Yeah I know, he told me", depending on the amount of information you have on Randy's military career. In that instance, "Eh" is replacing a "you know" at the end.
I certainly hope this little lesson has helped you understand part of our national grammar. So if you are an American coming to Canada on vacation for the fist time, don't ask if our fathers were lumberjacks, don't ask if we live in igloos, don't think we own dogsleds, don't ask us if we know a Mountie, and for heaven's sake, don't abuse our favourite two-letter interrogative. Now take off, you hosers, I gotta have me a beer!
Blaine Salvatore
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