Canuck

[prettygoodword]

Canuck (kuh-NUHK) - (slang) (sometimes derogatory) n., a Canadian, especially a French Canadian.


This is more likely to be derogatory when used by non-Canadians or specifically applied to French Canadians — though actual Canadians please weigh in here. The origin is disputed and there are many fanciful stories out there, but the current most common (though not consensus) scholarly explanation is an alteration of Hawaiian kanaka, man, from Hawaiian sailors working off the Pacific northwest coast, where they worked alongside French Canadians in the fur trade, possibly influenced by a word ending from a First Nation language (compare for ex Inuktitut inuk, person, and for that matter Chinook). (The next most-common explanation is an alteration of either Canada or its source, Laurentian kanata, village, with the same word-ending influence.)

---L.

Comments

[ionelv]

"However, according to "Unkind Words," a fascinating book on ethnic labeling by Irving Lewis Allen, "Canuck" isn't really that simple. First of all, it seems that French-speaking Canadians living in or near the northeastern U.S. consider "Canuck" to be an offensive ethnic slur. But in the rest of Canada, "Canuck" is a label of national pride, as evidenced by the name of the Vancouver Canucks hockey team. Go figure."

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20240126124854/http://www.word-detective.com/082498.html

[prettygoodword]

"Not simple" does seem to apply here.