Canada: Land of Give'r

The past holiday weekend offered a bevvy of Seattle activities, from the Folklife Festival to Sasquatch, to SIFF, and we’re sure there’s more. Well, we’re pretty sure, because some of us went to Canada instead. Just a quick jaunt to Vancouver on Sunday for some biking; perhaps we’d even try to catch the Bloc Party show that evening at the Commodore since somehow we’ve missed out on every other opportunity to see them in what has been a near blitzkreig of Bloc Party show dates in Seattle over the past few months.

Instead of talking about our biking adventures, or going on about how we managed to miss yet another Bloc Party gig (that’s 4 for any of you keeping count), Seattlest would like to introduce you to our now-favorite entry into the Canadian slang lexicon: Give’r.

Fans of the movie FuBar, which is something of a Canuck bastard cousin of the Spinal Tap genre, may be familiar with this term. Seattlest has decided it is our favorite new word. While akin to its American-English variations like “Try real hard” or “Give it your best shot” or “Better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all…”, and other equally namby-pamby, wordy variations on the same theme, our neighbors to the north sum it all up in one tidy, straight-to-the-point package: Give’r.

We’ve quickly discovered that the applications are endless:

Quitting your job? Give’r.
Muscling your way onto the stage during the Snoop Dogg show? Wicked give’r.
Fly off your bike into a tree? Not enough give’r.
Bush to Iraq: C’mon now, give’r.
"Nurse, give me 30cc's of epinephrine and a scalpel, stat give'r!"

And here’s a softball for the Canadian arm of Nike courtesy of our most recent trip to Canada, and all Seattlest asks for is a little side-buffet of the royalties from this one: Just Give’r.

Try it at work this week, and let us know how it goes: "That’s a double-double, extra hot…Give’r!"