Never said
close the lights and have never heard
carticket. When I lived in Boston, the beverage you mention was often a
tonic, believe it or not, and here, I think it's a
soda.
For the record, on the street where I grew up there were approximately 3 francophone families on a street of 40 or so families. By the time I left in the mid 80s, that was more like 10-15. BIG demographic shifts took place in the 20 years I lived on that street. By the time my Mom left that neighborhood, it was no longer majority anglophone. Most things you ever thought you knew about West Island living were probably wrong.
But I still remember that Canal Ouest was 154.800 MHz ...
And 412.6875 on
double vé té!
I know a bit about the Waste Island. I wrote my thesis on language/location demographics, etc. Most of it was on perception and linguistic changes and shifts from english to french, etc. There are plenty of areas there that are and were majority anglo and majority franco, etc. Pierrefonds is probably more french than english, St.Anne de Bellville also I guess, its been a long time, maybe Baie d'rfe (sp?)
carticket is a french/english phrase for streetcar tickets, even after streetcars were phased out in the late 50's many people, incl my g-mother and parents would ask me if I was going to take the 161, 104, 162 buses and if so, did I need any car tickets?
Close the lights is a translation. In french it was fermez les lumieres. The wave of Jewish immigrants who first settled in Papineau (to the day she died, my grandmother referred to the street as an area) and other poor-working class districts picked up on how french people spoke english and took this phrase. As they moved further west, to the Main, then Westmount, Outremont, Ndg, CDN, CSL, Hampstead, then the west Island and Chomedey, etc took phrases like "close the lights" with them and to this day as I live 600 km away in a Toronto suburb thats how I tell my daughter to turn off the lights. She looks at me like I am nuts.
And we spoke before of our fondness of 154.800 "dix-douze, ten-twelve."
I imagine Oklahoma is an entirely different world Peter, where I live in Burlington Ont, there is a french school close by so there are a good many francophones, mostly french Quebecers or franco-ontario. People who are surprised that I can speak to them in joual. I also have a dog walking buddy from Dorval, an anglo who still has his particular west island lingo and accent.
