Canadian Dollar - Terminology

Terminology

Canadian English, like American English, uses the slang term "buck" for a dollar. The Canadian origin of this term derives from a coin struck by the Hudson's Bay Company during the 17th century with a value equal to the pelt of a male beaver – a "buck". Because of the appearance of the common loon on the back of the dollar coin that replaced the dollar bill in 1987, the word "loonie" was adopted in Canadian parlance to distinguish the Canadian dollar coin from the dollar bill. When the two-dollar coin was introduced in 1996, the derivative word "toonie" ("two loonies") became the common word for it in Canadian English slang. The term "loonie" is frequently used for the Canadian dollar as a currency, as opposed to the American dollar.

In French, the currency is also called le dollar; Canadian French slang terms include piastre or piasse (the original word used in 18th-century French to translate "dollar") and huard (equivalent to "loonie", since huard is French for "loon," the bird appearing on the coin). The French pronunciation of "cent" (pronounced similarly to English as /sɛnt/ or /sɛn/, not like the word for hundred, /sɑ̃/ or /sã/) is generally used for the subdivision; sou is another, informal, term for 1¢. 25¢ coins in Quebec French are often called trente sous (thirty cents) because of a series of changes in terminology, currencies, and exchange rates. After the British conquest of Canada in 1759, French coins gradually went out of use, and sou became a nickname for the halfpenny, which was similar in value to the French sou. Spanish dollars and US dollars were also in use, and from 1841 to 1858, the exchange rate was fixed at $4 = £1 (or 400¢ = 240d). This made 25¢ equal to 15d, or 30 halfpence (trente sous). After decimalization and the withdrawal of halfpence coins, the nickname sou began to be used for the 1¢ coin, but the idiom trente sous for 25¢ endured.