Halifax CBC radio guy Alex Mason is doing a piece for Sounds Like Canada on all those jagged little phrases Canadians use in our regional identifiers. Do you say "The West" to mean all four western provinces, or is B.C. something else? Is "out west" said more by easterners or westerners -- and what's that "out" signifying? How does "down east" differ from "back east"? What do Haligonians imply when they say "Upper Canada"?
Stuff like that. He talked to me and to several other Canadian historians, and he got me interested. It's scheduled for Sounds Like Canada on CBC Radio One Thursday morning September 14.
