Take a very different illustration--the speech of Canada to-day--and the significance is still the same. We have so many sea terms in our ordinary English speech that we almost forget that they are sea terms at all till we compare them with corresponding idioms in other languages. Then we realize that only the Dutch, the Finns, and the Scandinavians can {9} approach the English-speaking peoples in the common use of sea terms. Other foreigners employ different phrasing altogether. Their landsmen never 'clear the decks for action,' are never 'brought up with a round turn,' or even 'taken aback,' as if by the wind on the wrong side. They never have 'three sheets in the wind,' even when they do get 'half seas over.' They don't 'throw a man overboard,' even when the man is one of those unfortunates who is apt to get 'on his beam ends.' The facetious 'don't speak to the man at the wheel' and the cautious 'you'd better not sail so close to the wind' have no exact equivalents for the Slav or Latin man in the street. These, and many more, are common expressions which Anglo-Canadians share with the stay-at-home type of Englishman. But the special point is that, like the American, the Canadian is still more nautical than the Englishman in his everyday use of sea terms. 'So long!' in the sense of good-bye is a seaport valediction commoner in Canada than in England. Canadians go 'timber-cruising' when they are looking for merchantable trees; they used to understand what 'prairie schooners' were out West; and even now they always 'board' a train wherever it may {10} be. But even more remarkable are the sea terms universally current among the French Canadians, who come from the seafaring branch of a race of landsmen. Under the French regime the army officers used to say they felt as if they were on board a man-of-war as long as they stayed in Canada. The modern Parisian may think the same to-day when he is told how to steer his way about the country roads by the points of the compass. The word _lanterne_ is unknown, for the nautical _fanal_ invariably takes its place. The winter roads are marked out by 'buoys' (_balises_), and if you miss the 'channel' between them you may 'founder' (_caler_) and then become a 'derelict' (completely _degrade_). You must _embarquer_ into a carriage and _debarquer_ out of it. A cart is _radou'ee_, as if repaired in a dockyard. Even a well-dressed woman is said to be _bi'n gre-yee_, that is, she is 'fit to go foreign.' Horses are not tied but moored (_amarres_); enemies are reconciled by being re-moored (_ramarres_); and the Quebec winter is supposed to begin with a 'broadside' of snow on November 25 (_la bordee de la Sainte-Catherine_).