So, in Canada when someone picks up a phone, dials a number, and uses the phone to communicate with someone else, the action is referred to as “phoning.” If I needed to contact someone with my phone, I would phone him.
But in the United States, we refer to the same action as “calling.” If I need to contact someone with my phone, I would call him.
However, in Canada, if you phone someone and can’t get in contact with them, you hope that they will return your call. The act of phoning you back is called returning your call.
But in the USA, we also say that if we call someone and can’t get in contact with them, we hope they will call us back. The act of calling us back is called returning our call.
But, if you’re going to “phone” someone, shouldn’t the action of phoning you back be referred to as “returning your phone”? After all, the act of calling someone back in the USA is referred to as “returning your call.”
So why inconsistency in Canada? Why the odd mixture of nouns and verbs?
In Canada they phone people with calls. In the US we call people with phones. Shouldn’t they expect people to return their phones just as we expect people to return our calls?
All that to say…Canada is weird. It’s still a beautiful country though (in most places).
Tune in next time when I try to figure out why Canada will only send parcels but not packages.
