Sunday, April 10, 2016

Relaxing on a Canadian stoup

Carol Martin.  A History of Canadian Gardening.  McArthur & Co., 2000.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmm.

This born and bred Canadian can't recall having ever used the word 'stoup', nor can he recall a porch or verandah that covered approximately a quarter-acre. That little girl will certainly be ready for bed by the time she's made the trek back to the house.

Wikipedia's entry on the illustrator, William Henry Bartlett, has this intriguing bit in it: "Bartlett's primary concern was to render "lively impressions of actual sights", as he wrote in the preface to The Nile Boat (London, 1849)."

'Lively impressions' indeed.

The Duke said...

I don't know what to say to this--I'm stoupified!

Mister G said...

That's a step up!

Mister G said...

As a kid growing up in various Ontario locations and was familiar with the word as a step. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoop_(architecture) has this to say, "Originally brought to the Hudson Valley of New York by settlers from the Netherlands, this word is among the Dutch vocabulary that has survived there from colonial times until the present. Stoop, "a small porch", comes from Dutch stoep;[1] (meaning: step, pronounced the same) the word is now in general use in the Northeastern United States and is probably spreading."