Money
There are no one dollar bills. There are no two dollar bills, either. Or three or four dollar bills, for that matter.
What they have instead are these little gold-colored coins with the queen on one side and a loon floating on a pond on the other. They're called "Loonies." And they also have these little silver coins with a gold-colored center that have the queen on one side and a polar bear crouching on an ice floe on the other. These are called "Toonies," because it rhymes with loony, and Canadians apparently find this wildly amusing.
Most of their money has the queen on one side and some kind of animal on the other. The national animal here is the beaver, which is on the flip side of the nickel. The national emblem is the maple leaf, which is on just about everything else.
I think it speaks volumes about our countries that our national animal is a bird of prey, usually depicted clutching a brace of arrows, and their national animal is the industrious beaver, usually depicted working on a dam.
A loony is worth about 76 cents American.
Posted by flamingbanjo at August 17, 2004 12:20 PMI was always under the impression that bald eagles were considered scavengers -- that is, they only went after live prey if there weren't easier pickings floating belly up in the stream or if they couldn't horn in on some Grizzly's leftovers.
You can thank those panty-waists in the First Continental Congress for picking a garbage eating freeloader as our National Bird -- If Ben Franklin had had his way, the wily Wild Turkey would be gracing our coinage.
Stupid panty-waisted colonials...
Posted by: KING COMTE I at August 17, 2004 04:03 PMor you can buy 76 insane Americanos for a buck?
Posted by: sven at August 18, 2004 11:24 AMWe don't really find it wildly amusing. In fact many people were quite pissed off when the government got rid of our 1 dollar and 2 dollar bills. Really, it's called the Looney cause our illustrious prime minister Brian Mulrouney *spit* introduced the blasphemous things and he wasn't all that highly regarded.
You are right about the Toonie though. It's cause it rhymes with Loonie...
Posted by: John K at August 5, 2005 05:19 PM