Today, Canadian Dainty is a thing of the past and only a vanishingly small minority still adheres to, in Layton’s words, an accent that makes even the English feel ‘unspeakably colonial’.
But the British connection did leave a trace on Canadian English in some isolated tokens. One of these is the use of tap for what Americans generally call faucet (the knob that turns on water). This term came in use in the mid-nineteenth century, when the first houses were equipped with running water. As a colony, Canada’s close economic ties to Britain ensured that not only British plumbers, but also their terms were imported. To this day, it is the majority term (about 80 percent and more) from coast to coast to coast and a Canadianism (see below for a typology). Very rarely, British traces are witnessed in the most formal speaking styles today: newsreaders at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation will pronounce the first sound in schedule like the ‘sh’ in shoe, which is not done by 90 percent of Canadians, including other media outlets, who use the first sound in school for schedule.