Anna Overseas

I think I would smack any Canadian who called me 'hen'. But I find it amusing when British people do it.

"Hey, hen, how's it going?" I get greeted on the bus every weekday morning by Myles, a friend of mine who is currently sharing my bus ride to work.

"Is there anything else I can get you, luv?" asks the nice man with the East Indian accent at the newstand where I get my daily dose of caffeine.

"Watch where you're going, pet!" I'm reminded on a regular basis, as I tend to walk into things when reading and walking down the street at the same time. It's said with bemusement, so I keep forgetting to stop doing it.

For a while I thought this was amusing, because of course no one says anything of the sort in Canada. Then I noticed I was writing things like "dear", "sweetheart", and "sweetness" in various emails to people, and stopped being so smug about it.

It just *sounds* different. So quaint and wonderful and British. There's nothing terribly Canadian about calling someone "dear", but if you call them "pet", you're easily identifiable as from the UK.