Vivace in Canada

Although one of my duties--supply ordering--has been transferred to Megan, I need to oversee her work or assist her with determining what to order.

One day, as usual, Megan consulted me what else do we need for office before she submitting a Grand and Tory order. “we gonna need facial tissues soon, order some.” I said. “facial tissues?” Megan wondered. I realized immediately that it is not how my Canadian colleagues normally call it. “oh, I mean Kleenex, but Kleenex is a brand. Kleenex tissue is facial tissue” I felt like teaching her the proper term. “I’ve known it as Kleenex my whole life, it is Kleenex!” Megan fought back. “No, no,” I didn’t back down. “Kleenex is a facial tissue brand. Just like Q-tips, it is a brand, but people refer to cotton swab as Q-tips. Not all swabs are Q-tips.”

About a week ago, one of our employee sent an email to Megan and requested to order Scotch tape. “Have we ordered Scotch tapes before?” Megan phoned me and asked. “Well, we normally order Grand and Tory brand invisible tapes. They are just as good as Scotch tapes. 3M products are too expensive.” I explained. And I know Megan must considered that Scotch tape is a specific type of tape, but the invisible tapes we use every day in the office.

I learned a lot of stationery terms from ordering supply. Rubber fingers, reinforcements, banker box and so on. Things we use very often, but not everyone is able to indicate them on the category page of the catalogue. Kleenex is definitely not going to be listed under letter K. I use the “slang” sometimes too, but I also need to know the formal terms of the supplies in order to locate them on the catalogue. That is why even Megan, who was born and raised in Canada, needs my help to find out what she is looking for sometimes.

I'm surprised at how younger generations in North America consider those brand names as terms. They probably won't understand me if I use the English vocabularies I learned in Taiwan. I wonder if those informal terms will one day replace what we know them to be. We may have to take a history lesson to comprehend how those words came about.