A comedian ranks eight Canadian insults from least to most severe, starting with "hosehead" for a lovable idiot and ending with "goof," which changes meaning by province. Includes regional variations and why some words hit harder in Canada than anywhere else.
Here are the top 8 Canadian insults ranked from "you're kind of annoying" to "meet me behind the arena, it's go time." Hosehead. This one is very low stakes. Being called a hosehead doesn't mean you're evil. It means that you are dumb in a very specific Canadian way. Drinking a Slurpee at -30 degrees. It's mostly affectionate. The dictionary definition would be like a lovable idiot who locked the keys in the truck again. Number 7: Hoser. All hosers are hoseheads. But not all hoseheads are hosers, that's all you need to know. Number 6 is keener. This is how Canada punishes ambition. You show up early? Care about your job? Fucking keener. You don't even have to be good at anything. Just earnest. Like the kid who reminds the teacher about the homework? Keener. The guy who says "just looping back" in a meeting at work? Keener. If you have ever colour-coded a spreadsheet on your own time, guess what? Which brings us to skid. Now we are in small-town territory. If keener is trying too hard, then skid is not trying at all. Like, ever. Oh, skid also is the only insult that is also a look. Hood up, vape in one hand, Monster drink in the other, sweatpants tucked into mismatched socks. You are not a skid for, like, puking in the Dairy Queen parking lot once. You're a skid because you do it every weekend and then nap on your skateboard like it's a fucking mattress. Next is knob. You call someone a knob when they try to shotgun a beer from the wrong end. It can actually escalate through two different levels. If knob doesn't do it, you can upgrade to total knob, or drop the boss fight, which is absolute knob cheese. This is a phrase that we clearly borrowed from the Brits without reading the fine print. That brings us to tool. Despite being an object designed to help, a tool is someone who absolutely doesn't. A tool is the guy in the Canadian Tire that name drops his cousin who knows a guy in the NHL. It's also our most gendered insult. You could call a woman a tool if you wanted to, but you don't. It is reserved for dudes trying very hard to be alpha in a country where alpha just means owning a snowmobile. This one also, by the way, escalates through two more levels. There's total tool, and then at the end there is massive tool. That brings us to buddy. Buddy is to men what hun is to women. It is meant to be condescending and dismissive. It also depends on what is said immediately before it. So like Hey buddy, no problem. Listen here, buddy, big problem. And now we get to the biggest Canadian insult of all: goof. Now I know to you Americans this one sounds like dork. It is not. In prison, you call the wrong guy a goof, you are gonna find out that your dental plan has been accelerated. You can always tell when someone grew up in Ontario because they hear goof and their head snaps around like a meerkat. Did you just fucking call me a goof? In Vancouver or Halifax, it's more like idiot. And there you have it. Tell me in the comments which ones I missed. And be cool about it, buddy.
Ten times Canada helped the U.S. with its wildfires, instead of whining about the smoke. 
