Call Me Joff

Not long after moving into the neighbourhood—Garden Avenue just off Roncesvalles—I was talking to an old locksmith who needed to know where I lived. “Oh, just up Roncey,” he said as if it were some sort of password or my introduction to their inner circle, like the people I’d meet from Geoffrey Street who pronounced it “joff-free,” and I just figured that’s how things were done here on Roncey, and so I did it too, or at least I did until they installed a new system to announce the streetcar stops and opted for the more traditional pronunciation.