Despite my years in Canada, I can’t say I had encountered the phrase “had the biscuit” before today. As someone who is rather fond of biscuit-based phrases – something else I don’t think I so clearly knew before today – I was astonished to encounter it on a list of Canadianism.
Something which is broken or unusable has “had the biscuit”. Dead watches and badly-ripped clothing have had the biscuit.
Or is it just “had the biscuit”? I don’t see a great deal of consistency in tense among the first few examples of it I have encountered.
An initial trawl of websites yields the consensus that cookies are not involves in this biscuit however; it’s a Canadian Protestant derogatory term for the communion wafer, specifically that received during Extreme Unction.
My Canadian visitor was mildly surprised that I had somehow missed the phrase; but then I don’t think we’ve spent much of our friendship discussing broken things.
P.S. I didn’t forget about One Peppercorn! I’ve had a serious case of life lately: among other things, multiple international trips, good for adding to my food-related vocabulary.
© S. Worthen 2009