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Literary notes about Canny (AI summary)

The term "canny" is employed in literature with remarkable versatility, often evoking a sense of shrewdness, prudence, and characteristic local color. It may describe a person's innate cleverness or alertness, as when someone is lauded as a "canny lad" or a "canny Scot" to denote both their practical sagacity and endearing nature ([1], [2], [3]). At other times, "canny" qualifies behavior or circumstances with an air of cautious deliberation, suggesting that actions were carried out in a measured or tactfully sensible manner ([4], [5]). Whether characterizing a man’s discreet approach or serving as a regional identifier in colloquial dialogue, the word enriches the narrative with layers of cultural nuance and insightful commentary ([6], [7]).
  1. Didn't I once apostrophise you in a sonnet as "my canny lass"?
    — from Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays
  2. He is a steady lad,’ your father said, ‘and a canny goer; and I doubt not he will come safe, and be well lived where he goes.’
    — from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
  3. William Roberts was the Engineer of the Highland Railway of Scotland, a capable, energetic, practical man, and a canny Scot.
    — from Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland by Joseph Tatlow
  4. 150 I am met by the chief of police, which surprised me, because I was confident that I had been canny enough to make a getaway this time.
    — from My Wonderful Visit by Charlie Chaplin
  5. No doubt he was canny enough to get off at some station short of New York and so was lost to sight.
    — from The Dragon's Secret by Augusta Huiell Seaman
  6. The men of the Arrandoon , assisted by those of the Canny Scotia , worked with a readiness and will worthy even of our gallant Royal Engineers.
    — from Wild Adventures round the Pole Or, The Cruise of the "Snowbird" Crew in the "Arrandoon" by Gordon Stables
  7. Since Barrie's "When a Man's Single," readers have not been introduced to so canny a young man, or one so altogether likable and human.
    — from The Riverside Bulletin, March, 1910 Houghton Mifflin Company Books for Spring and Summer by Anonymous

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