Canadian

Guest   Sun Feb 26, 2006 6:35 pm GMT
Oh dear. Where would us left wing Americans go now? =(
JJM   Sun Feb 26, 2006 8:35 pm GMT
"Oh dear. Where would us left wing Americans go now?"

Why, the same place you could always go to, of course, that socialist paradise to your south:

Cuba.

¡Viva la revolucion! ¡Venceremos!
Guest   Mon Feb 27, 2006 12:55 am GMT
Cuba? - Too hot Canuck. Anyway I'm up for Alaska the most leftist state.
Stan   Mon Feb 27, 2006 1:12 am GMT
I hope I can share a little humor with everyone;

http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/Canada

What do you think of that?
Guest   Mon Feb 27, 2006 1:32 am GMT
Most of the material was funny but some of it was just plain insults. And to my shock I'm American.
JJM   Mon Feb 27, 2006 1:09 pm GMT
"Most of the material was funny but some of it was just plain insults. And to my shock I'm American."

Ha! Then you won't want to read what they say about the US!

http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/United_States
Guest   Mon Feb 27, 2006 7:01 pm GMT
LOL funny material JJM. I wouldn't take it the hard way but quite amusing. It seems as a liberal American I'm mock by my fellow rightwing Americans. ;P GO THE DEMOCRATS
Guest   Tue Feb 28, 2006 9:12 am GMT
"Is the difference between Australian,American,and British very big? im mean on the level of accent and grammar and words?"

There's quite a big difference between American/Canadian and British/Australian/New Zealand usage, both in words used and pronunciation.



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Guest   Tue Feb 28, 2006 9:31 am GMT
"There's quite a big difference between American/Canadian and British/Australian/New Zealand usage, both in words used and pronunciation"

Okay thanks for the latest update
Uriel   Wed Mar 01, 2006 5:51 am GMT
I was about to say no, there isn't, but I suppose it's all in the ear of the beholder; we tend to make a big deal about the differences between dialects of English, but I'm not sure non-native English speakers would really get what all the fuss was about!
Ted   Wed Mar 01, 2006 9:09 am GMT
And there is quite a difference in the spelling of many words, which, while it must be confusing for those trying to learn the language, does not present a significant problem for a native English reader.
Lauren   Thu Mar 02, 2006 5:47 am GMT
I'm a proud Canadian and I can tell you, Canadians and Americans certainly do speak differently. I mean, of course we can understand each other. We speak the same language, but our accents and dialect are quite different.

One thing that I have to say before I go on is that we, in Canada, DO NOT pronounce the word about as "aboot" or out as "oot". What a total load of bulls***! If you've ever heard someone make fun of us, saying something like "let's go oot n' aboot!", you're really not that bright if you actually believe it. We, at least the vast majority of the people in our country, are well educated, successful, happy people. We do not speak like retards or hillbillies. Sorry to say it, but that is taken care of by the deep Southerners in the U.S. (not to be offending those accents at all, in fact, I lived in Tennessee for a year when I was little)

I agree with what has been said, insofar as Canadians do use British spellings and we are not quite as lazy with our vowels. I don't know a whole ton about the early influences on our accents, but that there was very strong British influence, some French, and a bit of Scottish and Irish (in Atlantic Canada: Newfoundland & Labrodor, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island).

I am originally from the province of Ontario, but I currently live in Alberta. Now, to me, there's really no difference between accents in those two provinces. Of course, you also need to take into consideration that Canada is a VERY multicultural nation. There are as many ethnic accents to shake a stick at as there are just plain Canadian ones. The only really distinguishable accent here is that of a person from Newfoundland & Labrodor ("Newfies" as we like to playfully call them). It's a very unique and interesting accent. It is a mix of Scottish and Irish.

Americans have many different accents themselves. There's the New York/ Jersey/Boston sort of "Tony Soprano" accent, then the deep Southern drawls of states like Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, etc. I guess, as a combination of what I've heard other people say and what I've observed in my lifetime, Americans in general seem to have a less refined sounding dialect than Canadians. I'm not stereotyping though. I know that there are lots of well-spoken Americans out there.
Guest   Thu Mar 02, 2006 8:08 am GMT
It's understandable that people from Canada detect the differences between their speech and that of other North Americans, but they are far from obvious to those from other Commonwealth countries, as the similarities (Rs and various vowels) make such a huge statement.
Travis   Thu Mar 02, 2006 8:22 am GMT
>>I've read that Canadian English is a little more conservative than American English. Some writers have claimed that it is because there is neither the Black influence nor the Wild West cowboy influence in Canadian English that there is in American English . There is probably some truth to this although one must be careful because it is easy to exaggerate these things too. <<

I think you overestimate the influence of AAVE on other English dialects in the US, and what the hell do you mean by "Wild West cowboy influence" anyways?

>>Of course, it is a fact that Canada didn't undergo a lot of the political and social upheavels in the 1960's that the U.S. did, even with increased francophone and separatist sentiment in Quebec, and their society has remained more static and middle class than America's as a consequence.<<

Obviously you are ignoring the effect of the "Quiet Revolution" on society in Quebec, which transformed it from an effectively reactionary Catholic Church-dominated one (which had missed out on the effects the French Revolution had on France itself) to a highly liberal (= social democratic) one which is probably more left-wing than both France and the rest of Canada today. And you
Travis   Thu Mar 02, 2006 8:33 am GMT
>>I am originally from the province of Ontario, but I currently live in Alberta. Now, to me, there's really no difference between accents in those two provinces. Of course, you also need to take into consideration that Canada is a VERY multicultural nation. There are as many ethnic accents to shake a stick at as there are just plain Canadian ones. The only really distinguishable accent here is that of a person from Newfoundland & Labrodor ("Newfies" as we like to playfully call them). It's a very unique and interesting accent. It is a mix of Scottish and Irish.

Americans have many different accents themselves. There's the New York/ Jersey/Boston sort of "Tony Soprano" accent, then the deep Southern drawls of states like Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, etc. I guess, as a combination of what I've heard other people say and what I've observed in my lifetime, Americans in general seem to have a less refined sounding dialect than Canadians. I'm not stereotyping though. I know that there are lots of well-spoken Americans out there.<<

All things considered, there is almost more dialect variation in the US as a while than Canada overall, excepting Newfoundland, where there are many local dialect features which are missing from the rest of North American English as a whole. Furthermore, many dialect variations within NAE English within the US do not seem to be clearly documented, especially when one looks beyond the northeast of the US, which is extremely heavily documented (practically overdocumented compared to the rest of the NAE dialect continuum).

That said, I wonder what you mean by "less refined" with respect to NAE dialects in the US, especially since they do not necessarily differ that much from those in Canada, overall, once you compare them to the rest of English as a whole.