The only definite way in which I think I can distinguish between a Canadian and an American is when the former sound the famous "out" sound. They only have to say words like "about" or "without" for me to reasonably assume that they are Canadians, which can save my bacon sometimes because I have experienced a wee bit of indignation from a couple of guys I mistakenly assumed to be Americans. We still have the same barman at one of the pubs I go to up back home in Central Edinburgh - he's a Canadian and he always sports a red maple leaf badge just to make sure. He's been in Scotland at least a couple of years now and he's already taken on a slight Scottish tinge to some of his words - Canadian and Scottish - nice combo! :-)
why do Canadians sound British?
>>The only definite way in which I think I can distinguish between a Canadian and an American is when the former sound the famous "out" sound. They only have to say words like "about" or "without" for me to reasonably assume that they are Canadians, which can save my bacon sometimes because I have experienced a wee bit of indignation from a couple of guys I mistakenly assumed to be Americans.<<
Mind you that there are dialects in the US with Canadian Raising for /aU/. At least here, there is raising for /aU/, but it is generally rather weak, and many people do not have it; for me at least, it is much stronger in informal speech (where pronunciations such as even [hVUs] for "house" sometimes appear, even though that is an extreme case) than in formal speech, where it is very weak ("house" being more like [h6Us] or [ha_-_rUs] in such).
>>We still have the same barman at one of the pubs I go to up back home in Central Edinburgh - he's a Canadian and he always sports a red maple leaf badge just to make sure.<<
Note though that Americans will wear such kinds of things just so presumably hostile foreigners will assume they are Canadians instead.
Mind you that there are dialects in the US with Canadian Raising for /aU/. At least here, there is raising for /aU/, but it is generally rather weak, and many people do not have it; for me at least, it is much stronger in informal speech (where pronunciations such as even [hVUs] for "house" sometimes appear, even though that is an extreme case) than in formal speech, where it is very weak ("house" being more like [h6Us] or [ha_-_rUs] in such).
>>We still have the same barman at one of the pubs I go to up back home in Central Edinburgh - he's a Canadian and he always sports a red maple leaf badge just to make sure.<<
Note though that Americans will wear such kinds of things just so presumably hostile foreigners will assume they are Canadians instead.
This barman says he comes from a place called Thunder Bay in Ontario. Sounds Canadian enough to me and who am I to doubt him? "Doubt"....I'll have to ask him to say that word the next time I see him - just to make absolutely sure he's not having us on!
Edinburgh isn't known for any hostility towards Americans anyway! We have so many in Edinburgh that if they stopped coming our economy would take a nosedive, so we are duty bound to keep them sweet. We just have a wee bit of a titter behind their backs d'ye ken!.....especially when they ask for directions to the Eiffel tower! "No, madam - you were in Paris on Tuesday! This is Edinburgh, Scotland!" We love it - keep 'em coming! :-)
Edinburgh isn't known for any hostility towards Americans anyway! We have so many in Edinburgh that if they stopped coming our economy would take a nosedive, so we are duty bound to keep them sweet. We just have a wee bit of a titter behind their backs d'ye ken!.....especially when they ask for directions to the Eiffel tower! "No, madam - you were in Paris on Tuesday! This is Edinburgh, Scotland!" We love it - keep 'em coming! :-)
>>We have a neighbourhood here in Ottawa called New Edinburgh, and it annoys me when people pronounce it Edin-berg.<<
Yep, that's how it's pronounced here as well - the suffix "-burgh" is pronounced like "-burg" and "-berg" here as [bR=:g] or [bR=:k], probably thanks to German influence upon NAE.
Yep, that's how it's pronounced here as well - the suffix "-burgh" is pronounced like "-burg" and "-berg" here as [bR=:g] or [bR=:k], probably thanks to German influence upon NAE.
***Yep, Thunder Bay is a real place (I've been there). I didn't know that you had so many Canadians in Edinburgh***
I reckon you misunderstood me a wee bit - it's not so much Canadians but the Americans we have so many of here as tourists - especially in the summer of course, and for the International Festival each August. Canadians are generally a lot less conspicuous than the Americans and many identify themselves with the red maple leaf motifs which my mate the barman sports - and they are quieter! At least that's what my Canadian down the pub says... :-) Actually it's true really.
At the 2005 Edinburgh fringe (offshoot of the Festival proper) I met up with a group of high school students from St Louis, USA at the Pleasance (a complex with indoor and outdoor bars) aftwer I'd seen them perform in a show called "My America". It was a great show and the entire theme of it all was a satirical portrayal and highly comical piss-taking of many aspects of life in America which Europeans would find strange or whatever. I won't mention what many of them were for fear of causing any offence in here! :-) But the astonishing thing was the fact that it was a group of young Americans from a high school in Middle America actually doing one fun piss-take of the "American way".
My mates and I made a point of mentioning this to some of them when we chatted at the Pleasance after the show and said we were surprised that they come over to the Edinburgh Festival in the UK and more or less poke fun at the many strange aspects of American life and that I never ever expected to see Americans make fun of their own country - it seemed to be sort of heresy knowing how precious and sensitive many Americans seem to be about any form of criticism. I thought it was only Brits who were given to self deprecation in a humorous way. Obviously I was wrong as the cheery response I got from these students was "Oh no - it's ok - we know what America is like!" It was a really good laugh and great entertainment.
One thing I noticed particularly as we all chatted in a large group in a very crowded and noisy environment - all the Americans were sticking to soft drinks and colas and stuff like that. The rest of the people there (vast majority a fairly young lot) were on alcohol of various kinds - us Brits as well as a pretty international crowd.
I reckon you misunderstood me a wee bit - it's not so much Canadians but the Americans we have so many of here as tourists - especially in the summer of course, and for the International Festival each August. Canadians are generally a lot less conspicuous than the Americans and many identify themselves with the red maple leaf motifs which my mate the barman sports - and they are quieter! At least that's what my Canadian down the pub says... :-) Actually it's true really.
At the 2005 Edinburgh fringe (offshoot of the Festival proper) I met up with a group of high school students from St Louis, USA at the Pleasance (a complex with indoor and outdoor bars) aftwer I'd seen them perform in a show called "My America". It was a great show and the entire theme of it all was a satirical portrayal and highly comical piss-taking of many aspects of life in America which Europeans would find strange or whatever. I won't mention what many of them were for fear of causing any offence in here! :-) But the astonishing thing was the fact that it was a group of young Americans from a high school in Middle America actually doing one fun piss-take of the "American way".
My mates and I made a point of mentioning this to some of them when we chatted at the Pleasance after the show and said we were surprised that they come over to the Edinburgh Festival in the UK and more or less poke fun at the many strange aspects of American life and that I never ever expected to see Americans make fun of their own country - it seemed to be sort of heresy knowing how precious and sensitive many Americans seem to be about any form of criticism. I thought it was only Brits who were given to self deprecation in a humorous way. Obviously I was wrong as the cheery response I got from these students was "Oh no - it's ok - we know what America is like!" It was a really good laugh and great entertainment.
One thing I noticed particularly as we all chatted in a large group in a very crowded and noisy environment - all the Americans were sticking to soft drinks and colas and stuff like that. The rest of the people there (vast majority a fairly young lot) were on alcohol of various kinds - us Brits as well as a pretty international crowd.
>>My mates and I made a point of mentioning this to some of them when we chatted at the Pleasance after the show and said we were surprised that they come over to the Edinburgh Festival in the UK and more or less poke fun at the many strange aspects of American life and that I never ever expected to see Americans make fun of their own country - it seemed to be sort of heresy knowing how precious and sensitive many Americans seem to be about any form of criticism. I thought it was only Brits who were given to self deprecation in a humorous way. Obviously I was wrong as the cheery response I got from these students was "Oh no - it's ok - we know what America is like!" It was a really good laugh and great entertainment.<<
The matter is that most Americans are not the fascists^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hconservatives that you are likely familiar with - it is just that such sorts are unfortunately very vocal and influential. But then, though, yes, Americans in general do tend to be more nationalistic than, say, most Europeans, neofascists and their ilk (e.g. Front National, Vlaams Belang, Dansk Folkeparti, Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, etc.) aside.
>>One thing I noticed particularly as we all chatted in a large group in a very crowded and noisy environment - all the Americans were sticking to soft drinks and colas and stuff like that. The rest of the people there (vast majority a fairly young lot) were on alcohol of various kinds - us Brits as well as a pretty international crowd.<<
They weren't from here, obviously, as people here in Wisconsin tend to drink a lot as Americans go...
The matter is that most Americans are not the fascists^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hconservatives that you are likely familiar with - it is just that such sorts are unfortunately very vocal and influential. But then, though, yes, Americans in general do tend to be more nationalistic than, say, most Europeans, neofascists and their ilk (e.g. Front National, Vlaams Belang, Dansk Folkeparti, Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, etc.) aside.
>>One thing I noticed particularly as we all chatted in a large group in a very crowded and noisy environment - all the Americans were sticking to soft drinks and colas and stuff like that. The rest of the people there (vast majority a fairly young lot) were on alcohol of various kinds - us Brits as well as a pretty international crowd.<<
They weren't from here, obviously, as people here in Wisconsin tend to drink a lot as Americans go...
I think Americans joke about themselves privately. We know that we can be loud, but let's just say we're "exuberant" and we use our "outside voices" outside sometimes and it's louder than some people like. I usually won't criticize my country in front of foreigners, though.
I remember being in a certain European country and thinking, "Gee, they are louder than we are."
Folks, you may be louder than you think you are.
I'm not putting a maple leaf on my backpack and pretending to be Canadian. I lived in Europe and I've been back a couple of times and I did just fine as an American.
I remember being in a certain European country and thinking, "Gee, they are louder than we are."
Folks, you may be louder than you think you are.
I'm not putting a maple leaf on my backpack and pretending to be Canadian. I lived in Europe and I've been back a couple of times and I did just fine as an American.
I guess it all depends too on your cultural backround like my family is scottish and they immigrated to canada back in the 1920's and i have been around the accent my whole life so there are some words that do slip out and sound a bit scottish. That couldbe a factor on why some people think canadians sound a bit british. I disagree with us sounding like americans honeslty i can tell an america from a canadian there accent changes considerably just from corssing over the boarder from Ontario to New York.
''i can tell an america from a canadian there accent changes considerably just from corssing over the boarder from Ontario to New York.''
it's because Upstate NY has strong NCVS (Buffalo, Rochester)...
it's because Upstate NY has strong NCVS (Buffalo, Rochester)...
I have a feeling that if I ever went to Nova Scotia i would feel quite at home - as the very name implies. The name Halifax sort of ruins the image a wee bit though - conjures up a more Yorkshire mind picture! Why didn't they name it Aberdeen or Dundee or Inverness instead? Or even Ballachulish or why not Balamory even? :-) Not Edinburgh though - there are already lots of Edinburghs knocking about the globe.
Suddenly I'm feeling a wee bit homesick......never mind...only fleeting.
Suddenly I'm feeling a wee bit homesick......never mind...only fleeting.
''Why didn't they name it Aberdeen or Dundee or Inverness instead? ''
Cape Breton and/or Dartmouth sound Scottish ;)
Cape Breton and/or Dartmouth sound Scottish ;)