'It looks to me, based on these data, that Canadians feel that their relationship with the United States has changed in a fundamental way,' said an Ipsos leader.
I never understood this stereotype (aboot vs about). I’m Canadian, lived here all my life, my family is all Canadian and all have lived here all their lives. I’ve got family all across the country, from the western coast of BC to the eastern coast of Newfoundland, from the northern stretches of Nunavut to the most southern tip of Ontario, and very rarely have I ever heard it pronounced that way. It’s actually really funny as a Canadian to look up “how to speak like a Canadian” and watch how awful most of the “tips” are. I’d recommend it.
One time I was having a conversation with a woman that I had never met before. About 5 minutes into the conversation, she used a word with the “ou” vowel sound and I asked her if she was Canadian. She was caught off guard and didn’t understand how I correctly assumed she was Canadian.
It’s exaggerated. I’m from Newfoundland and have little to no regional accent, but still have very slight grammatical and phonetic tells that are apparently obvious to people from elsewhere.
I use more long “O” sounds than people in the US which is apparently obvious almost immediately, and I have some odd grammar whitch apparently singles me out as from NL very quickly to anyone in Canada.
Also, apparently the way I say “thirteen” has a stronger hint of Newfoundland in it than the rest of my speech, at least according to one of my co-workers from Ontario.
It’s quite possible that having such a wide ranging family same social circle has simple acclimated you to the various regional differences in dialect.
I absolutely love Bob and Doug McKenzie but they’re definitely not representative of the average Canadian. Like you said, they’re playing it up for their characters. They play an exaggerated stereotype of a dim-witted drunken Canadian. They’re kind of like Canadian Homer Simpsons in a way. A great comedy duo, truly one of the best, but most Canadians don’t sound like that.
I never understood this stereotype (aboot vs about). I’m Canadian, lived here all my life, my family is all Canadian and all have lived here all their lives. I’ve got family all across the country, from the western coast of BC to the eastern coast of Newfoundland, from the northern stretches of Nunavut to the most southern tip of Ontario, and very rarely have I ever heard it pronounced that way. It’s actually really funny as a Canadian to look up “how to speak like a Canadian” and watch how awful most of the “tips” are. I’d recommend it.
It’s harder to make a joke with zed vs zee.
One time I was having a conversation with a woman that I had never met before. About 5 minutes into the conversation, she used a word with the “ou” vowel sound and I asked her if she was Canadian. She was caught off guard and didn’t understand how I correctly assumed she was Canadian.
It’s exaggerated. I’m from Newfoundland and have little to no regional accent, but still have very slight grammatical and phonetic tells that are apparently obvious to people from elsewhere.
I use more long “O” sounds than people in the US which is apparently obvious almost immediately, and I have some odd grammar whitch apparently singles me out as from NL very quickly to anyone in Canada.
Also, apparently the way I say “thirteen” has a stronger hint of Newfoundland in it than the rest of my speech, at least according to one of my co-workers from Ontario.
It’s quite possible that having such a wide ranging family same social circle has simple acclimated you to the various regional differences in dialect.
Same, never heard ‘aboot’ in my life. However, I do tend to say ‘-eh’ all the time, especially at the end of sentences as emphasis.
I definitely use “eh” a lot, that stereotype is pretty accurate, though I feel like a lot of Americans don’t quite understand the usage of the word.
Afaik, the aboot thing is a regional dialect thing in parts of Ontario.
And, as we know, Toronto represents all Canadians… (or at least thinks they do)
Let’s hope the new “Toronto man” accent doesn’t come to represent all of Canada in the coming years.
It’s because everyone’s accents have gotten less distinct/strong due to TV. I know people from the US south with barely an accent because of this.
Also, some of the accent stereotype comes from your own movie productions, especially older ones when the accents were more like that:
https://youtu.be/EojzfxXGxtE
Granted they are playing this up for their characters
I absolutely love Bob and Doug McKenzie but they’re definitely not representative of the average Canadian. Like you said, they’re playing it up for their characters. They play an exaggerated stereotype of a dim-witted drunken Canadian. They’re kind of like Canadian Homer Simpsons in a way. A great comedy duo, truly one of the best, but most Canadians don’t sound like that.