American and Canadian accents - Telling them apart

[Yoda]

You can tell a Canadian accent typically if they sound mildly retarded. People from the South tend to sound mildly retarded too, but they're easy enough to distinguish from the Canadians. Having grown up in northern Minnesota, I guess the Minnesotan accent does sound a bit dumb, not as dumb as Canada though. Really, it's more grating than anything.

Bart: So, what are you in for?
Gordy: I moved here from Canada, and they think I'm slow, eh?

Also, if you ever see Income Properties on HGTV, the host, Scott McGillivray is pretty obviously Canadian sounding. No American speaks like that. For the love of God, he pronounces progress as pro-gress (emphasis on the 'pro', eep!) instead of praw-gress.

 

[Goliath]

You can tell a Canadian accent typically if they sound mildly retarded. People from the South tend to sound mildly retarded too, but they're easy enough to distinguish from the Canadians.

I don't see how comments like this are either necessary or desirable.

 

[Trippy]

You can tell a Canadian accent typically if they sound mildly retarded. People from the South tend to sound mildly retarded too, but they're easy enough to distinguish from the Canadians.

I don't see how comments like this are either necessary or desirable.

Indeed. Posts like that just play into the 'rude' American sterotype that many Canadians believe.

 

[trampledamage]

Also, if you ever see Income Properties on HGTV, the host, Scott McGillivray is pretty obviously Canadian sounding. No American speaks like that. For the love of God, he pronounces progress as pro-gress (emphasis on the 'pro', eep!) instead of praw-gress.

Ah, so he pronounces it correctly then?

 

[NickInABox]

Ah! I found another one.

Schedule:

Shejule or Skejual?

 

[WHF]

Michael Hogan's accent is pretty thick. I can also hear a bit of Canada in Amanda Tapping's and Torri Higginson's accents (though not in Evangeline Lilly's, and I have no idea where Nathan Fillion came by his accent).

It's interesting that the accents you identify as Canadian are all from people raised in Ontario, Fillion is from Alberta. I think that Lilly was born in Alberta as well.

 

[Canadave]

Michael Hogan's accent is pretty thick. I can also hear a bit of Canada in Amanda Tapping's and Torri Higginson's accents (though not in Evangeline Lilly's, and I have no idea where Nathan Fillion came by his accent).

It's interesting that the accents you identify as Canadian are all from people raised in Ontario, Fillion is from Alberta. I think that Lilly was born in Alberta as well.

Well, he was responding to my mention of a "Central Canadian" accent.

And though Fillion is from Albertan, he doesn't sound much like Albertans that I know.

 

[Major Chord]

I am American and live in Canada so I can tell the difference, especially my hometown Buffalo accent. Sometimes, I turn my accent on to bother Canadians and they ask me "what is a thruway", lulz, and they kinda laugh at how I saw "bodies".

Last time I was up in Canada, one of my friends asked which route we too to get there, and I told her we took the thruway until we got to the border...she asked if it was a train.

^ I say y'all and I've lived in Ontario nearly all my life.

I say it too, but only when I'm at Dragon*Con. Funny, I don't think I've ever heard my bf say "y'all", even though he was raised in Memphis and lives in Atlanta. Then again, he doesn't have much of an accent at all (though he can put it on when he chooses to).

I occasionally use y'all...not a ton, but it's seems to be rarely used here in the Buffalo area.

So, if you're from Buffalo... what the hell is "weck", anyway? Whenever I'm in Buffalo I'm always seeing signs advertising "beef on weck" but I have no idea what it is. Some kind of bread?

Weck is short for kummelweck, a roll that, to the best of my knowledge, is used for nothing else other than Beef on Weck sandwiches. All those are are roast beef on the weck roll, depending on where you get it drenched in au jus, with horseradish. Think of it as a thick, soggy roll drenched in salt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kummelweck

I had no idea it was so specific to this region though. Huh...it's kinda like our Philly Cheese steak, I guess.

 

[Goliath]

Ah! I found another one.

Schedule:

Shejule or Skejual?

Both.

 

[TorontoTrekker]

Michael Hogan's accent is pretty thick. I can also hear a bit of Canada in Amanda Tapping's and Torri Higginson's accents (though not in Evangeline Lilly's, and I have no idea where Nathan Fillion came by his accent).

It's interesting that the accents you identify as Canadian are all from people raised in Ontario, Fillion is from Alberta. I think that Lilly was born in Alberta as well.

Though there are actors from Ontario who don't have that same accent, at least not that I've noticed. Dean Armstrong (who played Blake on Queer As Folk, and who is in Repo! The Genetic Opera) is from Owen Sound, and he doesn't have that same accent. (And since I just spoke to him on the phone a few nights ago, I can say that with some authority. )

As for Hogan, he's from the same town as Alan Thicke, and they don't sound anything alike. Actually, Hogan sounds to me more like he's from the east coast.

 

[NickInABox]

You know Dean Armstrong?

 

[Praetor]

If so, I'm impressed.

 

[DeafPoet]

I would fail the Zee/Zed test, although I'm as Canadian as they come. I almost always say Zee because I had to condition myself to after years of working at a call center serving Americans. I'd be spelling something and come to a Z and it'd stop them dead in their tracks. Lots of them thought I was making letters up.

 

[eastman23]

I would fail the Zee/Zed test, although I'm as Canadian as they come. I almost always say Zee because I had to condition myself to after years of working at a call center serving Americans. I'd be spelling something and come to a Z and it'd stop them dead in their tracks. Lots of them thought I was making letters up.

Heh, I've fallen victim to that too a couple times. Once at a client site in Montana, I was spelling something out and said "Zed". They looked at me and then said "Zee" in response. Another time, I actually got a support ticket requesting that I remove the 'u' from the word Colour on a form.

 

[Chaos Descending]

...but overall, Canucks tend to pronounce "about" in a Scottish fashion- "aboot"

This is entirely false stereotype garbage. In my life, all 29 years in Canada, I have never heard a single person say "aboot." Not once.

Now the use of "eh," absolutely. It's very handy to turn any sentence into a question, eh?

I guess you've never heard an interview with Geddy Lee, any hockey players, or watched You Can't Do That On Television.

... Canadian summers are HOT. It is not cold, winter weather 365 days a year.

Living in Phoenix, Arizona, I always have to chuckle at what some people call "hot". I'd wager that your "hot" summer days are more like "mild" autumn days to me, but I digress. I realize that the climate where I live is NOT the norm. I just had to share my amusement.

 

[Canadave]

Living in Phoenix, Arizona, I always have to chuckle at what some people call "hot". I'd wager that your "hot" summer days are more like "mild" autumn days to me, but I digress. I realize that the climate where I live is NOT the norm. I just had to share my amusement.

A hot summer day in Ontario is, on the upward end of the scale, about 35 C. Humidex can often push it up to the mid-40s, though.

Not as hot as Arizona for sure, but then again, you can't talk to us about cold.

 

[Chaos Descending]

Living in Phoenix, Arizona, I always have to chuckle at what some people call "hot". I'd wager that your "hot" summer days are more like "mild" autumn days to me, but I digress. I realize that the climate where I live is NOT the norm. I just had to share my amusement.

A hot summer day in Ontario is, on the upward end of the scale, about 35 C. Humidex can often push it up to the mid-40s, though.

Not as hot as Arizona for sure, but then again, you can't talk to us about cold.

I would never dream about talking to you about the cold.

 

[CaptainStoner]

I went to get a sub sandwich the other day, and the guy behind the counter had me going with a fake Russian-ish accent through the whole deal, then suddenly stopped talking that way. It was pretty funny. I used to do the same thing when I'd visit the other high school and impersonate and exchange student.

So, certain scenes in "Pulp Fiction" don't quite work with a Canadian accent?

As for me, I find that Canadians tend to sound a bit more "up", wheras the accent around here (upstate new york) is more of a mixture between that and the NYC-type accents.

 

[Goliath]

So, certain scenes in "Pulp Fiction" don't quite work with a Canadian accent?

"Zee's dead, baby. Zee's dead."

 

[khaaan!!!]

There are regional accents in both countries, but overall, Canucks tend to pronounce "about" in a Scottish fashion- "aboot"

I am sorry to say but we really don't. I have never heard anyone say "aboot". Mind you have not spent a lot of time down east so maybe some do. Newfoundlanders maybe, my highschool math teacher was from Newfoundland and we could not understand a word he said when he talked with his friends from back home.