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Old 08-25-2020, 01:20 PM
 
Location: Nashville, TN -
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrJester View Post
Wait, I'd say it as Mer LOW as well, try to imitate the French pronunciation more, even though I don't speak French.
I would hope most people would pronounce it Mer-LOW.
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Old 08-25-2020, 01:20 PM
 
Location: Gatineau, Québec
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrJester View Post
True, I was homeschooled by my mom for five years, and she's from Hong Kong. Probably picked up some subtle UK influenced speech patterns from her that my public school educated peers didn't have.

There are certainly words that Canadians say differently from Californians but like I said, I also say quite a few words differently from my peers in California, despite having grown up in California. Still, the differences are very subtle, and in a typical 30 minute speech, distinguishing words like sorry, drama, mum, may only appear once or twice, if at all. The difference would.be so subtle that they could easily be mistaken for individual idiosyncratic pronunciations that commonly exist in any large population.
That's also quite true. Many individuals and also families have their own pronuniciations for certain words, and also can have their own unique words, usages or expressions. When you marry into a family (or someone marries into yours), you really notice these things.
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Old 08-25-2020, 01:26 PM
 
Location: Vancouver
18,492 posts, read 15,337,259 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack View Post
In my experience, virtually no one who grew up in Canada says "orientated". At least under a certain age - and I'm pretty sure you'd be under that age Nat!

Canadians say "oriented" AFAIK.
Perhaps it's different for some of us out here in BRITISH Columbia

I agree in part with the age thing. Lots of words we used as children aren't anymore.

What about people that have finished their Orientation Day at school? Haven't they been " orientated ?"

Do they use Orientation Day in the US...kind of think they do...so what do they say as the past tense?

Last edited by Natnasci; 08-25-2020 at 01:38 PM..
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Old 08-25-2020, 01:28 PM
 
Location: Vancouver
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrJester View Post
True, I was homeschooled by my mom for five years, and she's from Hong Kong. Probably picked up some subtle UK influenced speech patterns from her that my public school educated peers didn't have.

There are certainly words that Canadians say differently from Californians but like I said, I also say quite a few words differently from my peers in California, despite having grown up in California. Still, the differences are very subtle, and in a typical 30 minute speech, distinguishing words like sorry, drama, mum, may only appear once or twice, if at all. The difference would.be so subtle that they could easily be mistaken for individual idiosyncratic pronunciations that commonly exist in any large population.
Yes it shows
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Old 08-25-2020, 01:30 PM
 
Location: Vancouver
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Quote:
Originally Posted by newdixiegirl View Post
I still say "garburator" occasionally, and my kids look at me blankly. I had to train myself years ago to say "gutters" instead of "eavestroughs."
I've often wondered what Americans must of thought of this famous Wilde quote.

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
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Old 08-25-2020, 01:30 PM
 
Location: Nashville, TN -
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrJester View Post
Would you agree that the difference in accent between Seattle and Toronto is far less than the difference in accent between Seattle and Alabama? I think the case for that is self evident, but do we have any dissenters?
Yes, I would agree with that.

But there are differences in accents in the South, and even within Southern states. My ear can now tell the difference between a North Carolina accent and a Tennessee accent, for example. And I've met a number of people, born and bred in New Orleans, who don't have the Cajun accent many other New Orleansians (sp?) have. Instead, you'd swear they were from South Jersey or Philly.

Plus, there are people who've lived in the South their whole lives whose "southern" accent is barely discernible, while in others, it's very "country," as they say in the South.
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Old 08-25-2020, 01:33 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Natnasci View Post
Yes it shows
Sure, but most thirty minutes speeches by Canadians on particle physics or fiscal policy are going to.conrain zero references to mum.
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Old 08-25-2020, 01:42 PM
 
4,147 posts, read 2,902,304 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by newdixiegirl View Post
. And I've met a number of people, born and bred in New Orleans, who don't have the Cajun accent many other New Orleansians (sp?) have. Instead, you'd swear they were from South Jersey or Philly.

Plus, there are people who've lived in the South their whole lives whose "southern" accent is barely discernible, while in others, it's very "country," as they say in the South.
The New Orleans Yat accent has striking similarities.with the NYC area accent, because NOLA was the largest city in the antebellum South and attracted many of the same immigrants that came to New York, including many Italians.

The Southern accent is fading with younger generations due to movies. With the film industry in Hollywood, the standard American accent is becoming more and more like the Californian accent.

I know there is a divide between the Upper South, Scots Irish accent of Tennessee and the Tidewater accent of Coastal North Carolina, which was settled by the English.

I don't speak French, but I heard the Cajun accent of Louisiana French is actually quite similar to the French accent of the French New Brunswickers.
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Old 08-25-2020, 01:43 PM
 
Location: Canada
7,233 posts, read 9,205,954 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by newdixiegirl View Post
Having lived in Michigan, I think I know the accent you're talking about. Is his accent now a little hard and nasally? If so, I call it the Great Lakes accent, because you hear it from parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota down throughout Chicago, Michigan, and Ohio and into Western New York. Every native Michigander I know has it, and so do my cousins in Buffalo. Love my cousins dearly, but not their accent.
Yes it is. He could have picked better accents to emulate.
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Old 08-25-2020, 01:43 PM
 
Location: Østenfor sol og vestenfor måne
17,919 posts, read 24,169,523 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack View Post
That's also a vocabulary difference between Canadian and American English.

In Canada going to college is basically going to a community college, where you might learn a trade for example.

People who go to U of T or UBC don't think they're in college. They're in university.

Whereas in the U.S. in informal (and sometimes even formal) speech, college and university are used as synonyms.
In the US, universities are comprised of "colleges", (which in some European countries are divisions referred to as "faculties").

For example, one might be a student at the University of New Bellend, matriculated into the Rodman Pratt College of Biological Science.

Are these sub-university divisions not called colleges in the Canadian university system? Do you use the term faculty there?
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