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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.
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?
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.
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.
. 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.
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.
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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